Polycom Communicator C100S USB Speakerphone for Skype-Grey

I was tired of using a headset, especially when we wanted to have a webcam session with our parents to show them their grandchildren. Having used Polycom speakerphones at work 6 hours a day I thought I would see if they had a device for the home user. And sure enough they do and it only cost around $100!The Polycom Communicator is packaged in a plastic mould within a box. Thankfully the plastic wasn't heatsealed around the edge like most PC accessories these days, so within seconds it was in my hot little hands. I was surprised how light it felt for a solid built device. Size wise it was just smaller than my hand and about 3/4 of inch thick.Accompanying the device was a nicely made wallet to store it in while traveling, the customary manual and setup CD, and a voucher for 30mins of Skypeout call time (which I thought was cool at the time but later discovered this was 30mins of cheap rates and represented about 54c of Skype credit. Oh well, it was the thought that counted).The Communicator has five buttons: one for starting Skype, two for volume, one for calling/hanging up and one for mute. The buttons are surrounded by a ring that glows when you are making or receiving a call. It has a headset jack on the side for private calls. At the back is a flap which, when opened reveals a USB cable which is neatly stowed. The flap itself serves as a prop-up stand as you can see in the picture. Being USB powered is great because it means no unnecessary power cords and no need for a power socket.Installing the software proved a little more difficult than I anticipated. The setup CD would just not work and kept coming up with a message that it couldn't find a file which as it happened was on the CD, just in a different folder. I copied all the files from all the folders into one folder on my hard drive and ran it from there and it worked no problem. Setup was very painless and quick from thereon.Having got it all setup I plugged it in, fired up Skype (which recognized the device automatically), did a test call with no hassle, and then called my mother. The call was crystal clear with no echo or feedback. My mother said it was very clear and noise free at her end too. As we talked for 20mins it became hard to believe that this little device was even there. It was like talking to her in the same room.All in all I am really happy with this device and think it is great value for money. My only complaints are the setup CD and the fact it is only compatible with Skype (I am a big yahoo messenger user too), but these are small niggles in an otherwise excellent product. Congratulations Polycom!!!

I had been using an MVox MV100 and Skype as my primary work phone. I got it for only $9.99; it did an admirably job the last couple months. But the frequency range of 500-5000 Hz sometimes made it hard to hear everyone well. Even when I could understand them, they would sound unnatural. Since I typically spend hours on conference calls every week, I thought I would invest in a better device. The MV100 already does noise cancellation and full duplex, the main thing I looked for is a large range.Like many, I have had positive experience with Polycom conference phones. So after reading all the positive reviews, I ordered the C100S. Since my primary machine runs Windows XP, support for other platforms is not a factor for me. So far I must say that the 200-22000 Hz range is amazing! It sounds unbelievable if both ends use Skype. Even when the other end uses a regular phone, the improvement is still very noticeable. The microphone also works better than the MVox as long as the Polycom software is running. I also like the buttons on the devices; they are handy but not a big improvement over the Skype hot keys I was already using.I took off one star only because the software did not run on my machine at first; I almost returned the unit. But since I am a techie and since it did work on my wife's machine, I dug deeper into what happened. It turned out that the installer somehow failed where it should register the USB components. After I went through those steps manually, everything worked beautifully.I am using the "latest" software (version 2.1) released on 2007/9/17. This is the first version that is not specified to be for Windows XP only; maybe it does work on Vista now. Perhaps Vista users should give that a try.*** Update on 9/5/2011At long last, Polycom released a new AEC driver to support Vista and Windows 7 in June. I tried it on 64-bit Windows 7. Installation was a breeze and it worked great. It is a shame that Polycom took so long to provide the update. It must have alienated most of the C100S customers. I switched to ClearOne Chat 60 when I moved to Windows 7. But now that I can compare them side-by-side, the C100S sound quality is still unmatched!

I bought it for my company to host Skype meetings. Quality of sound is great, mike is great as well. Two issues - one is the Skype specific functionality is unstable. I am referring to the yellow/red rings. Sometimes they work, sometimes I have to mess around with Skype to get this going. The speaker is working in any case, it is the integrated features that are flaky. Also Skype has a message where it says we've detected you are using Poly, but we no longer support the APIs. Still, even with this message the app works sometimes.Second, as discussed earlier, the cable is way too thin - you must be careful

First off, this product is not compatible with Vista or Windows 7 - yet NOWHERE in the product listing is this mentioned. Only after you buy the product, open it, and attempt to install it does this little tidbit rear its ugly head. ONLY XP IS SUPPORTEDFor reasons I will not go into here - I have to use this product and so I had to set up a 2nd XP PC just to run Skype with the Communicator now.In addition, the enclosed CD did not work - it errored out every time I tried to install - plus the CD's "Plan B" link (i.e., automatically routing you to the Polycom website) was broken, too!!! I had to navigate to Polycom's web site to download the software manually.Other than that, the installation went smoothly and the unit seems to work well. The volume on the speaker is rather low, though, despite having it and Windows set to the highest volume available.