I have been a VoIP (SIP) fan-girl for over a year now and as such I have searched for or tested lots of related devices, clients and clever services. This is a list with the best SIP clients on a wireless multi-function mobile device, read on for more.In this article we don’t include USB-based phones or plain SIP WiFi-based phones (e.g. from D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, FiWin etc) because these devices don’t do anything else other than VoIP (and in some cases they have limited or not fully compatible SIP support too) and that would force a user to carry multiple devices with him/her. This is why we tried to find cellphones or PDAs that offer additional abilities that might prove useful to the user in conjunction to SIP support.
5. Palm Lifedrive with the Articulation client
This is a client that works pretty well, although it is not bug-free (especially when it tries to connect to other somewhat-buggy clients). There are 2-3 more VoIP applications for PalmOS, but Articulation is the best there is. Unfortunately, Palm has been peculiar to not include microphones on most of their PDAs (all PocketPCs have mics) and so Articulation will run out of the box and with good connection speeds only in the Lifedrive.
The Palm Treos can work with Articulation but you will have to be close to an EDGE tower to make sure that you won’t have lag while chatting (GPRS/EDGE and even 3G have more lag than WiFi does). The Tugsten T|X would have been a cheaper, better alternative to the Lifedrive, but you will have to buy an external microphone for it before you can use any VoIP client with it. It’s a real shame that the T|X doesn’t have a mic by default. The Tugsten E and E2 PDAs have mics in them, but they don’t have WiFi and so you would need to buy either the Palm WiFi card ($70) or a Bluetooth Access Point ($60-$120). Hense, the Lifedrive is the best out of the box solution so far. Sony Clies don’t work because of their sound driver.
4. PocketPCs with the SJPhone client
There are about 5-6 different VoIP SIP clients for Windows Mobile, but trust me, none works well (remember, Skype is not SIP-based). The only one that comes close is the SJPhone client, which you will have to learn its quirks and it’s mind-blowingly complex setup windows before you use it in a satisfiable manner. Problem is, that it seems that the Windows Mobile version of SJPhone has been dropped from development and so I don’t think that the remaining problems will be fixed. But nevertheless, it works ok most of the time.
To use SJPhone you will need a PocketPC with at least 300 Mhz CPU power. I use it on my 200 Mhz QTek 9100 smartphone via WiFi, but it brings the phone to a crawl when I do so, so I wouldn’t really recommend it for those who want to keep their sanity and not get angry at their device’s speed. Ultimately, I think that SJphone requires a 400 Mhz CPU to run well and this is just because the application is not very optimized for ARM rather than Windows’ or the CPU’s fault. Check here for a tutorial on how to get Gizmo working on the SJphone.
Finally, Windows Mobile 6 (aka “Crossbow”) will offer its own SIP client — rumors say. But such devices are a year off from now.
3. Nokia 770 or N800 with the Gizmo client
The Nokia Internet Tablets are doing a good job offering SIP support via Gizmo. Unfortunately, there is not another well-behaving SIP client as of yet for these babies that will allow you to use any random SIP service. The good news is that Gizmo 2.x is ported to the N800 (our review) and this version allows the user to side-register on other services aside Gizmo itself. The bad news is that there is currently a bug where if you leave your Gizmo client connected at all times (as you are supposed to do), it leaks so much memory that the N800 reboots itself. I have reported this bug to the Gizmo folks and they are looking at it. I am expecting this problem to be fixed soon because otherwise the N800 can not be considered a good SIP device.
2. Nokia E61 with firmware v3.03.xxxx and above
Normally, this device would have been my No1 choice, but the E61 ships today still with an older firmware which makes SIP support near-impossible (it requires either a PBX or a proxy on your side of your firewall or the SIP service to support “Reverse NAT” or a wifi router that does all that for you). Users serious about SIP who bought the E61 must use the NSU application (free at Nokia’s site) to update their firmware to the latest v3.03.xxxx version in order to be able to make use of STUN support that will give them access to most of the free SIP services around the globe. I successfully use my E61 with Gizmo, Voipbuster, Ekiga, FWD and Broadvoice. One other great thing is that VoIP is integrated to Nokia’s OS and calling framework, so it feels that you are using a real phone! The E61 is a great cellphone, organizer and media/net device. Thumbs up!
The Nokia N80 Internet Edition is a special edition of the N80 that adds SIP support with STUN (just like in the latest firmware for the E61). Because it comes out of the box with STUN support, it takes the first place in our list (otherwise, I consider the E61 a better/cheaper overall device, even if it doesn’t have a camera and uPnP support). A very good device overall, just make sure you buy the “internet edition” instead of the normal N80i.
Honorable mention:
There are two more devices that can also become very strong players in the SIP world, and these are the Nokia E60 and E70. Just like the E61 and N80IE above, they run the same operating system and SIP stack. Problem is, Nokia has not released a newer firmware for these phones to take advantage of STUN (Update: Fixed firmware for the E60 is out, but not for the E70). If Nokia does indeed releases these important VoIP updates for these phones, then buy them and update their firmware immediately, otherwise ignore them as the chances of getting anything working with the free online services will be slim (although they work fine inside a corporation building because the proxy of the SIP server will be on the same side of the firewall/router so there is no immediate need for STUN). Especially the E60, is pretty much the cheapest of all these devices shown here, currently selling at about $260. If only we get a firmware upgrade…
There is something called AGEPhone, which supports various SIP servers. It’s for Windows Mobile 5 QVGA and VGA resolutions.
http://www.ageet.com/us/agephone/index.htm
Still I can’t connect (too much setup hassle) with sipphone.com, stanaphone.com or others…
Well, it costs $50 bucks… That’s a bit excessive IMHO for a SIP client.
i didn’t know the firmware could be updated on the e61. I was running the old version and didn’t know it. I’m upgrading to version 3.
Good to hear! Let me know if it says that “no new version is available” for your language. You see, Nokia only updates the firmware for languages that a model sells well. So, if you need to upgrade and no upgrade version is available for your language, you have to use a special tool to change the Product ID of the phone, in order to force the upgrade (you will lose your language’s specific support, but at least you will get the upgrade).
i’m using english. the upgrade went fine. i bought a card for asterisk a while ago so i could setup a pbx for my parents at work, but i never got a phone to test it out with, now i can. i just need to finish setting up asterisk. anyway thanks. btw i gave the video coversion stuff a try, but i had an issue with one of the settings in the picture. on my mpeg-4 export settings screen the video options button was grayed out. However, the quality is so much better than the first video i put on my phone. thanks for all the help.
If you like to test out your E61 with me via Gizmo, let me know (my gizmo number is in my blog’s contact page). The Gizmo settings for the E61 are here: http://support.gizmoproject.com/index.php?_a=knowledgebase&_j=quest… (just use UDP instead of “auto” for the transports). You can have more than 1 SIP accounts configured and/or registered at the same time.
Regarding the mp4 video export, what did you use: QuickTime or MediaCoder? I made a major change/fix in my Mediacoder tutorial last night, so please re-follow it again: http://www.osnews.com/story.php/16983/Tutorial-Get-Your-Movies-on-Y…
i used quicktime pro. i only have 1 system running windows and i don’t use it all. the nokia update was the first time in like a month that i have touched it. anyway i think they look fine even though i haven’t enabled the resync markers option. i’ll give gizmo a try soon. i think i should probably study for my finals tomorrow ;-p
thanks!
Hi Eugenia,
I am using a TMobile branded Phone which is giving me a no go for the update. Can you point me to this application which will force it to be updated.
I am currently stuck on v 1.2 on my E61 and it sucks.
http://www.averageadmins.com/blog/2006/11/12/force-flashing-the-nok…
Read comments section too.
To upgrade: Do what it says here
http://forums.cingular.com/cng/board/message?board.id=nokia&message…
[update: crap, they deleted that forum post
]
but only with two changes:
Use one of the product codes below instead of the two suggested in the article. The second change to the tutorial is that you should not install the NSU as linked from the tutorial, because it’s linking
to an older version and instead install this version:
http://europe.nokia.com/softwareupdate
Please note that I don’t take any responsibility if you fry your your phone, but generally, this is what would need to do…
E61 RM-89 Standard Edition Product IDs
0529664 Euro-E1 Silver (English, Espanol)
0523307 Euro-A Silver (English, Nederlands)
0529654 Euro-B1 Silver (English, Svenska, Suomi)
0529660 Euro-B2 Silver (English, Dansk, Norsk)
0529661 Euro-C Silver (English, Deutsch, Turkce, Eesti)
0529663 Euro-D Silver (English, Francais, Nederlands)
0530146 Euro-E2 Silver (English, Portugues)
0530080 Euro-F Silver (English, Turkce, Deutsch)
0530081 Euro-G1 Silver (English, Deutsch, Cestina)
0532623 Euro-G2 Silver (English, Deutsch, Slovencina)
0530082 Euro-H Silver (English, Greek)
0530083 Euro-I Silver (English, Magyar, Deutsch)
0530084 Euro-J Silver (English, Polski, Deutsch)
0530091 Euro-L Silver (English, Hrvatski, Deutsch, Slovenscina, Srpski)
0530093 Euro-M Silver (English, Italian)
Edited 2007-01-26 20:17
Wow, you will love version 3. I bought the E61 on suggestion from Eugenia, and I’ve been VERY happy with it. I have no problems with it as a phone overall, except one minor niggle with auto-retrieve and IMAP4 accounts. Other than this, the phone is truly super! Eugenia and I even had a VOIP call between my E61 and her E61 – I live in Hawaii – and even so the voice quality was FAR better than even a normal cellular call. Very impressive!
Nokia E61 is an excellent phone for Voip. I use sipgate(sipgate.com) and works perfectly. Sound quality is excellent. You dont need a software or anything, you just do few settings, than you are ready to go.
The Palm Treos can work with Articulation but you will have to be close to an EDGE tower to make sure that you won’t have lag while chatting
I don’t know much about wireless data service, but isn’t it extremely expensive? If so, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just dial over the cell network instead?
Heh, we are talking about ‘unlimited data’ cellular accounts of course. They cost $5 with T-Mobile and about $20 with Cingular per month. Otherwise, it’s too expensive of course.
Edited 2007-01-26 01:08
FreeWorldDialup works *like a charm* on my E70, 2.0something firmware. It was able to pierce every NAT I’ve thrown it into, including a pretty weird dual-NAT setup (one XP ICS setup which the soft access point creates to enable using the WiFi adapter as an AP, IP range as default, 192.168.0.x; and this behind a standard home router, set to deliver IP addresses in the 10.0.0.x range). *Zero* configuration required on the router. I’m either damn lucky or FWD is just that good. I’m eagerly awaiting for them to offer some PSTN gateway/callout service.
SIPphone (Gizmo) also works decently well, but only when the router is correctly configured to forward ports, and the “onion-NAT” of course did not work.
Props to Jeff Pulver, his FWD service is outstanding, and thanks to SIPbroker gateways, I can call any SIP numbers I fancy. And a note to SIPphone: guys, get a grip
FWD could manage that NAT thing, and they have NO revenue sources (yet).
P.s.: the pbxes.org trick works only partially with the E70. Perhaps it’s the lack of STUN support or something; all I can say is FWD just completely nailed it.
Either FWD has “reverse NAT” support, or, you are using the two different proxies for it. One is the normal SIP proxy, and the other one is the outbound proxy which is used only when problems occur. I had to use that second proxy from FWD to get Ekiga to register on my E61 for example (even with the 3.03 firmware version).
So, yes, it depends a lot how each SIP service is configured. FWD is one of the very solid ones. But I promise you, your E70 will have trouble working with most others directly (as you have seen with Gizmo already). Gizmo will work out of the box too after and if Nokia offers an upgrade.
I’m a real newcomer to this stuff, but in a couple of days a higher-end Nokia (N73) is due to arrive that can handle at least some of these things, I hope.
I wonder if some of the knowledgeable mobile users on here could suggest a few things. Like, the top 5 or 10 third-party Symbian apps you can’t live without (er, if there are any), and the best websites to bone up on all this and for downloading malware-free quality stuff. I haven’t a clue myself.
OTOH, perhaps this is OT and it would be better as a separate article about making full use of your mobile phone (rather like an article on getting started in Linux, for example).
Good idea, I will make an article about it this coming week.
hello all
does sip registration have to be throught the wifi connection? can it be done with 3g? also is it possible to be registered with more than one sip proxy at the same time?
You can use 3G, but it’s not recommended, because of the lag. Yes, you can use as many registered SIP accounts as you want, at the same time.
Thanks Eugenia
I would welcome any comments about this – has anyone tried voip over 3G? how laggy is it? why does gsm work if there is lag between you and the transmitter?