Review on 📞 Snom 821 IP Phone: Enhanced Communication Solution for Modern Businesses by Ashley Cook

I have ordered 70 of these phones as part of my company's Switchvox deployment. Pros: These phones look good and show promise. I love the handset's magnetic switch, and the built-in GigE is a great feature for the price. Cons: Lots of problems. The speakerphone's echo cancellation just doesn't work. I now have this problem on every phone in the company. If the speaker volume exceeds about 50%, the other party will hear their own voice as an echo. Sometimes turning the volume down doesn't help. Some phones have microphone issues. Even after the internal setting is fully turned on, the voice of the person using the handset is very low. Three out of 70 phones did not receive an IP address and had to be replaced. A phone started dialing random numbers instead of the ones the user dialed. One phone shocked the user right in the ear (this is no joke - the phone hit him through the microphone on the handset, and then it turned off and wouldn't turn on until it sat for a while). Several phones just go nuts and need to be restarted otherwise all phone calls will be garbled. This may or may not be a Snom issue as I can't get either company to confirm the issue but voicemail prompts are coming. the sound constantly breaks off, as if the individual sound recordings were delayed because they are linked. Something like, "Press ___ for a new message, 2 for an old message." This also happens with the Snom 870. On the few Polycom phones we use, I have absolutely no problem with that. I could live with most of the above and just replace faulty phones, but the speaker echo spoils the show. Maybe Snom can fix some of these issues with firmware updates. Right now I've switched to the Polycom 560 for all new purchases and I love it. Not as pretty but everything works as advertised, speakerphone is fantastic and integrates better with Switchvox.