ASUS AiGuru S1: Skype goes WiFi

ASUS AiGuru S1: Features

Asus AiGuru S1
Connection:	802.11G @ 54Mbps
Display:	LCM 128x64 Dot-Matrix LCD
Keypad:	Standard phone layout, LED backlight
Talk Time:	Average 2 hours
Stand-By Time:	Average 25 hours
Charging:	USB port connection to the PC AC adpator connection via the Phone Cradle
Features:	Rear Speaker Headphone Output Remote Link to WMP10 for playback options.

The ASUS AiGuru S1 has the basic features required for a VoIP phone and will retail around the US $100 mark. The phone currently supports Windows 2000 (SP4) or Windows XP (SP2) only at this time. Unlike the upcoming NETGEAR WiFi phone for Skype, the ASUS phone does not have a full color screen, full chat capability, or icon based menu, and it must have an active connection through an available PC. However, it also does not come with the $299 price tag.




This phone comes in a pearl color with the power button on the left side of the phone, external headset connector on the right side, and a speaker on the rear of the phone above the battery door that contains a 750mAh lithium ion rechargeable battery. The USB connection port is on the bottom of the phone. The phone is slightly larger than current cellular phones but still fit comfortably in our hands. However, after ten minutes of talk time the phone did become warm to the touch and stayed this way until we disconnected and let it cool for a few minutes.

The speaker is used for both the ringer and to playback music. The phone has the capability to control the playback features in Windows Media Player 10 and will sync with the song output in WMP10. The audio quality was decent and it was interesting to hear the selected song playing back on the phone. However, we found the feature to be just that, interesting but not anything most users would use past the gee-whiz stage. We wish ASUS would have dropped this feature and added the ability to see the actual online status of the contacts in the Address Book. At this time, you only know if the contact is online or not, not if they have marked their status as away or not available.



The unit comes with a phone cradle and an AC adapter that allows charging of the phone while it is in the cradle. The included USB cable is used to charge the phone through the USB 2.0 port and/or for connection to the ASUS utility program for configuring the phone and installation of firmware updates. You will want to make sure the phone is completely charged before installing and configuring the ASUS utility program.

The proprietary Wireless Link module connects to the USB adapter cable that can be adjusted depending upon the type of system it is attached to. The Link module sets up a separate wireless 802.11G connection and the phone will not work without it. On both our desktop and mobile systems we adjusted the cable so the Wireless Link module was at a near 90 degree position.
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The install CD comes with version 2.08 of Skype. We downloaded and installed version 2.5 first and suggest this version or later being installed prior to the ASUS utilities. You will also want to set up a Skype account before loading the utilities and configuring the phone. The included installation instructions are fairly simple as are the online instructions when loading the utility program or performing a firmware upgrade. We upgraded our firmware to version 1.04D.


Once our phone was configured and the system rebooted, we checked our Network Connection Status and found throughout testing that our speed stayed at 54Mbps while we were within close proximity of the computer. Our wireless connection speed degraded to 36Mbps when we were about 75 feet from our base connection. Our phone conversations at this range were usually acceptable, but we noticed some fall out issues when the network was being saturated with traffic from other clients. As we traveled beyond 75 feet from the base station, the voice quality rapidly dropped off until it became essentially unusable at 100 feet, despite the fact that we still showed a connection.