Exclusive video review: Asus’ Skype music phone
We love Skype, we do, which is why we were psyched to get our hands on this new Sky-peee phone from Asus.It's the apex of mad convergence, working pri
We love Skype, we do, which is why we were psyched to get our hands on this new Sky-peee phone from Asus.
It’s the apex of mad convergence, working primarily as a wireless Skype phone for making internet calls but moonlighting as a Wi-Fi remote control for playing music on your PC. Because, let’s face it, who’s not wanted to use their phone as a remote, right?
As you’ll see by playing our video below, the music side of things ain’t great. For one, our expectations were raised a tad high by the box screaming ‘wireless music streaming’, suggesting it might beam music from your computer to another room like, say, a Squeezebox. Instead, it can select playlists and skip tracks on Windows Media Player.
The second problem is that it’ll only work with Asus’ bundled Wi-Fi dongle. Your computer already has Wi-Fi, you say? Tough: Asus doesn’t want to talk with it.
For all its flaws, though, this Asus phone does do a perfectly good job as a wireless Skype phone, working tickety-boo so long as it’s in range of your Wi-fi network.
Battery life’s a reasonable 2.5 hours, and it comes with a cradle for USB or mains charging. Build quality is, admittedly, cheap: more like a baby monitor than a desirable gadget, though the cheap £60 price reflects that, undercutting its Linksys CIT200 rival by roughly £20.
There was one thing we couldn’t work out – the ‘Home Joy’ feature that Asus promises on the box. Our home was experiencing something more like moderate satisfaction than euphoria. This is, after all, a good phone but no multimedia gizmo.
Asus AiGuru S1
Price: £60
On sale: Mid-September
Contact: Asus UK
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Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
