Written by admin on February 20, 2009 – 7:55 am
OK, let’s get the ball rolling here.
First and foremost…. Yes, I do in fact own a magicjack. I purchased it about two weeks ago via their free trial offer I saw on television.
It took about a week to arrive, coming in a nicely packaged plastic envelope by U.S. mail. I assume it had some sort of delivery notification because it had a bar code on the mailing label.
Inside the package was my magic jack and a six inch usb extension cable, all wrapped nice and neat in bubble wrap, along with the simple instruction card you see below:
Instruction Card for MagicJack
So I followed the instructions and plugged her in. Now it did take a couple of minutes for it to initialize because I guess it had to download updated software. Which I think is probably good, it seems as if they are constantly updating it, probably to keep it secure.
Anyway, after it did it’s updates I was then taken to a setup page where I had to enter my information and my preferences. This is where you setup your 911 info and select your phone number.
Another cool feature with Magicjack is that you get to select a number anywhere in the United States. Well, anywhere they have numbers available that is. Though I haven’t had to use the 911 feature (thank God), it does say that selecting a number in another area does not affect 911 response.
So I went through the setup, hooked up my cordless phone, and gave her a test.
Woo Hoo, dial tone! A very good sign!
I called my best buddy to get his opinion of the call clarity. His response was that it was as clear as a bell. On my end I did notice that the ear speaker volume was a bit loud, but I’m pretty sure you can adjust this. Other than that, it sounded and worked like a regular hardline phone.
Some points to mention.
You MUST have a broadband connection. If you have a dialup internet service, the Magic Jack is not for you. If you are using regular DSL, you will not be able to give up your regular phone line. Duh, it’s what provides the DSL. There does exist DSL services that are standalone. They are often referred to as “Naked DSL” and would probably work for your MagicJack.
Personally, I’m on a cable internet connection via Time Warner. It works like a champ and I’ve not even seen any lag in phone conversations while downloading stuff or working online. We have it setup through a wireless router and it doesn’t even impact it at all when my wife is using her laptop via the wireless.
Another factor is that you MUST have your computer turned on for Magic Jack to work. It uses a little piece of software called a softphone that has to be working in the background on your computer for your phone to ring. If you cannot setup your computer to work all the time, just know that when you turn it off, you are also turning off your new Magicjack phone.
So, after a quick review it’s time for the bottom line.
Is MagicJack a scam?
Not in my opinion. It’s an awesome product at an unbelievable price. The praise it has received on Good Morning America, The New York Times, CNBC, and PC Magazine are well earned and true from my point of view.
So let’s get on with it. I built this blog so that you can discuss your opinions and experiences with MagicJack too. So post your comments in the box below and let’s build a community of knowledge about this new and exciting product.
zzzzz
Yes, I own a MagicJack : Magic Jack a Scam?…
First trial of a magicjack user. Read the scoop on magicjack….
I am the biggest skeptic so I wasn’t sure but i wanted to try it out on my daughter for her own phone line. Despite some small audio problems which were easily corrected, everything worked great!!!! I am still evaluating the customer service wishing there was a live person but from a business aspect I understand the whole overhead mimimizing thing. I have a standalone DSL with vonage which I hate immenselty, but now I am seriously debating on switching to magicjack and if it doesn t work I can switich back.
Signed up for 5 years because 2 of my friends had it an it worked very well for them. It worked fantastically for me for about a month. After that it became unusable. It’s worse than talking to a drive thru window on a windy day. Only bits of the conversation come in.
Ironically both of my friends MagicJacks did the exact same thing at the same time as mind. I wasted 100 dollars.
Mark, sorry to hear you’ve had issues. Have you tried to get any help from their customer service? If so, what was your experience?
Tim, all I can say is that we’re happy with our service. So you might want to give it a try. Like you said, if you don’t like it, you can always switch back to the service you had before. It’s dirt cheap, and if it works out for you it could save you a truckload of cash.
We’re not ready to make it our primary phone service just yet, but it has worked well as a second line and the call quality seems to be superior to Skype. Which is really what we were looking to replace in this instance.
Thanks for the comments folks. Keep them coming.
I have 6 magic jacks all running on different computers in my house.. we find that if more than 4 are being used at once — sound quality does drop some..
i did also have teh choppy crappy sound for a while.. i reformated my system and reinstalled everything
IT FIXED it for a short time and went right back to crappy.
however i found that..
1. download their updates and talk to live support about your issues there are certian settings that can be changed on every computer to fix issues..
2. DO NOT USE THE USB PORT in front of your computer!!!
(us the one in the back as its a more direct connection to your computer )
3. if you can get away without the extention usb cable – DONT USE IT!
You will find if you keep at it — they can fix yor issues (all but bandwidth fo 4 or more) they were suprised to see i had so many and thought i had put them all on 1 computer.. but I have 8 computers in my home (1 for everyone) and no problem with 4 calls on mj at once
(( ANYONE having problems i would suggest click for live help.. search for a generic answer so you can get the click for support live link and get your help)_
Does Magic Jack have the capability of using your original phone number or do have to accept the assigned phone number from Magic Jack ?
Also, does Magic Jack have the capability of forwarding calls to another phone after so many predetermined seconds of ring time ?
Thanks.
I’ve had the majic jack for about 8 months I don’t have any problems now at first it was plugged into the fromt of the computer I lost connections a lot there is a delayed response to get the dial tone I have comcast and when the weather is bad my whole comcast system is bad so if the cable goes off temporarily all I have to do is click the jack icon and load it again I am going to keep it Around here when the weather is bad My att phone connection would be bad so what the hey. Faye
yes, I do have a magic jack, and it works great.
In response to Randy’s question:
Randy, I just checked the official MagicJack site yesterday 6/28/10 & by wording my question, “When can I port or transfer my existing number to MagicJack?” I got the ususal response of “Not Yet, But Coming Soon.” But below that it said, “Number porting will be available first week of August 2010. There will be a nominal fee for number porting.” But there is usually some kind of fee involved when transfering your number from one carrier to another.
That has been the one thing holding me back from giving this a try. I Really don’t want to give up my current phone number. Aside from the fact that I like it & its very easy to remember, I have it out there on a LOT of different things & it would be a Major pain to change it everywhere. Hope that helps you & anyone else out there that is (like me) researching MagicJack to see how it really works & is worth giving it a try.
Is anyone using magic jack for a fax machine connection? Does it work well?