[3GScottishUser]

Oh dear...

My first 3Skypephone lasted less than 15 minutes. It stopped recognising USIM's and was replaced.

3Skypephone No 2 has sadly not made it to the end of it's initial credit period and has had less than 4 hours call use. It died today displaying nothing more than the white 3 boot screen. Have tried to reboot, clean the USIM, connect the charger etc etc but it refuses to do anything but light up and make it'self useful as a torch!

The 3Skypephone looks and feels like a solid product. It's features make it one of the best value PAYG handsets on the market and I really liked the design and compactness.

Sadly it appears reliability is a major issue and I have experienced 100% failure within very short operating periods. A great shame that this product which has all the ingedients to be a winner has some very serious issues. I hope this reliabiity is untypical and that 3 don't have another big problem which will drive complaints into their new retail outlets. At just £49.99 + a top-up the 3Skypephone looked like the killer product of this christmas but perhaps it may have some major problems competing against SonyEricsson's K800i at £75 and Nokia's N73 which is now down to £89! It's the old one about a bargain is only a bargain if you can use it...

Oh well.... looks like I'll have to make do with the Viewty and I will shortly post an update on my experience with it on 3.

[miffed]

Apparantly Three are offering two for £90 !

Maybe this is so you can have one to use & one in for repair at any given time ?
I must admit , alarm bells did ring for me when people started talking about the skype phone being "Unbranded and of chinese origin" - looks like Three have seen a low price as the key factor in this device
Imagine how different this would be panning out if they had used a lower end handset from a reputable manufacturer (but just as capable , if not more capable) handset as "the skype phone" such as the 6120 ?

[gorilla]

This is indeed disappointing. Cheap shouldn't mean poor build quality, and that's just what people tend to think when they see unbranded Chinese products.

[3GScottishUser]

It's a real shame as it's a product the feels good and on specs it's well ahead of the rest at the price point.

I hope 3 have not launched another NEC type folly and would agree that perhaps a branded handset might have been a safer bet to introduce what is a very significant new service concept.

It'll be interesting to see what comments appear when Santa delivers some more of these over the festive period.

[Hands0n]

Just to add some balance - my two have suffered 100% success :D No problems or failures with this pair. It is, as always, pot luck with 3, often.