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Grandstream GXP2200 Review
[April 08, 2013]

Grandstream GXP2200 Review


Originally posted on VoIP & Gadgets Blog, here: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/android/grandstream-gxp2200-review.asp.

grandstream-gxp2200-product-shot.png
The Grandstream GXP2200 Gigabit IP phone is another Android-based IP phone in a growing line of Android-based IP phones that includes the Panasonic KX-UT670, CloudTC, and the ESI 250. A couple years ago I espoused the benefits of a tablet-based desktop phone running either iOS or Android, so that this "universal" device becomes your portable tablet/computer and your desktop IP phone. We're not quite there yet, since all the Android desktop IP phones are not battery powered and require either a Power over Ethernet (PoE) or AC adapter for power. Further, as with anything, cost will play a role. While a large 10+" tablet acting as both your desktop phone and computer is nice in concept, the larger screen adds a premium to the price-tag, not to mention higher processor requirements, more memory and storage, etc. The Grandstream GXP2200 on the other hand retails for just $229, which is pretty reasonable.

The Grandstream GXP2200 supports 6 lines and runs Android 2.3. It features HD audio, which is becoming more standard in all IP phones now, sports a 480x272 capacitive touch screen TFT LCD, dual Gigabit network ports, integrated PoE and Bluetooth.

Getting in Sync
What I really liked about the GXP2200 was how easy it was to sync my Exchange Server Contacts so it populated the phone's address book. It supports the standard Android "Accounts & Sync" capabilities, so you can add a corporate (Exchange) account as well as your Google account. Nice! Even cooler, I went into Grandstream's Android marketplace called GS Market and installed a 3rd party Android app called Voice Dialer. Then I was able to press the Voice Dialer icon, speak the name of one of my Outlook Contacts and it would recognize the name remarkably well, allowing me to dial by voice. regular_smile

I did however discover a minor bug which I reported to Grandstream. The Voice Dialer recognizes the names just fine. The problem is it seems to stick parentheses around the phone number’s area code and a dash after the phone exchange, i.e. (203) 555-1000.  The parentheses (and dash) then get passed to our Asterisk-based IP-PBX which causes a message “Sorry, invalid extension. Please try again.”  It's obviously tripping up the Asterisk dialplan.
 
Obviously, this is more of a 3rd party app issue than Grandstream’s issue. However, this app is in the Grandstream Android store on the phone, so I assume it’s been somewhat certified to work on this phone. I did notice that any contacts I add directly on the phone are added without any parentheses or a dash and they dial out just fine. It's only Outlook synced Contacts that fail because Outlook forces formatted phone numbers with parentheses and a dash. Probably a simple software fix to strip out parentheses or dashes.

Fortunately, when using the built-in Contacts app it doesn't have any issues. Just scroll through the Contacts list and press the green phone icon to dial. It's your standard Android Contacts app so you can delete or search for a contact as well.

Angry Birds Benchmarking
The GXP2200 supports up to 5-way conference, a phonebook with up to 1000 contacts, call history with up to 500 records, and it comes with 3.18GB of storage giving your some initial room to load up your favorite Android apps, though you can use the USB port to add more memory. I tried out some of the Android apps in the GS Market. I noticed Angry Birds Rio was one of the apps, which I decided to install and play. You're probably thinking why am I playing games on desktop IP phone I'm supposed to be reviewing, right Well, if any app is the standard benchmark for Android, Angry Birds is it! smiley-tongue-out Angry Birds launched, it started playing some music and then the app closed/crashed. There, see I told you Angry Birds is a good benchmarkand you thought I was only trying to play a game.




Die Process, die!
I swiped from the top down on the screen to bring up a screen that allows me to view notifications and processes running. I had quite a few processes running, so I killed a few of them and re-launched Angry Birds Rio. This time it worked. Playability on the ~3.5" screen was pretty good since the touch screen was very responsive and the speakerphone's audio quality was excellent. Here's a snapshot of the game loading:
grandstream-gxp2200-angry-birds-rio.JPG

Skype for the Win!
Now onto more business-related Android apps. Skype is hugely popular, and Grandstream was one of the first to support Skype in their products. Skype is available in the GS Market, so I gave it a go. It installed and I made a few test calls. The GXP2200 doesn't have a camera built-in, so it cannot transmit video, but it can receive video. I made a video call and the frame rate and quality on the GXP2200 was excellent. Skype calls default to speakerphone mode. Interestingly, if you pick up the handset to talk you hear dialtone added into the voice conversation, making it impossible to carry on a private conversation with the handset. It's possible you could use the GXP2200's Bluetooth feature with a Bluetooth headset to get around this, but I suspect it would also default to playing dialtone as well.

I haven’t tried pairing a BT headset to see if dialtone is also inserted. I get the design decision here though. You want the IP phone, which is primarily a corporate desktop phone, to default to getting dialtone as soon as you pickup the handset. You could be in an Android app such as Google Voice, Angry Birds, or whatever, but as soon as you pick up handset, it gives you immediate dialtone to make a call, or in the case of an inbound call it instantly connects you to the caller. However, I’m wondering if possible for the screen to display something like “Mute dialtone” so 3rd party apps such as Skype and others can be played over the handset speaker.


Besides Skype, the GXP2200 works with Google Voice, Microsoft Lync Client, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, and more. They also have an advanced SDK toolkit for custom business application development and deployment control. One other nifty Android app worth mentioning if Blacklist, which comes preloaded. I added my cell phone number as a test, dialed the phone and the call was immediately kicked back to the auto-attendant. Bye bye telemarketers and recruiters! It's this sort of feature that shows the power of Android and its utility in the desktop IP phone space. One other feature of note is you can record calls (SD card required).

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