Home Hardware

Unless you enjoy shouting at your PC's built-in mic, you'll also need a phone. A raft of new models have been tweaked to work with Skype or Yahoo. I tried out Wi-Fi-enabled Skype phones from Belkin and Netgear that let you connect from almost any hotspot. Simply turn on these cell-phone-size units, and they find all of the Wi-Fi networks in range--no PC needed. (But they may not work with hotspots that require you to sign in to a Web page.) Press a button to connect, log in to Skype, and the phone downloads your contacts and call history. Add new numbers via the phone's keypad, and they sync with your Skype address book the next time you log on.

The 4-by-2-inch Netgear SPH101 handset ($249) is a little smaller than the $200 Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype and is faster at displaying menus, but it's also pricier than Belkin's phone. Of course, when you go out of Wi-Fi range, the call dies. So these phones are good only when you're in a hotspot and want to call without booting up.

If you opt for Yahoo's service, you can make semi-untethered Net calls from home via the Linksys CIT310 Dual-Mode Cordless Phone ($100). Connect the base unit to your regular phone jack and your PC's USB port; you then press one button on the handset to make landline calls and another to call folks in your Yahoo address book. Unlike the Skype phones, however, the CIT310 doesn't sync with your Yahoo contacts. And it works only as a stand-alone phone--to make free PC-to-PC calls, you need a second handset.

My ideal phone would automatically log on to Skype when I'm in a hotspot and to a cell network when I'm not. The handsets that let you use Skype aren't that slick, but they'll get there. Then I'll really be able to stick it to Ma Bell.

Contributing Editor Dan Tynan is the author of Computer Privacy Annoyances (O'Reilly Media, 2005). You can send him e-mail at gadgetfreak@pcworld.com.