Nokia makes a solid cellphone most of the time. Little complaint, effortless interface and durable. This time Nokia ventures into a more upper-class market with the N80. This isn’t just a cellphone, this is an all-in-one style of phone.

This phone is the center of your life. If you just want to make the occasional call, text message, and listen to music please look elsewhere. This phone makes Video and Internet calls, as well as normal calling. It can take rather good pictures for a cellphone, it’s an excellent storage device for Office Docs and presentations. What memory card does this use do you ask? It comes with a 1 GB SD card, so there is no need to purchase memory. That in it’s self is a rarity in the cellphone market. How do you transfer? WI-FI. This phone doesn’t need a wire to connect making it the ultimate portable device.

The sound on this phone is unusually clear, and when speaking with speaker phone is clear on both channels. So if you have two people talking at the same time, there is no cut out or lag. However, the battery life leaves some to be desired. This comes with the territory if you’re used to carrying a phone of this style. The phone also doesn’t lock shut. As a slider phone, you have to be cautious of the fact it could slide open and place the wrong call to the wrong person.

This phone is good for what it does, it can take the place of a laptop for the average worker. For the home maker, just making a few calls? There are cheaper models for you.

Linksys beat Apple and launched the iPhone. But before you get the wrong idea the iPhone is a company’s line of VoIP phones, which now includes two newcomers: The Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit for Skype and the Wireless-G Phone for Skype.

The Dual-Mode Internet Telephony Kit for Skype ($179.99) includes a cordless, VoIP phone and base station that connects to a home Ethernet connection. The phone also works over an existing landline, and does not need to be connected to a computer to function with VoIP. It has a 4,000 color capable screen with 128×128 pixels and is rated for 120 hours of standby time and 10 hours of talk time.

The white Wireless-G Phone for Skype ($199.99) has 802.11b and g connectivity so it can make calls via Wi-Fi, which should make it useful in heavily hot spot dotted areas. It’s 4.65 inches long by 1.77 inches wide and 0.81 inches thick. It comes with a 1.8-inch display with 128×160 pixels that supports 65,000 colors

Skype comes pre-loaded on both phones, and they both have speakerphone capabilities.

VoIP is here to stay and improving by the day and not just the huge cost cutting advantage it gives to a business the whole technology is evolving fast and furiously. So, when I tell you that some users of Nokia’s combined Wi-Fi and cellular phones will soon be able to make voice calls that can roam between the two networks without dropping the call - You’re going to be happy!

Cicero Networks announced on Thursday that it would make its client available on the S60 platform, the phone software based on the Symbian operating system that was developed by Nokia. The CiceroPhone handset software, combined with back-end technology that a service provider installs, supports the handoff of voice calls between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. The Cicero software was available previously only on Windows Mobile phones.

The move to S60, which includes Nokia’s Eseries and some Nseries phones, was important, Cicero said. The devices from Nokia, the world’s number-one handset maker, are likely to reach a wide audience, offering more choice of phones for end users.

Now that’s a far cry from the times when I’ve had a shopping site up and running and the dance I had to do with my customers. All the back-and forth e-mails that took to covert a curious surfer into a customer the 3-4 days delay and the time difference hiitches that came along the way.

I’m glad that’s all in the past and I’m busy using IP telephony and all ready to lap up more of it. Though initially quality and call-dropping problems happened it’s now come a long way.

Almost 3 million households nationwide subscribed to Internet phone service in the second quarter of this year, according to a survey by Telephia, a San Francisco company that tracks subscribers for Internet phone and other communications services. Doesn’t that say something to you?

My business partner Mike Rundle has been talking to me non-stop the past week about getting a VOIP phone and I never understood why he would do something like that because if you get the right cellphone plan you should be alright. However, when you are a company that does business on a global platform we don’t have the option to always use our cellphones and that’s when Skype comes into play. The problem we have with Skype though is that many times our computer drop the calls and we have to reboot just to start over again and that’s what makes the Linksys CIT200 Skype phone so appealing to me.

By using an USB base I am able to walk around the office while still using my Skype account to talk to clients and partners worldwide. Unfortunately, the phone only works with Windows and they don’t have plans to support Mac or Linux anytime soon. WTF they are thinking I have no idea.

TMC were fortunate enough to review the phone and offered this conclusion:

Overall, the Linksys CIT200 is a great wireless Skype solution that is a perfect alternative to your typical Skype headset solution. It has excellent range, very good battery life, and most importantly you can access your Skype contacts from the phone itself so you’re not chained to the PC for dialing or taking calls. It’s worth mentioning that most people are not using Skype as a landline replacement though many are using broadband VoIP providers such as Vonage to replace their landline. Part of the reason is that Skype requires your PC to be on all the time and you have to be at your PC to initiate dialing. However, if you take the Linksys CIT200 and add in a SkypeIn PSTN number along with pay-as-you-go SkypeOut minutes, and the ability to make outbound dialing away from the PC, then the CIT200 could be the perfect home landline replacement.

Until they offer a Mac option it looks as though I am sticking with my non-trusty iSight.