Polycom IP 550 IP Phone With HD Voice Technology

Polycom IP550 four line desktop ip phone

The Polycom IP 550 desktop phone is a four-line Sip phone that delivers calls of unprecedented richness and clarity and supports a comprehensive range of cutting-edge features. The Polycom IP550 desktop phone features Polycom’s revolutionary HD Voice™ technology, which bringslife-like richness and clarity to every call. 1.5 Polycom HD Voice technology incorporates wideband audio for over twice the voice clarity; Polycom’s patented Acoustic Clarity Technology for crystal-clear, noise- and echo-free sound, plus best-in-class system design for high-fidelity, faithful voice reproduction. The IP 550 is the obvious next step up from Polycom’s benchmark ip phone the IP 501.

Polycom IP 550 Features and Functionality

In addition, the Polycom IP550 has a backlit 320 x 160-pixel graphical grayscale LCD, shared call/bridged line appearance, busy lamp field (BLF), presence, buddy lists and XHTML micro-browser for Web applications that can be pushed down to the phone to increase or enhance business productivity or business processes.

Polycom IP 550 First Impressions

I think Polycom has missed the mark with the IP 550. Sure, adding the HD Voice capability, backlit display (finally!!!), and XHTML capabilities positions the Polycom IP550 for the next stage of VoIP calling, but at what cost? With an MSRP of $369.99 and estimated street price above $300, this gives Polycom three ip phones in the plus $300 range (Polycom IP601, IP650, and now the IP 550), and five phones in the sub $200 range (IP301, IP 320, IP330, IP 430, and IP 501). Unless they plan on dropping the MSRP on the IP601, they could very well experience poor sales on some of their higher end phones and at least one of middle of the road offerings. The cost of the new boards (that enable of these cool new features) must be driving up the costs of these phones.

With street prices on Cisco ip phones in the $250-$180 range (CP-7960G and CP-7940G) and with HD Voice not widely supported by VoIP Service Providers, you are best to wait for other options, unless of course, you are working with an unlimited budget and or are in a position to take advantage of the XHTML functionality.