Ron Schenone

MagicJack – Works For Me; But Is It Right For You?

Posted by on Oct 18, 2010 | 17 Comments

I am trying MagicJack  and so far it works for me.

Several months ago, I dumped my home phone and went with two cell phones from Straight Talk for my wife and I. The Straight Talks have worked great and not having a home phone was working OK for us. But we have one problem that has surfaced when school started. Our grandson, aged 11, comes to our house after school. When we are not home, he has no phone to use in case of an emergency. So I was looking for an option that would be inexpensive but provide phone service.

I have used VOIP from Vonage before, and it worked flawlessly, after I upgraded my wireless router to one that supported VOIP. I have also read many of the reviews and personal opinions about MagicJack that seem to be divided between success and failure. My buddy Charlie in California has been using MagicJack and recommended I try it, since he has used MagicJack without issue. I had also read stories of people ordering MagicJack from the company and being charged for service before the 30 day trial was finished. So I opted to buy MagicJack from Walgreen, [$39.95 plus tax], since I know I could return it without a problem, during the first 30 days.

I picked up MagicJack Saturday morning and installed it when I got home. I have a 10G wireless service and hooked up MagicJack to a 4-year-old Gateway laptop running Microsoft Windows XP with SP3 installed. The system is a single processor running at 1.6MHz with 1MB of RAM. When you hook up MagicJack to a USB port, it automatically installs the necessary software and handles the registration process. The software installed without any issues. What was annoying is that you have to go through hoops in order to get the unit registered and activated. The hoops are that the company wants to see you a host of additional features which I did not want. Why would I want to sign up for 5 years of service, at a discount, if I didn’t know if MagicJack would even work?

After installation was complete I was assigned a phone number and tested MagicJack. It worked perfectly. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the call quality was excellent, in fact I believe it is better than Vonage. IMO. I have played with MagicJack trying phone calls at different times of the day and thus far it has worked just fine.

I will be doing a follow-up report in about a month and let you know how well, or not so well, MagicJack works.

Is MagicJack for every one? If you have a fast broadband connection and a computer you can leave on all of the time, you may wish to give MagicJack a try. But I would suggest that you read the reviews of MagicJack on the Amazon site. MagicJack may not work for everyone, but so far it is working for me.

Comments welcome.

  • leftystrat

    READ CAREFULLY. They own your data. Look at their privacy policy. Look at how much of your hard drive they want to access.

    I wouldn’t touch them with someone else’s 10′ pole, but that’s just me.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Heh leftystrat,
      Good point. But the laptop I have it connected to is an old laptop used for gaming only for the grand kid.

  • Dick

    Glad to see you’re out there on the cutting edge again Ron. Better Ye than Me.

    I’m a little confused. You said Vonage worked great but you aren’t using it? $25 a month, good voice quality, reliable, etc. what is the problem? I’ve had it for over 3 years and it’s great.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Dick,
      Vonage worked great. I had no complaints. But when we switched over to cell phones, I didn’t think we had a need for it any longer.
      BUT, the wife who is a worrier, wanted the grandson to have a phone in the house when we weren’t home. So since the phone will
      only have limited use, I went with MagicJack. The only time when it will be used is when we are gone. :-)

  • Tom Buchanan

    One of the big problems with internet phone service for emergency use is that the e-911 services can’t identify your location. That could be a very serious problem if your grandson got all flustered when making an emergency call, or if somebody else had to make the call for him. My suggestion: Print your 911 location and alternate emergency phone contact information in bold next to or on the computer so it is available in an emergency.

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Hi Tom,
      I have done that. I have also listed all of our cell numbers for him, including the neighbors.
      Thanks you for the suggestion.
      Regards, Ron

  • Paul Jackson

    I had trouble getting an acceptable sound quality using a wireless laptop but when I plugged it into my desktop that has a physical connection to the router, it worked great.

    I use it in combination with google voice. It makes a great addition that helps me to cut down on my cell phone minutes. So far I have been very pleased.

  • Whiskey14

    Have had MagicJack for two years now and love it. BTW, the 911 feature does work, unfortunately one evening I had to use it, the ambulance found my house without any problems. The best thing that I appreciate is that with in state long distance calls, no more excessive charges.

  • http://www.giantkin.com Giantkin

    I have Magicjack, used it for over a year now, bought a second one to use at work.

    At work, have vonage, and use skype as well. Vonage is great…but its expensive. $25 (residential rate) plus fee’s really means $30-35. Bus. rate starts higher…

    Magicjack? avg is 1.50/month hard to pass up.

    My wife hates it, but i use it effectively. She expects something to work perfectly every time… but the limitation on magicjack is, that it is attached to a computer… running windows. Freezes/crashing, etc. happen.

    For the 911, make sure the address is set correctly, and the son doesnt have to worry about it. (tho, they ask anyhow)

    I recommend it to others.

    gk

  • dustin tyson

    I have owned the magicjack since my b day july 28th 2010 and i LOVE it. NEVER had an issue. definitely ALOT more dependable than CONcast’s “digital voice” phone service through the emta modem and of course..HELLA MUCH CHEAPER..*yes i coined that from South Park..waaa.lol” as long as your not trying to use it with a crappy cordless house phone. and really it’s best to use a pc with decent muscle (dual core cpu at 2.0 per core 3 gig ram etc) chances are YOU WILL have NOTHING to worry about unless your ISP has pathetic dependability. unlike vonage, the magicjack IS PORTABLE.can plug into and install on as many computers as you like * so far i have tesed over 20 computers straight between my house, all 4 friends’s houses, and uncle’s house.*
    dependable internet (in my area 6 meg speed normally $50.00
    plus realistically 2.00 per month overall for magic=happy Dustin. :D giggidee giggidee

  • R Harrington

    One of my favorite features is that a vmail left will arrive in my yahoo email box. The sound quality of the vmail message is excellent.

    Least favorite feature is that it takes a while to load up.
    I only have it plugged in when I want to make phone calls.

    I went to this service as I usually leave my cell phone off and the vmails left on my cell phone often are delayed. Someone might leave me a vmail on Friday and my cell phone does not show a message left unless I prompt for it or up to 48 hours have passed. No explanation for this delay.
    I like that users with just a plain telephone can leave a magic jack vmail or call me. the other phone services Skype the person must own a PC to take your calls.

  • Allan Thompson

    Had MagicJack for months and it has worked flawlessly on our laptop.

    We live in Florida for 7 months of the year and it works well for local and national calls – the number MagicJack gave us is a local number.

    We took the Laptop and MagicJack to the UK during the summer where we live for 5 months and we were amazed to find that we can make ‘local’ calls from the UK to any number in the US! No international dialling… perhaps I shouldn’t mention this hidden feature!

    Saved us lots of $’s and GBP’s!

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      Thanks Allan for the tip.

      Thanks to everyone who has responded to my article. I am glad there are a lot of happy campers out there who use MagicJack.

  • http://www.justenrobertson.com Justen Robertson

    They took… the phone… out of… the wall… and put… it… in… this… little… box.

  • Louise

    I found the quality poor and often pick up the corded phone to make sure it’s working only to find it’s not. I have to unplug it and plug it back in. It doesn’t work when the computer puts itself to sleep. I couldn’t get a local number so anyone phoning me on it would have to pay for a long distance call so I couldn’t replace my home phone with it.

  • James

    Magic Jack is decent, but the faxing is hit or miss (miss in my case). I’m looking an alternate solution for this problem.

  • Richard

    MJ works about 80% of the time for us (had it for over 6 months now). It advertises that you can use either an attached telephone or a headset, but truly only the headset is reliable. The software automatically switches from telephone back to headset on it’s own, so the telephone option isn’t really viable. If you’ve got a headset and the software is installed on your primary profile (in XP/7, etc.), then you will be fine. Otherwise, you won’t have time to switch profiles in time to answer the call before it gets forwarded to voicemail. One plus, however, is that MJ gives you a free conference call number of your very own, which is nice, and anyone can call into it. Very cool!