Accessories

Polycom phone
The features are what I wanted, but I have some issues with the phone.
People do say they can hear me crystal clear thru the speaker phone when I talk at in a normal voice. There is a buzzing issue though, if you wrap your phone cord around your hand it buzzes, strange but not a problem if you keep your arm and hand away from the wire.
Jonathan

Not worth the money and support is worse
I would not spend the money for this phone. I work at home so I decided to invest in a really good phone with 2 lines and a speaker. The handset was always hot when I picked it up and put it to my ear. I contacted the company and they did send me another one but it did the same thing. So I decided to live with it because the speaker was good. But with use of less than a year, the sound became lower. No one can hear me on calls and I can't hear anyone else with the volume up. I contacted the company but it had been over a year so no luck getting help since it was now out of warranty. They would fix it if I paid shipping and a repair job but it would be almost the cost of a new phone. I did my own problem determination by swapping the phone with another one and the new one was fine, I also replaced any parts I could like a different hand set that fit, a different phone line cord, etc. So, I have a $200 paperweight. Do not waste your money.

Decent Phone
Excellent phone from my side. However I have asked a few callers about the clarity while I was talking on the speaker phone. Most advised that I sounded like I was talking in a barrel. I tried it with just the front mic and with the rear mic engaged. Neither got perfect grades from my callers, and neither was as perfect as the AT&T Speaker Phone I use in the office.

Product Development Engineer
As an engineering contractor I travel to many client offices during the day and use many types of office phones. I purchased this phone for one of the desks in my small engineering office back in 2006. When this phone works it is the best office phone available at any price. Since the phone was purchased, it has been replaced 3 times during the waranty period due to severe failures. Polycom has told me these failures are due to its connection to a "digital" phone line, but my phone service provider insists that my phone lines are both analog (Qwest says that they have no digital phone lines in my area). Anyway, I am searching the web now looking for a different phone to purchase. I am also about to call Polycom to report anothher failure with this phone and have it replaced yet again under warranty.

I have just read through the reviews again for this product to see if other people have had similar experiences. I find that many people have experience the same problems that I have. Interestingly, some people report that their phones are working fine. My Polycom SE-225 also works great for about 2 to 3 months before it experiences a failure. By the way, I purchased a commercial quality uninteruptible power supply after the first failure, but the next two phones also failed even with the phone power cord and phone line protected from line surges.

When it's good it's good - when it's bad you're out of luck
My partner and I each have a Polycom Soundpoint Pro SE-225. I bought them in March of 2005. August '05 mine went dead and I had to send it in for a new one. My partners went dead 2 months after mine and she got a refurb. Both times line two died. A year later, her line two is out again.

Polycom gave me these choices since it is out of warranty. Send it in and wait 30 days for a refurb for about $135 plus $35RMA charge, 10-day turn around for $175 plus $35 RMA charge or Emergency plan $227 + $35RMA. Total: $262 (next day shipping). I found a new one at Office depot for $199.99. Polycoms logic is pretty mind boggling when it comes to customer service. They oughtta charge about $50 bucks to fix it and charge for shipping that's it. Their pricing structure is not well thought out and it's an insult to the customer.

Other than that, the phone is excellent when its not having a problem. My only gripe is the display is not lighted. So if it's dark you can't see caller I.D. which is kinda dumb.