A lot of bang for your buck
I've been using the MagicJack for over 2 months now and can say it was well worth the $40 I spent (on a whim) just to get my hands on this gadget.

My MJ worked fine right out of the box. Setup was a no-brainer for me, it went right to work on it's own. My first use of the MJ was on a desktop with a hardwired cable modem connection. I plugged in my old Western Electric Princess (analog) phone and rang up my husband's cell. Aside from a very slight lag, sound quality - both ways - was excellent.

My next test was to call my aunt in Colorado. Aside from her comment that I wasn't coming through very loud, this phone call was excellent.

I followed that test up with yet another call to my friend (also in CO) on her cell phone. BAD BAD BAD ... she was coming through choppy and broken up, until a few moments later when the call was completely dropped. A second call ended the same way. I called her back from my regular landline (part of my cable company package for phone, internet and tv service) and the call was fine. I was disappointed and she chided me for buying something that didn't work.

Within a couple of weeks, we had closed on our condo and were getting ready to move into a rental. Once in our rental, we weren't without internet access long - we borrowed bandwidth from our neighbor for my laptop, which I'd decided to try the MJ on. Initial call tests were spotty. My husband says the MJ didn't like the DSL my neighbor had. He flashed the DSL modem's firmware and from then on out, the MJ performed exceptionally well. It was almost unbelievable that it could function that well on a wireless network that wasn't even in our apartment! A few days later, our cable modem was back in service and we began using our own wireless.

I won't say the MJ has performed flawlessly - there have been some momentary issues where call quality is degraded by either a slight lag or somewhat broken up. In all fairness, I've experienced the same issues with my cell phone, with about the same frequency. And I pay far more for my cell phone than I did for the MJ. I take these issues in stride - the savings associated with no longer being held captive by a traditional landline far outweigh the minor and temporary inconveniences I experience. I still have issues with my friend's (in CO) cell phone, but she recently decided it was her cell phone causing problems, not the MJ.

I did notice that the 911 service never verified my home address at the condo we owned - the address remained in "pending" status. Once we moved and I changed the address to the new apartment (which incidently is in the same complex), the green light illuminated on the softphone indicating that 911 would be able to track a call to this address.

The worst thing to happen occurred a few days ago when I received an email with a voicemail message attached. I'd not heard the phone ring, nor did I see the call on my call list. After realizing that I'd missed a few calls, I rebooted my laptop and that cleared the problem.

Recently, my husband wondered aloud if the MJ plugged into a regular household jack would make all the jacks in the house live. He brought home an adapter which enabled us to plug the adapter into the house phone jack, run a line from the MJ to the adapter as well as plug in our cordless phone to the adapter. We had been using a VTech wireless with a second remote VTech (both with the ringers enabled) and these continued to work as though the base phone was plugged directly into the MJ. The only problem is the Caller ID was wiped out. The phones only displayed "CALL" during an incoming call. The softphone would, however, display the Caller ID.

My husband remedied this problem by disconnecting the phone company's line into our home. Now the Caller ID displays normally. He even plugged in an old analog phone with a loud bell ringer, and that rings also!

I feel the MagicJack is well worth the initial $40 investment and MORE than worth $20/year. I plan to buy at least 2 more MJs so my husband and son can have their own phone lines as well.

After using the MJ on a desktop, laptop, hard wired and wireless set up, I am satisfied with MJ's performance. Being able to use the MJ over regular household phone jacks make this product even more enticing.

I know there are those who have had nothing but bad luck with their MJs and find MJs tech support lacking in quality. The online support (FAQ) is difficult to utilize and very sparse in regard to troubleshooting. I don't know how the live tech support is, but from what I've read, it could stand some polishing up as well. Here's hoping MagicJack gets on with improving the FAQ and live Tech Support so those experiencing problems with MJ will not be feeling they wasted their money because they can't remedy their problems. I'd like to see everyone who purchases a MagicJack love it as much as I love mine! When this device works as it's supposed to, it is sweet!

Even if I could now get the MagicJack to work, it is like buying "blood diamonds"....
At 1st it worked right away. Then problems started happing....LITTLE to NO SUPPORT available...error codes (4 and 300) not on their FAQ's...promise return shipping taken care of by them. Had to pay for everything (while they charge $6.95, I used the same mailing process- tracking as they did and it was $2.45. Guess the float and price different of mailing is were they are making their profits as well as ads on the forced softphone. After I tried to fix it to work again I had to researched MagicJack issues on the web and found what a less than honest company they are - only if you spend a long time reading web complains will you see this pattern. Should have known this company's policies are from AOL (all the poor parts). It is a numbers game, those that have no issues are happy, as I would have been for the $20 a year, take with you when you travel, price.

I hated it
I was a sucker for this gadget. It sounded good to possibly get VoIP service for $20 a year, but it didn't work out that way.

At first, It would not set up on my Dell Dimension 3000 with Windows XP PC. I spent several hours trying to get it to set up, and ended up reformatting my hard drive (which took a few hours), and then it set up.
I had to use their online "live chat" many times for help, which was a big hassle. It's not easy to get into it, and when you do, the chat people seem to juggle you between several other chat sessions, and it can take quite a long time to get what you want accomplished. They ask you a question and then reply to it after several minutes. It seems like they're often backed up with people that have problems with these gadgets.

Once I finally got it working, several people I spoke to cut out on me and I had to ask them what they said because half their sentences were cut out. Some people would sound too loud on magicJack, which was not real pleasant either.

One night I tried to call an old friend in another state and his wife answered and she could not hear me at all and hung up. This was upsetting to me, and that was about the time I made up my mind to go back to my former VoIP provider (for about $100 a year for unlimited long distance to USA and Canada) and get rid of magicJack forever.

They offered to send me a new replacement unit for free but I didn't want it. I was fed up. Maybe I had a dud, maybe not, but I refused to waste any more time on one of these units.

From my own personal experience with MJ, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

New Technology - Very Quirky
I'm a sucker for a new gadget. And I'm sorry to say I paid for the 5 year service up front. By the time I got it I had invested about $100.00 for the whole thing and 5 years of use.

The thing did setup pretty quickly except the special code that is supposed to "upgrade" my Magicjack to the 5 year program does not seem to work. I'll check it again tomorrow to see if it ever updated to my account.

It appears to work with my MacBook and with a PC. However, it does not seem to get enough power from the MacBook USB ports to cause the phone I plug in to RING. The PC I used has more power I guess to the USB ports.

I am concerned about problems mentioned where USB ports have been fried by this device.

One nice thing about this technology, if they ever clean it up a bit and fix the quality sound and delay issues, is that you can take it from place to place. Reset the 911 location and it's like having your home phone where ever you go.

Biggest problem is it's new and kind of klinky. You might want to stick with SKYPE for a while while this tech works itself out some...

Magic Jack no good if you're on a Macintosh
I purchased magic jack over a month ago for my Mac Pro as the site claims compatibility. I rec'd the product just fine after a few days but when I plugged it in it wouldn't work. The instructions had no info about use w/macintosh and when things didn't work I checked the mfgr website.

To their credit they have a magic fix online but it didn't work for me. The only support is a live chat option and the person I spoke with kept trying to send me PC exe files no matter how many times I said I was on a mac. After about an hour the person was finally able to locate some files for mac which I installed and got it working. I should not have had to spend hours getting something to work that claims compatibility and help operators should be aware of supported systems.

I've had magic jack working (sort of) for a few weeks now and ALL callers complain of bad static not the clear calls the site promises. I have business class DSL and the latest mac hardware.

Today I initiated a chat session to try and get the static problem fixed once and for all and after being connected and receiving notice that I was online with someone I just got a message asking how they could help and after typing the issue I was put on ignore for 10 minutes (connection was active). I initiated another session and some excerpts are below. Keep in mind this is one month after buying a product that is supposed mac compatible.

Chat InformationPlease wait for a site operator to respond.

Chat InformationYou are now chatting with 'Jenny'

Jenny: Hello, how may I help you?

Bryan: i need to speak to someone familiar with mac

Jenny: Bryan, you are using Mac right?

Bryan: yes

Bryan: mac pro 8gb ram, terrabytes of drive space

Bryan: EVERY person i call complains of static although i usually don't hear on my end

Jenny: Bryan, my apologies we don't have fixes for Mac user's as of the moment.

Bryan: when is it coming, you advertise for mac and i'm using your product for business.

Jenny: We will update our website soon for Mac compatibility as our engineer's are working into this now.

Bryan: i've had your product over a month, how much longer. advertising a product and then not providing the proper tools to use it on a supposed supported platform is not good.

Jenny: I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that caused you Bryan, but our engineer's are doing their best to make this availabloe soon.

Bryan: you should take down mac compatibility until your problem is solved. intentionally selling a product you know has problems on a platform causes huge problems for your users. i've spent hours troubleshooting, had customer compaints and more as a result of your product. posting that there are known issues lets people decide for themselves before a purchase. i'll have no choice but share my experiences so others don't face the problem.

Jenny: Thank you for the information Bryan. Your concern will be forwarded to the right department.

Jenny: Is there anything else I may help you with today?

Bryan: no, thank you.