End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Deal Alert: Gigaset S79H vs SL78H or S67H

Well isn’t this kind of curious? The newer Gigaset S79H handset is being offered on Amazon for $69.95. In contrast the older S67H handset is being offered for $63.08. Both are expansion handsets intended to be an addition to an existing Gigaset systems. They’ll work just fine with either the A580 or S675 base.

The difference in price is very slight given that the S79H actually has some of the features of the SL78H handset, which is offered for a whopping $149.95. The S79H has a 2.5mm standard wired headset connector like the S67H, but also a mini-usb connector for use with the Gigaset QuickSync software. That means that you can conveniently sync up to 500 contacts from Outlook. It also has a handy alarm function and rational volume buttons on the side of the handset.

Unlike the more expensive SL78H, it has buttons that are raised and separated…making dialing one handed easier and more reliable. The flush, smooth metal keypad of the SL78H was what caused my wife to refuse its use in our household. She said that it was too easy to miss-dial when you can’t feel the keys with your finger tips, even though the metal frame of the SL78H really feels great in the hand.

We have a pair of the S67H handsets deployed on our booth giving us HDVoice calling back to the rest of the company via our OnSIP account. I’m looking forward to trying the new Gigaset models when I return home from NAB.

This Post Has 13 Comments

  1. Looks like e4voip basically has them for the same price… but after my dealings with Amazon EC2 and SIP Brute Force Attacks I don’t know if I would want to give Amazon any of my money… Gotta say, their response to these attacks has been one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

    1. I completely understand. Amazon seems to need to get itself together and address the SIP attack issue. E4 has always been great do deal with. Highly recommended.

  2. We actually picked up the A580 and the S675 for testing.

    Can’t say I’m a huge fan of the A58H handset. It’s about as difficult to use as you can get, with some pretty unresponsive keys and a 1 line display that makes finding menu options pretty difficult.

    Next I played around with the S67H. Were you able to get 2 simultaneous VoIP calls going? When I tried to dial a second external number while I was on a call, I got the message, ‘Not possible’. A quick look at the SIP trace revealed that the phone was resending an invite to the call already in progress. Bizarre.

    I was able to register the A58H handset to the S675, which is pretty nifty but now my S67H is completely unresponsive. I thought it was keylocked at first, but there’s no keylocked indicator. The only response I can get out of the phone is when I put it back onto the charger.

    All in all.. not a great first impression.

  3. Update: I got the S67H working again by popping out the batteries and restarting it up, but I have no idea what caused it to go dead on me in the first place.

    1. Leo,

      I have a whole range of handsets (A58H, C59H, S67H, SL78H & S79H!) & a couple of bases (A580IP, S675IP.) I’ve not had any trouble using any model of handset with either base.

      Yes, I’ve had two simultaneous calls via one base, but not to the same handset.

      These phone are great for simply making & receiving calls. However, for anything PBX-like (xfer, hold, conf, etc) they’re pretty much worthless. I’m told that things like conferencing & transfers can be done, but I’ve never tried and wouldn’t recommend that anyone else bother either.

      In the office I use them as an accompaniment to a proper Polycom desk phone. In the house our needs are simpler, so they suffice on their own.

      1. Yeah one of our customers is interested so naturally, we have to test it out to see if they’d be of any use in at least a home office. We stress business features so I don’t like to recommend anything that doesn’t do transfers, conferencing within a pbx.

        Fortunately, with the A58h and the S67H, having simultaneous calls is definitely possible and you can do external transfers and conferencing as well. I managed to tweak the settings (looks like I neglected an entire section in the online admin menu) a couple of minutes after I posted here about my frustration. Figures 🙂

          1. Thanks for the tip. Will definitely remind myself to pick one of those up.

            Also, did you notice this? These phones don’t seem to include G.722 in any refers so you have to be directly dialing or directly dialed to actually get hi-def audio. Kind of annoying if you’re calling someone behind an auto-attendant.

          2. I’ll pass that back to the manufacturer as food for thought in future firmware. Of course, you could implement the auto attendant in wideband making it a null issue.

  4. Actually, I just did a simple test with the S79H handset. I could make two VoIP calls from it, and conference them on the handset. Alternatively, I could “swap” the calls in a call-waiting fashion.

    I’d not tried that previously, at least in part because the display on the A58H is so limited, as you noted. Also, my review was based upon firmware that’s now a year old. The more recent firmware seems to have added features making it easier to do transfers and conferences. Such settings were not available on the base menus previously.

  5. Great site! Since I have been in the VOIP scene (all of 1month) I have been coming here a lot. What are your thoughts on build quality between the S67H and S79H? I have a S67H which came with the 675 Base – but I find it kind of cheapy plastic and breakable. I have the C59H but the ear piece was DOA so I am having to return it. But I liked that handset alot more for the screen and the overall hand feel – more weight, buttons nice etc.

    The S79H is 10 bucks more online than what I paid for the C59H at best buy and I like the Quicksync capability that the S79H has, How does the S79 compare to the C59 and S67 as far as in hand feel etc. Man I wish some place would carry these in store.

    1. I’m working on a comparative overview of all five models of Gigaset handset. The S79H is definitely my pick of the bunch, although the S67H is good as well. The SL78H has a great feel in the hand but other factors reduce its favor around here.

  6. Thanks for this tips! I have seen the s79H with my Boss and i immediately I fall in love with it cos of the bottoms and the large screen but the way i’m seeing the SL78H it really look more elegant and beautiful.So which is t-he best?

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