Over the years one thing I have learned is that first impressions of a phone are not always indicitive of what it’s like to use a phone for a long period of time. Because of this I actually stopped doing phone reviews for a while until I could spend a good amount of time using a new phone before deciding exactly what I thought of it. After a few months of daily use, I’m finally ready to share what I think of the SNOM M3.

What this phone is
The SNOM M3 is a wireless phone that uses the DECT protocol versus being a WiFi phone. There are tons of advantages of DECT technology including call quality, battery life, and range. DECT also allows for multiple handsets to register to the same base station and the M3 takes full advantage of this by allowing each handset to either share an extension or act as independent extensions, or any combination. In some cases you may want a single extension to ring on multiple devices or multiple users can all have their own extension with up to eight handsets being able to register to each base station.

Features
The M3 has a nice LCD display that isn’t too difficult to read and has volume controls, speakerphone toggle, and a headset jack on the side. Each handset comes with it’s own charger so you can conveniently place the chargers near where you are going to use the phones.

• Display: 128 x 128 pixels, 65536 colors, backlit
• Li-Ion battery pack for 20 hours of calls or 100 hours standby
• Range: 50 meters indoors, 100 meters outdoors
• 12 numerical keys, 5 navigation keys, 2 function keys
• Speakerphone on mobile handset
• Polyphonic ringtones
• Automatic registration of handset
• Separate charging cradle for handset
• 8 handsets per base station
• 8 SIP registrations with different servers/registrars
• Up to 3 concurrent calls per base station
• Three-way conference
• Remote setup, password protection
• Open DECT GAP standard

Setup
The setup of the M3 is fairly simple as there isn’t anything to connect besides ethernet and power. Once connected, press the volume up control on the handset and the unit will give you the IP address of the base station. Browse to the IP of the base station and setting up the base to connect to an IP PBX is the same as any other SIP device. I tested the unit with both trixbox CE with the updated Endpoint Manager that is designed to work with the M3 and I manually configured it to work on trixbox Pro where I have been using it as a daily phone for some time now. The only thing that is really different about the M3 is that it can support up to eight SIP registrations (extensions), then for each handset so can specifiy which extension rings which handset and what extension information to use for outbound calls on each handset.

Usage
There is nothing really different about the M3 than any other wireless phone on the market in terms of how it works, its a phone after all, its makes and receives phone calls and does it well but is it any better than other wireless phones? The two most common types of cordless phones in use are analog cordless phones attached to an ATA or a WiFi phone connecting to your wireless router. Since that is the market segment the M3 is up against, let’s use that as the comparision.

Range
I have a decent 2.4ghz cordless phone, with this phone I can walk out the front door and get right to the sidewalk in front before starting to lose signal. A Wifi phone will get me about another 30 feet or so before it starts dropping. The WDECT handset that comes with the Aastra 480i CT will let me walk down the street about one house in each direction. The M3 with the full DECT implementation will get me about 3 houses in each direction. As far as range goes, the M3 is a clear winner.

Battery Life
WiFi is absolutely horrid for cordless phones as there is no real standby mode so the radio is at full power 100% of the time. The different WiFi phones I have tried basically have to sit in a charger so that they are always ready to use. The M3 handset goes without a charge for 4 – 7 days depending on usage. Again, the M3 is a clear winner.

Where does it fail?
The M3 is not perfect and could certainly be improved and some improvements have already occured since I got my original unit. While I am happy with the call quality and the speakerphone, the overall build quality feels a bit cheap. The original units had a fake antenna which I found to be a bit cheesy, this has since been removed. If there is one feature I think is really a shame that the M3 doesn’t have, its power over ethernet. With PoE support it would be easier to throw the base station up into the hanging ceiling in an office to provide optimum coverage without having to run power. A nice, but not necessary feature would be an ethernet passthrough port. The second port I can live without but the M3 really should support PoE.

Results
For around $240 you get the base station and one handset and additional handsets run about $110 each so after you put two or more handsets onto the system the price is less than most other SIP phones. The call quality is good, the speakerphone works well, the range is terrific and the battery life is awesome. Sure it could use some refinements but overall its a really solid device with a good set of features. The final testement to what I think of a phone is where it ends up after the review period is done. There is a shelf in the garage loaded with every phone on the market that I could choose to use in my office or home. While the M3 is not my primary desk phone it is on the network as a permenant extension so that I have wireless ability and it is part of my FindMe so that I can work anywhere in the house. The M3 may have some faults but the overall result is that the pros outweigh the cons and are enough that I would highly recommend this phone to anyone looking for a wireless sip phone solution.

SNOM
http://www.snom.com