Incredibly Low-Priced Phone Service with Adequate Quality

I have used both Skype and Yahoo voice-over-IP (VoIP) service and even though I believe Skype has a leg-up on quality of service, Yahoo definitely wins in the overall cost area.

Yahoo Voice Brief Overview
I found that Yahoo's "Phone Out" service is more than adequate for making calls to anyone on any type of voice line (land line, cell phone, computer messenger, etc.). Without having Yahoo's "Phone In" service, which gives you a personal phone number for incoming calls, I cannot give any opinion. Compared to Skype, Yahoo's service is a bit lacking in that it sounds like you are perpetually speaking on a cell phone with a below-average signal strength.

It's not a constant breakup, just a noticeably lower quality audio stream. In addition to the sub-Skype quality (honestly, it's not horrible, just not as good as Skype), if you try to talk at the same time as another person, you have a slight delay in which the person hears you. It's as if the phone is only half-duplex; meaning you cannot speak and listen at the same time.

Yahoo's pricing is probably the best aspect of their service (of course!). First of all, there is no per-call tax or connection fee. You only have to pay for whatever minutes you actually use, so there is very little wasted time.
I have also noticed that Yahoo seems to charge in less than 1 minute increments. I'm not quite sure if it's half a minute or an even smaller piece of time, but I noticed that even some of my calls where I heard an answering machine pick up and just disconnected the call, Yahoo's calling history would list the call at 1 minutes but with zero charge. Another great part of yahoo's pricing structure is that there is no per month service fee if you only use their Phone Out service. There is a monthly service fee for getting your own phone number to receive calls, but it is only a mere $2.49 per month.

If you have a router with Quality-of-Service (QoS) capabilities, you'll definitely want to use that feature or else the person on the other end may have huge difficulties hearing you. Uploading large files or using online file-sharing services such as BitTorrent, LimeWire, etc. will also drastically affect your calling experience, although utilizing QoS will almost completely alleviate this problem.

Phone Features - Negatives
For starters, this model only works with Yahoo Messenger. You know this right off the bat so it's no big secret and not really a big deal, but definitely a bummer if you have any ideas of changing phone services (meaning you would need to buy another phone). Secondly, you have to have this phone's base plugged into a computer via USB. If you want to make a call, the computer that the base is attached to must be powered on and logged in to Yahoo Messenger.

It's not all that inconvenient if you have a PC that is always on, but not everyone does this. Furthermore, if your computer is set to go to sleep after X number of minutes, your phone will stop working (obviously) until you wake it up and log back in to Yahoo Messenger. Lastly, this phone model does not support multiple handsets so if you want more than one IP phone in the house, you'll have to go with a different model or get another base/handset pair (which takes another USB socket and another power plug).

Phone Features - Positives
Now to the good stuff! This phone has INCREDIBLE battery life. I rarely need to charge the handset more than two times per week. Talk time has to be at least 8 to 10 hours, although I have not actually measured this with any certainty.

The CIT310 also has the ability to call all of your Yahoo contacts, which are easily accessibly by pushing the little happy face button. Yahoo messenger contacts can be called for free if the other person has a microphone and speakers or a headset. In addition to messenger contacts, you can manually add contacts through the Linksys driver software that loads in the task tray. The only drawback to the contacts loaded through this utility is that they are stored on your computer. So if you connect the base to another computer or have to format your computer's hard drive, those contacts will need to be reloaded or restored from a manual backup. You have a built-in phonebook that is saved on the handset's memory as well, but so far this seems to only be useful for calling numbers using the land-line connection and not through the Internet.

Another little nifty feature is that the base station allows for a standard phone line to be connected so that your home's land line can still be used. This can come in real handy if you need emergency services since 911 calls are difficult to trace from a VoIP phone. Not only that, but you can receive calls to your land line from the CIT 310 handset if the base is connected to a phone jack. What's more, there is a very nice and clear-sounding speakerphone that can be turned on in a land-line or VoIP call.

The range of this handset is another nice feature. I'm not exactly sure what frequency it uses to communicate with the base station, but in my 3 bedroom house I can be anywhere, including anywhere in the back yard or by the mailbox two houses down, without any interference at all.

In addition to all this in an $80 package, you can also, from the handset, look up your local weather by only typing in your zip code! This isn't all that useful since you already have a computer running in the house (or the phone wouldn't work), but it's quite convenient if you are in bed or away from the computer and would like to see the weather for the day. You can also look up local businesses and call them right from this handy menu.

Lastly, there is a walkie-talkie feature that is supposed to work between other CIT310 handsets even without a PC-Connected base station. I only have one handset/base station pair so I have not tested this feature.