Polycom VVX 250 IP Telephone Review

hey guys it's Prince Richard rich
technology group and in today's video
we're gonna do a comprehensive review of
the Polycom vbx 250 so this video is
titled Polycom vvx 250 voice over IP
phone review so we're gonna jump right
into this for those of you who are not
familiar with the Polycom vbx 250 at the
time of this video this phone and
another phone which i've done in a
previous video which is a yeah link
phone but this phone and another phone
are the two most chosen phones from all
the carriers that I work with so in
short no matter what carrier I'm working
with somebody always either picks this
phone the polycomb vbx 250 or the other
phone so I'm gonna get into some of the
basic features functions of this phone
I'm gonna also go into pros and cons and
tell you why I think people choose this
phone mostly and why we see it um pretty
much on the desks of people that work
with just about any carrier with us so
first of all the polycomb vbx let's find
you guys a better picture actually real
quick the Malecon vbx 250 is a four line
phone it has a two point eight inch
full-color LCD screen which is actually
a 320 by 240 pixel resolution this is
really important because while I don't
personally care whether my phone is
color screen or not we have a lot of
people that call that do also a lot of
people like backlit screens for
environments that may have low lighting
like a doctor's office or an x-ray room
or you know a college dorm where the
lighting has to be dimmed for
presentations and things like that so
the color screen is important for some
people for me as long as the screen is
backlit I'm happy but color and backlit
is kind of a good plus so though as I
already mentioned it has four incoming
phone lines for phone line function keys
that you can see here on the left of the
screen so that will allow you to have up
to four simultaneous calls in or out or
putting people on hold or what have you
it has a illuminated backlit keys so
these keys even though you can't see it
in the picture and you
be able to see it in daylight either
with the actual phone if you cut a
lights out or dim your lights these keys
are actually backlit similar to how some
of the old-school flipped cell phones
were which again is important for some
low lighting settings or people that may
have some minor vision problems or
something like that or may have
nearsightedness or whatever it may be
let's see here it's got a speakerphone
built-in obviously which typical to most
all of the Polycom is behind the actual
handset it has the Polycom signature
patented audio for those of you who are
watching that are not familiar with
Polycom you may not know what that is
for those of you who have used probably
calm before you know that Polycom is the
leaders when it comes to the best HD
voice quality I actually have an older
model a Polycom vbx 300 which is
probably about 4 years older than this
phone which is pretty new at the time of
this video and the Polycom PBX 300 my
Polycom vbx 300 which is actually old
and a bit outdated when I use it in
somebody's on speakerphone it actually
sounds as if the person is quite
literally sitting on my desk next to me
so for people watching this video that
want a phone that has really good audio
quality not only on the actual handset
that you would pick up on the
speakerphone as well this Polycom or
Polycom in general is your choice is the
best choice for you as sound quality is
of the utmost importance this phone also
sports two gigabit ports so it has one
Gigabit Ethernet port for you to
obviously plug in the ethernet cable
that supplies it with its internet to be
able to get out to the network or to
your voice over IP service provider but
it also has a second port that allows
for you to come out to another device so
for those of you who are watching this
that made you know only have one wire
coming into a location where you need a
phone and you're thinking oh crap I
don't want to have to run cables or
anything like that
you don't have to with the phone like
this you could actually pull the
internet out of say the you know
computer at the desk that you're going
to set this phone at plug it into the
Ethernet port on the phone come back out
of the
on the second gigabit pass-through port
and go back into your PC and you could
share internet between you know your PC
or printer and this phone on a single
cable that's coming into the wall from
your router or switch or Internet source
so that's a big plus as well one thing I
wanted to point out is its gigabit
whereas the older phones including as
the older phones typically only had 10
100 ports
this is gigabit master ports so there
won't be any bottlenecking on your
network or anything like that for people
who are watching this that have medium
sized to larger deployments one thing I
want to point out for those of you who
are watching this who are familiar with
the older models of Polycom like the
Polycom vbx 300 series 400 series of
violent up series you can probably tell
that this is a bit different than those
this series was actually designed
specifically in polygons details to be
more ergonomic and easier on the hands
and easier to use than the previous
Polycom phone such as the one that I
have is which which is 300 series and
the 400 and 500 series so again for
those of you who are power users that
like Polycom and you're on your phone a
lot you might make dozens if not
hundreds of calls a day or a week you
will probably find that this phone is
actually a bit easier and better to use
than the previous phones
let's get an a' notable features here
some i've already covered but we're
gonna elaborate on some of these so
notable features on this phone first
notable feature is the illuminated keys
this is a big one because this is very
uncommon with most phones these days
even the newer phones that i see that we
see that clients contact us get their
service provider and then say hey prince
can you tell me what options this
provider carrier has for phones or
whatnot and even the phones that are
newer most of them don't typically have
illuminated keys so this is a really big
feature especially as i already
mentioned for those of you who are
watching that run operation
or have maybe segmentations throughout
your business or office that require low
lighting for whatever reason that may be
that may be a doctor's office it may be
a college dormitory
you know dorm or something like that you
know you might run a small movie theater
or something like that and have a phone
in one of the movie areas in any area
where the lighting might be low or
non-existent at all and you require some
form of you know light on the phone so
that you can dial and see what's going
on
it has illuminated keys as well as a
backlit LCD screen as already mentioned
every single Polycom has the Polycom HD
voice technology even more importantly
for those of you who may not know
probably come recently purchased
Plantronics Plantronics is one of the
leaders when it comes to not only
wireless or hands-free or bluetooth
headsets for IP phones such as this but
also for cell phones and things of that
nature so probably come or as they say
Plantronics is now Polycom for those of
you who've used Plantronics you know
that Plantronics has also been like the
best as far as high quality wireless
ears earpieces and hands-free
accessories so for them to be conjoined
now with Polycom is only better Polycom
always already had some of the best HD
voice that I personally have ever seen
on the phone on the voice over IP and
phone market so for them to be joined
with Plantronics it's only a bright
future for those of you out there who
are you know the HD voice quality buffs
and you require you know epic quality of
voice whether it be through handset or
through speakerphone
let's see here as I mentioned before I
actually have a probably calm I normally
use it yeah like WP 52 cordless phone
when I'm on this side of my office but
on the other side of my office at my
other desk this is kind of like our
unofficial recording studio but in my
actual office on the other side of the
building I actually have a Polycom vbx
300 and as I mentioned earlier when I'm
using the speakerphone it literally
sounds like the person that I'm talking
to is sitting in the room with me so
there's something to be said for that
and this phone actually has a couple of
ways that you can connect a wireless um
a I'm sorry a wired headset it actually
has an RJ non port for those of you who
aren't familiar with what an RJ 9 is
actually you know what we'll go ahead
and rj9 port see if we can find one for
you guys for those of you watching here
so an RJ 9 typically looks something
can't exactly find one that's kind of
like it oh well I guess we should put
the 9 in there
RJ 9 headset port so basically an RJ 9
is basically kind of like it looks
almost sort of kind of like what you
guys are probably familiar with with the
old analog ports like that you would see
with an rj11 which is what dial-up phone
or internet uses but it's a little bit
different the pin out on is is different
on the back of the Polycom VTX 250 as
well as on the back of most all Polycom
phones that I can remember is an rj 9
port and it is used to connect a headset
kind of like what you see here in this
picture a little bit old-school but it's
a thing that is kind of sort of
unofficially proprietary to Polycom i
personally don't really prefer rj 9 port
because RJ 9 horn is report is very
limited in the amount of headsets that
you can find on Amazon or VoIP supply or
wherever you may go to be able to find a
headset that works well for the you know
for the for the phone that you're
looking to get a headset for I
personally prefer either Bluetooth or
USB because then the options are
limitless when you go to something like
amazon.com or whatever to shop for
accessories since the RJ not as we
mentioned is a bit limited and it's
typically restricted to the headsets
like you just saw in the previous image
this phone also comes equipped with the
USB port as well so that opens up your
options a little bit more possibly even
for some Wireless now well we'll get
into another con later without getting
off-track
so it does Evan it does have a USB port
that'll open up your options a bit more
than an rj9 which will allow for will
say a larger variety of call center
style headsets to be used with this
phone and possibly even some USB
compatible wireless headsets that can be
used with this phone as well
the phone also actually has the phone
actually has the USB port for another
function as well for those of you
watching this that rely heavily on call
recording typically with your voice over
IP provider you can purchase like space
they'll give you a certain amount of
space included with call recording and
then you can purchase extra space for
those of you who are on a tight budget
and you need extra space above and
beyond what the provider may what the
provider may allow just by default
without paying any extra the USB port on
the back of this phone can actually be
used to connect to an external flash or
like hard drive flash type source so
that you can actually offload call
recordings onto that automatically so
that's a big plus for outfits that do a
lot of car recording and have multiple
users and space may be a big deal now
one thing I do want to specify here as
kind of a security measure for those of
you who are watching especially if
you're the IT operations manager is
obviously it's a lot better for your
call recording to be recorded and then
sent into the cloud for it so a that
means it's more secure B it also means
that the user if you're recording them
for compliance or legal reasons they
don't have access to that recording and
more importantly they don't know that
they're being recorded obviously if
you're using some sort of external flash
recording device connected to the phone
that means that not only is it not
secure it's also accessible by the
person or persons that you may be
recording on that particular phone so
just keep that in mind on the other
thing that that USB port can be used for
which I thought was actually kind of
neat is it can actually be used as an
external charger for a cellular phone or
some sort of like a mobile device so you
know for those of you who are watching
that have an Android phone or have
i phone as you know it uses like a
standard USB port like charger you could
come out of this phone you know and have
your iPhone or Android sitting on the
desk
charging next to it that's a great
function for those of you who don't need
the USB port for a wireless device or a
headset or for external recording and
you're on the go you know you come into
the office and you need a place to plug
in your iPhone or plug in your cell
phone before you have to head back out
that's actually a pretty big plus that
the phone actually has a USB charging
port on it as well for unlike cellular
devices and things like that as I
mentioned previously in the video this
phone has two gigabit pass through ports
now I want to make something clear for
those of you watching that might be a
medium size to larger outfit I typically
do not recommend using the pass to
report on large installations lot by
large I mean somebody who's got maybe I
would say approximately 20 phones or
more I would say honestly once you get
to about 15 phones I really recommend
that you have a dedicated hardwire ran
for the phone itself and then also for
whatever the external device is that
you've got in compliment to the phone
whether it be the user's PC or the users
Macintosh or whatever it is I do not
recommend using the past report on more
than approximately 10 to 15 phones total
on a single network if you do choose to
do that it's possible to do that and not
run into problems but I recommend that
you have a really good switch and you
also have a really good router that is
really good on packet management and
things like that
because the problem is and I've seen
this on networks with some people in the
past with large deployments that want to
do use the pass-through on all the
phones and not just invest a little bit
of money that you only have to do once
in your office to run cable for that
phone and for whatever that other second
or third device at that particular desk
or location is you get a bottleneck
you'll run into bottlenecking problems
where the person will wonder well my
phone is working just fine but why is my
internet on my computer like super duper
so even though we have like Gigabit FiOS
or something
like that or you know 500 megabyte
Comcast or whatever these passwords on
these phones not just this phone but any
other Polycom and even some of the
Cisco's and grand streams that have
Grant streams and gallant phones that
have pass throughs they can create
problems on your network if you have too
many devices using the pass-through and
or don't have the right routers and
switches in place to handle the
bottlenecking
and the filtration of the traffic that's
being that's being hit with the
pass-through so anyways on the phone the
cost of the phone is approximately about
125 to 135 dollars resale one of the
reasons that we like this phone and a
lot of customers like this phone is
because this boat is one of the main
phones that most all of the service
providers that I know of that we work
with will actually offer as one of the
free phones including an included in a
plan or a new agreement
examples are Vantage business Nextiva on
simp RingCentral 8x8 the list goes on
and on and on this is an extremely
popular phone which is why this review
is way overdue we recently actually had
a company that we worked with that
decided to choose Vonage business um and
worked with us that we got this phone
for free included in an agreement for 97
seats
97 phones I'm sorry 79 phones for on
this particular person with this they
had 79 of these and then two separate
yelling conference phones that were you
know the whole what we call the starfish
dealio that were shaped like a star but
sit on the conference table so and so
far nobody has complained they really
like this phone let's get into some of
the cons of this phone and then we're
gonna wrap this review up I won't lie
honestly couldn't come up with mini cons
with his phone here's why it's got a
color LCD screen that's backlit which is
it's becoming more common with phones
but it wasn't common in the previous
Polycom phones like my baby my BB X 300
that I have that's only about three and
a half four years old it is a backlit
screen but it's not a color LCD screen
it's an old like you know liquid crystal
LCD screen but it is backlit so I can
use it at night and things like that
this phone which is newer than mine
actually has full color LCD and backlit
so that's a plus
the other thing was the backlit keys are
really good not too much the only thing
that I could think of that as a
legitimate con for this phone is it
doesn't have Bluetooth wireless
capability I have had some people that
have contacted me looking for this phone
for a provider that supports it as well
saying hey we also want to use
hands-free with Bluetooth or something
and once they say that unfortunately
unless they're like just kind of already
sold on Polycom and they're like no I
want Polycom we typically look at
something like yeah link because the
yelling phones have a very very strong
capability they have very strong feature
sets that cater to not only people that
want to use Bluetooth headsets or hands
Bluetooth compatible hands-free devices
but they have very strong capability
when it comes to also people that want
to connect an IP phone Wireless like
they can't get a wire in a certain area
or something like that so that's one of
the biggest cons about this phone is I
couldn't find anything that specified
that this phone supported any type of
bluetooth pairing for a hands-free
device or Bluetooth accessory keep in
mind some of the other Polycom models do
but not this one unfortunately so let's
see here oh that's one of the other cons
for this phone it's the only other con
that I could come up with this with this
phone now this is important for those of
you who are watching that are thinking
okay I like this phone but I want it
with the provider don't worry if you
come to somebody like me and you look to
try to get the phone subsidized through
a service provider for new service or
you're switching service to a carrier
that offers this phone like a bondage
business Nextiva or unsafe they will
typically always include the power
supply for this phone if you're somebody
who is watching this and you
you already have a voice over IP phone
system through your provider and you
just want this phone you don't need
service typically anywhere that you go
to get this phone they do not sell the
phone with the power supply that you
plug into the wall to give it power
included with the phone so keep that in
mind I don't want any of you to go to
some of the links enough supply below
because below I'm gonna put some Amazon
links to this phone new and also this
throne certified refurbished for those
of you who already have a service
provider who are happy with who you have
and you don't need new service and you
just want to buy the phones keep in mind
both of the links it does not include
the power supply I have also included a
separate link below this video for the
power supply for this phone as well so
just remember that if you buy this phone
outside of a carrier it will not have a
power supply it's always separate but
luckily the power supply usually ranges
for five from five to ten bucks or
something like that on Amazon or
third-party sources so again this is a
full review of the Polycom vbs2 50 we
think it's a great phone we have
literally had dozens and dozens of
customers us nationwide contact us and
say hey prince can you help me find a
new voice over IP phone system or the
best voice over IP provider for our
company and when we lay out the phone
options with set provider I would say
that about 70% of the time people go
into this vote because a it's a really
great phone it's got great features at
the time of this video it's the cream of
the crop it's one of the newer Polycom
phones and most of the carrier's offer
it for free at no extra charge no matter
how many you need with the new account
or contract agreement so if you're
looking for service remember prince rich
I'm your go-to guy for the best deals on
business phone and internet service in
the United States I'll catch you guys
again in the next video