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COMPRO EZfone
Reviewed by Sim Kian Ann
Date: 3rd November 1999


- Other reviews

Communication has become an important part of our life, both in the business and also keeping in touch with friends and family (especially if you're studying abroad). If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend studying aborad you will probably spent a bomb on your telephone bill every month. With the pre-established network from the ISP, it is natural to think that it will be cheaper if we can carry our voice data in the internet rather than a dedicated phone line. And there it is a Internet Phone Connection Kit COMPRO™ EZfone™. This clearly defines the meaning of "talking to the world without paying a bomb".

ACS Innovations International is a Singapore-based company with primary business interest in the manufacturing and assembly of personal computers and peripheral products for distribution in the global market. Established in 1983, ACS has since developed its research and development capabilities to stay ahead of competition through innovation and wide product base. ACS operates worldwide with sales and marketing offices in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan and the USA. It has manufacturing facilities in Singapore and Switzerland. 

First Impressions
This is an ISA card which come as a surprise as ISA cards are fast becoming obsolete. In addition, I have heard that ISA cards take up more CPU resources as compared to the PCI interface. I believe for future compatibility purposes, it is still better to have a PCI card instead.

The COMPRO EZfone™ package feels light. The product packaging is quite nice but there is nothing really special about it. This didn't come as a surprise to me since Compro products usually do not have very attractive packaging. However, the product inside is usually well worth its cost. Anyway, I believe they ought to spend a little bit more effort on the packaging as that will definitely improve its impact on consumers like us.

The manual is thin and is quite sufficient. As the card is fully Plug and Play, there is not a need to configure any other settings.

Without much ado, let's see if the COMPRO EZfone™ can prove itself as a great product!

COMPRO™ EZfone™ Specifications
Manufacturer Compro
ITU Compliant H.323 Compliant *
Audio Compression scheme G.723 Codec Compliant *
DSP On board 40MIPS DSP for Audio compression
Audio Capability Full duplex Audio with echo cancellation
Speaker Mic in and speaker out for speaker phone operation
Phone Jack support 1 telephone and 2 phone line
Phone Supported  PABX and Mobile phone, normal phone
Network Supported Dial up lease line, ISDN, ADSL, Cable connection

*Ezfone is H.323 compliant and uses the G.723.1 audio compression scheme. It will talk to other  products that supports H.323 standard. For example, Ezfone can talk to Microsoft NetMeeting users logged onto the Internet. Simply connect to the Netmeeting user by dialing the IP address of the NetMeeting.

These are the contents of the package:    These are the utilities & software 
that are given on the installation CD: 
  • COMPRO™ EZfone™ Adaptor
  • Application software
  • User Guide 
 
  • COMPRO™ EZfone™ drivers
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader

The Installation

The installation was a breeze. Nothing could be simpler than plugging it in and installing the necessary drivers. With just a click of the mouse button to reboot the system the installation was done. Upon rebooting, the EZfone software will automatically start.


Picture of the Ezfone

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The Good

The COMPRO™ EZfone™ enables users to take advantage of the Internet for making international phone calls. The user can literally save a bundle since the cost of internet is a lot lower than most international phone call. If you're a frequent caller to other countries, your savings can amount to as much as 95%.

Using the EZfone was very easy. In fact, it is really easy to make phone calls with the EZfone as you do not need to setup your softwares, attaching the microphone to your soundcard, adjusting your PC speakers. All you need to do is directly dial with your regular or cordless phone. It is as simple as that, all without the need to touch the PC. I suppose this is great for those without any PC knowledge (my mom will love this!). In addition, it is much more natural to use a regular telephone to make Internet calls. I think talking to someone else using a headphone and a PC microphone is quite silly looking. It looked as though the user is a phone operator.

The process of establishing a line with the other party is fully automated. If the receiving party has an EZfone™ installed, all you need to do is dial and talk to the receiving party first in order to setup the internet phone connection. After that, you just have to press the # key on your phone and both the PCs will automatically dial into their respective Internet Service Provider (ISP) in order to establish an internet connection. Once the connection is successful, both parties will be alerted to pick up the phone for a chat without the need to worry about the impending phone bills. If both parties are always online, all you have to do is dial the receiving party's phone number and followed by the # key to establish the internet phone call, almost immediately.

If only one party have EZfone™ installed, there's still a way out. There are gateways which you can call to connect you directly to the other person's phone line. Check out their support site at http://www.ezfone.com/ for full details on using these gateways. If you are using the gateways, be prepared to pay a small fee for connection usage.

Here are the minimum system requirements for using the EZfone :-

    1.Intel 486 or compatible CPU
    2.16MB RAM Windows 95 or Window 98
    3.Touch-tone Telephone Set
    4.Internet Connection ( modem, ISDN, fixed IP,etc)
    5.Optional : Sound card, microphone and speakers

When I look at the system specifications, it really makes me think and wonder if they're simply placed there for the fun of it. Microsoft specified that for optimum performance, Windows 98 should be run with at least 32MB RAM and at least a Pentium 166MMX machine. With that, I guess Windows 95 OSR2 (with USB support) can't be used, but in any case, I didn't try this on a Windows 95 machine.

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The Bad

Generally, there are not many bad points about this internet phone kit. In fact there are only two that I can think of right now. The voice quality is generally good but it is still dependent on the performance of the network. For example, the earthquake in Taiwan disrupted the internet service between Singapore and Taiwan, thus, if too much depency for critical business lie on this product, it will not be too good. This means that the voice quality can deteriorate if you have a slow internet connection. The next thing is that this card is based on the ISA slot which may be phasing out soon with the PC99 specifications coming into place. Hopefully, COMPRO™ will replace with a PCI bus card soon.

Moreover, their support website http://www.ezfone.com is really slow. I hope Compro would do something to improve the web access speed since most users would need some form of help in setting up the card and gathering info about using the card with different gateways.

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Test System Configuration

Test System Configuration
Processor(s) Intel Pentium II 450MHz
Ram 64MB 100MHz Micron 10ns SDRAM
Motherboard Abit BH6
HardDrive(s) IBM Deskstar-5 4.3GB
Operating System MS Windows 98 Build 4.10
DirectX Version MS DirectX Version 6.1
Video Card(s) Aopen AGP PA3020 32MB SDRAM


Conclusion

This is definitely an innovative product and is a good and commendable effort by Compro to break into the telephony industry. However, I think it still have the latent trait of internet telephony which is the dependency of the network quality and performance. I think it is also very crucial that COMPRO™ change this product to a PCI bus based product.

But again I think that COMPRO™ could further improve it by including remote access capability, and maybe manufacture a PCMCIA or a compact Flash equivalent to ride on the wave of mobile computing. With internet video conferencing becoming more popular these days, COMPRO™ could attract more attention by packaging an additional Digital Video Camera to produce a total internet video conferencing solution.

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COMPRO™ EZfone™ Rating
Overall Rating
(Out of a maximum of 5 Star)
Installation *****
Performance ***
Price ****
Software Bundle ***
Material Quality ***
Overall Rating ***

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