Best hardware?

General Help
1

Hello everyone!

I was looking around on the freePBX site for recommendations on hardware (mostly SIP phones), but could find any. I’ve been using Thomson ST2030S for a long time but was wondering what’s the latest and hottest among hardware phones? And, most importantly, which work best with freePBX/Asterisk?

2

Polycom and Cisco = Excellent and most expensive
Astra = more price effective, good bang for the buck and easy

if remote phones come into play (NAT issues) go cisco

Personally I’ve bought nothing but polycom 331’s, 550’s and 650’, But other LOVE the astra’s, especially how easy they are to customize

3

i have not been around for long and am relatively new to the PBX world! in this short time i have worked with Aastra, Cisco and Grandstream phones. my favorite out of them all is got to be Aastra! i like their config web page, the built of the phone is solid and doesnt feel like cheap plastic (that it is)! i must say i tried to update my Aastra firmware yesterday and still did not succeed. its ridiculously hard to do or im just stupid

4

You shluld not have to do anything to update the phone it is automatic. If you are running the freepbx distro just install aastra ipphone software and xml scripts. Just make sure you set dhcp option 66 to point to the server.

You should never have to configure an aastra by hand the xml scripts do it automatically when you create an extension in FreePBX.

5

I have been around for a minute and to me it’s all-about the handset. This is what the customer has in their hands.
Aastra have a weird hook, other than that I like the Aastra.
Grandstream were the cheep phones, but they are looking better every day.
Cisco phones work, but you should stick with the SIP version.
Panasonic phones are nice, but not much support.
Digium, never had one but the word from this group is, stay away.
Snom make some nice cordless DECT phones. This is my cordless phone source.

I would think you want to stay with a phone that the end point manager can support.
Or what you have on the shelf and just make it work.

6

Thank’s a lot guys, I will definately give Aastra a go!