 Review by g0nepostal 
UPDATED: 289 days ago
member for 8.6 years, 2036 visits, last login: 4 days ago
 Concord,Contra Costa,CA
 $2 per month (12 month contract)
 about 4 days
 "Lives up to the hype; service is beyond cheap and is reliable."
 "Website is difficult to navigate."
 "Not a bad alternative to a landline, if you don't mind leaving your PC on."
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(ratings match consensus)
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Full disclosure: My mom gets the credit for getting my family hooked on the magicJack. This review is dedicated to her. Hi Mom!
My mom saw the ads for the magicJack and asked me to get one to try out, so I did. After placing the order through the magicJack website I received the first (of 3!) magicJacks I own. Once I received that first magicJack I plugged it into my laptop, ran through the setup, selected a number in my area code (925) and then connected a regular, plain ol' cordless phone to try it out.
Lo and behold, a dial tone! I then placed my first test call, to my home landline. Despite having to do 10 digit dialing (even when calling in the same area code, magicJack dialing requires that you dial the area code as well as the number), the call went through without any problems.
Voice quality was (and is) excellent. Needless to say I was stoked.
Now, several months (and countless phone calls) later, that first magicJack is connected to my mom's PC in Nicaragua, and we use it to call my parents down there using a local (to us) number. My parents use it to call us as well (duh!), and it still freaks me out to see their area code 925-based number on the caller ID while knowing that they are so far away. Voice quality during the calls is great, despite my mom's magicJack being behind two NAT-based routers as well as a firewall.
Since getting that first magicJack I have also obtained two more, which are connected to my own and to my brother's PCs. These are mostly used for daytime calling so we don't burn through our cell phone minutes.
The above uses (international long distance, daytime calling to save cell phone minutes and on long distance charges) are the ones for which the magicJack appears to be the best suited. Since magicJacks require the computer to which they are connected to be on for them to work, I cannot recommend them for use as your main telephone; computers do freeze up and are not reliable enough to count on during a time of emergency. Not to mention the fact that any telephone connected to a magicJack will be dead during a power outage.
That said, there is no denying the fact that not having to pay international long distance call rates (in either direction) and not having to burn up my cell phone minutes MORE than justifies the $20/year price tag for the magicJack.
Note that the $20/year charge is what it costs for unlimited long distance calling within the United States and Canada. If you want to call other countries you can pre-buy calling time in $5, $10, or $20 blocks through the magicJack website; the per-minute international rates from magicJack are also very low. Hence you do get good value for your long distance dollar.
One really annoying thing about magicJacks is the fact that their software (the soft phone) pops up on the desktop every time a call is placed or received. It would be a great improvement on the software if it could simply be made to remain minimized in the System Tray. I understand that a large reason for the soft phone popping up is to display ads, but so far the only entity I've seen advertise through the soft phone window is magicJack itself. Hence a permanently minimized soft phone is something I fervently hope will be implemented in the future.
Another negative is the magicJack website. It can be hard to use to administer your account, and the layout of the site is not very intuitive - it seems to be geared more toward signing up new customers than to helping existing customers do their own support. This too is something that could (and should) be fixed in the future.
Short version: The magicJack does live up to the hype, if you don't mind doing your own tech support, don't intend to use it as your main line, and don't mind leaving your PC on.
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