SlashGear JapanHome phone design is lamentable. Yes, there are a few exceptions – Bang & Olufsen, I’m drooling at you – but in general the humble PSTN handset is the dreary cousin to the glittering, posing cellphone. What’s surprising is the number of manufacturers whose different departments churn out both cellular and land-line phones, but across that great corporate divide the DNA never seems to travel. Well, Panasonic have finally decided to change all that; hence their latest handset – a WiFi Skype phone in fact – looks very similar to the company’s mobile range.
I’m a hard-sell when it comes to VoIP handsets, in fact some might say I was just plain picky. I can’t see the point of anything that has to be plugged in to a USB port (unless you’ve got a server at home, would you really want to leave your PC on all the time on the off-chance that you want to make a call?) and I want as much of the software functionality available from the handset itself without having to go to a computer to set it up. Well, NETGEAR have met my arduous demands and actually gone a bit further; their SPH200D works both with Skype and your PSTN landline, allowing calls to and from both to be managed simultaneously.
Here’s something I’d give space on my desk to – it’s a dual-mode PSTN and Skype VOIP phone, with a poseable Day of the Triffids 320×240 resolution, 30fps VGA webcam to let your friends see your pretty face while you talk to them. 
