Cingular Go Phone: Polycom SoundStation Premier EX Review

Polycom makes a full range of conference room phones, and the Soundstation Premier is their best phone. If your needs don't justify the price of the best, then consider the plain, old Soundstation (sans Premier). Or if you have special Voice over IP needs, then check out their seperate Soundpoint IP and Soundstation IP product lines.
Are you wondering what makes the Soundstation Premier the best? Let me explain. This system uses any where from 3 to 6 mics; 3 mics are built into the base station, and depending on your configuration you can add 2 extension mics plus a remote mic. What is special is that the unit only uses one mic at a time by sensing which mic is picking up the best sound; this avoids that hollow, echo sounds that you've heard many times before on speakerphone calls.
The system also features noise canceling circuitry, so many background noises are removed. Plus it is expandable with additional mics, a remote lapel mic, and even a remote speaker station. There are other niceities including an LCD display on the base unit, but in my opinion the reason to spend the extra dollars in this unit is the quality of sound. Simply put, it is spectacular.
There are a few different Premier models, each one uses the same basic base unit. The Premier EX is expandable with additional mics, and the Premier is not, so plan accordingly. Select the unit most appropriate for your conference room setting (their web site has very nice guidelines on it). In my experience, the base unit is adequate for most 8-12 person conference rooms, and larger rooms require the extension mics. I have never used the remote lapel mic or the remote speaker setup.

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Product Description:
Meet your executive teleconferencing needs with the full-duplex Polycom SoundStation Premier EX. This model has two microphone ports for extra coverage with optional microphones, ideal for very large rooms and situations demanding the highest audio quality. With conventional, half-duplex speakerphones, only one party can speak at a time without clipping off the other party's voice. Echoes and howling can further disrupt your conversations and lead to costly misunderstandings. But because of the SoundStation Premier's full-duplex operation, you can speak naturally and hear both sides of the conversation clearly.
The Premier EX ensures the highest sound quality with three microphones and a digitally-tuned speaker for 360-degree coverage of an office or conference room. Polycom's Acoustic Clarity Technology uses digital signal processing with analog telephone lines to eliminate the clipping and fading that plague most speakerphones.
This technology improves speaker and microphone performance over the full bandwidth of the telephone line--300 Hz to 3,500 Hz. Other features that boost sound quality include dynamic telephone-line echo cancellation, dynamic room-echo cancellation, signal depression, microphone switching, and digital filtering of voice signals. The Premier EX model also features a separate echo canceler for each of its three console mics, optimized local speech quality, and sub-band echo cancellation for incredible stability, even at maximum volume.
The SoundStation Premier EX now also comes with a Palm OS software interface, called the SoundStation Premier Dialer. This enables you to access and dial phone numbers directly from the contact-manager database within a Palm OS handheld computer (from Palm, Handspring, TRG, IBM, and Sony). The Palm handheld also functions as a remote control, allowing you to control all SoundStation features directly from the Palm handheld.
The Premier EX has a full alphanumeric keypad for dialing with a mute button and flash key to access functions like hold, conference, and transfer. Other phone features include caller ID, a speed dial, and a 20-digit redial. View call information on the 16-character LCD. Access phone and conference settings with the full-function infrared remote control.
The Premier works with any analog phone system or with an adapter (sold separately) for digital phone systems. It comes with a wall module, 25-foot power cable, 7-foot telephone cable, and a one-year warranty.