MagicJack Plus & MagicJack Review: Is It Right for You?

Did the Affordable Home Phone Service Offered by Magic Jack Put a Spell on You?

Let me guess, you were up late at night, saw that MagicJack infomercial at 2 am, and thought; now that looks like an affordable home phone service I’ve just got to find out more about. After all that infomercial for the MagicJack sure made it look like the most affordable home phone service to hit the market in years, with a price of only $19.95 per year for all the USA and Canada long distance clear calls you could ask for and a onetime fee of $39.95 for the MagicJack USB device ($74.95 for the MagicJack Plus device), who could resist? I for one could not resist, which is why I have been a Magic Jack customer for almost a year now, and so far (knock on wood) I have not had any problems at all with the phone service.

Now I have done quite a bit of research on the MagicJack and MagicJack Plus, so I know that others have had some kind of problem here and there, but as I researched I found that as long as you do your homework, you shouldn't have any technical problems with the Magic Jack phone service at all so I would think it’s safe to say that the same would go for MagicJack Plus. Based on my own research (quite a bit of reading, and video reviews of the MagicJack Plus ) I imagine that the Magic Jack Plus will work perfectly and will be the best money I have spent in a while when I order it as I am renewing my yearly subscription.

As for Magic Jack customer service, I have found in my research that they could use quite a bit of improvement in that department. Though there is a good possibility that MagicJack may be working on improving customer service, as the video reviews for the Magic Jack Plus of the not so tech savvy customers managed to get their MagicJack Plus up and running pretty quickly and the customers have been approving of the Magic Jack phone service, and the call quality for the MagicJack Plus ever since.

Now before you start in on me about making you do homework, I got all the information on the MagicJack and MagicJack Plus right here for you so you won’t have to go searching through all the junk on the Internet just to find out if MagicJack or MagicJack Plus would be the right affordable home phone service for you.

So How Do You Know if Magic Jack or MagicJack Plus is the Right Affordable Home Phone Service for You?

If you want all the USA and Canada long distance clear calls you could dream of for only $19.95 a year, you are going to have to meet the requirements, which are for the most part the requirements that are marked on the MagicJack package, plus a few not mentioned, that I found out about through my research and experimentation (trying my MagicJack on a basic dual processor, Windows Vista, 5 year old laptop, and my mom’s satellite Internet Connection) that affect your call quality and how the program works with your computer.

As MagicJack and MagicJack Plus are a VoIP service, the most obvious requirement is to have a high-speed Internet connection such as broadband, DSL, cable Internet, WI-FI or Wi-Max. If you have a satellite Internet connection your call quality could suffer as satellite signals can easily be interrupted and can cause your calls to break up, but in case you didn't know, that is how it is for any VoIP service. Just in case you wanted to know the difference between MagicJack and the other VoIP services like Skype, or Vonage, it is the fact that MagicJack is phone to phone and phone to PC calling to anywhere in the USA and Canada for a yearly price of $19.95 and the onetime cost of the MagicJack / MagicJack Plus USB device, where as Skype charges you extra for phone to PC calls or vice versa, and Vonage charges you $9.95 per month making MagicJack a much better buy overall.

As the next couple of requirements are based on your computers capabilities, I should first tell you about the difference between MagicJack and MagicJack Plus for the fact that MagicJack Plus has eliminated the need for your computer to be on in order to make and receive calls by having its own little processor to process the task of making and receiving calls. So with the MagicJack Plus all you need is an Ethernet cord (I believe is included in the package along with the power adapter, software and USB extension, which isn't really needed, but is nice to have), modem connected to a high-speed Internet connection, and a telephone.

The basic MagicJack, which is what I currently have, requires your computer to be on in order to receive and make calls as the USB device uses your computer to process the task of receiving and making calls. With that said, it is only obvious why the requirement of having a computer that runs on Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7 / Apple / Mac is needed for the basic MagicJack. However, the makers of MagicJack forget to mention that the better processor you have in your computer the better call quality you will have with the basic MagicJack, especially if you want to do other tasks on the computer while talking on the phone. I never had a problem with this requirement as the computer I run my basic magicJack on is a lightweight programmer / gamers set up with an AMD 6 core processor.

With MagicJack and Magic Jack Plus, if you lose your Internet connection, you will also lose your phone service, which is why I think a requirement for both the Magic Jack and Magic Jack Plus, is to have a minimum understanding of your home network. As there will be times, mainly when you have power outages, that you will need to reset or reboot your modem and router to clear up Internet connection problems. Keep in mind that the amount of bandwidth you use of your Internet connection speed can also affect your call quality. If you have a Magic Jack and your kids are downloading songs, watching a Netflix movie on the Wii, and your spouse is surfing online, watching YouTube or Veoh then your call quality will likely be bad.

Just a little tip: You can address power outage issues by plugging your modem / Wi-Fi router into a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). Depending on the UPS you buy, you could have roughly an hour of back-up power, which covers most of the short power outages.

Now that you know the requirements needed for both the basic MagicJack and the Magic Jack Plus just ask yourself these few questions and you will know whether MagicJack is the affordable home phone service right for you:

1. Do you meet the Internet connection capabilities required for using the Magic Jack problem free?

2. Do you meet the computer capabilities required for using the basic MagicJack problem free?

3. If your computer doesn’t have a decent processor (at least an AMD or Intel 3GHz or higher) are you willing to pay the $74.95 for the MagicJack Plus USB device and get your first year of service free?

4. Do you want an affordable home phone service that gives you voicemail, caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, your own phone number, unlimited free calling within the USA and Canada, and be able to use your own phone number anywhere in the world with free international calls to the USA & Canada, all for the cost of the MagicJack USB device, $39.95 for the basic MagicJack or $74.95 for MagicJack Plus and first year of free phone service, then only $19.95 for home phone service after the first year?

If you answered yes to all of the questions above then MagicJack or MagicJack Plus is the affordable home phone service you are looking for.

Copyright © 2/2/2012 by A.K. Love (dragnhaze)

What's Your Thought?

Do you have the MagicJack or the MagicJack Plus? If so, please let others know what you think of the phone services MagicJack provides in the comments section down below.

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