The Magic Jack: Does it Work?

You can't flip a channel these days without seeing an ad for the Magic Jack, a device that you plug into your computer and use for making calls to phones anywhere in the United States. At $20 a year, the device is affordable enough, and with monthly utilities rising everywhere, saving a few bucks is a welcome thing. We thought so, too, and bought one after only a couple of months of being bombarded with advertisements about it. To use it, you need a DSL (high speed) internet connection and a USB port to plug the MagicJack into. You can plug a phone into the MagicJack and use it that way, or use your computer's microphone and speakers.

The device seems to work fairly well, although not consistenly enough that we are ready to dump the land line completely yet. We had problems with calls being dropped after just a few minutes (strangely enough, the same time period every time, making us wonder if the developers of the MagicJack built in some sort of time limit to keep traffic moving online.) But after a couple of conversations with their tech support and a few tweaks to system settings, we were up and running quite nicely with few issues.

One feature we like is the local phone number. We were able to pick a phone number from a list and give that to friends and family who have been able to use the number to call us. There is also a very handy voice mail feature that sends the recorded voice message to your email inbox as an attachment. We found it works much better with the computer than with a phone, generally, and trying to connect it to a cordless phone system was not very effective. You can hook up a headset like you would use with Skype and have a nice private phone conversation. So we have pretty much limited ourselves to sitting at the computer for phone calls. But if you like the savings (and we do) it's not a bad deal. The sound quality is VERY good, too.

That being said, there are still a few drawbacks. No caller ID, for one. When you call someone using a MagicJack, they can only see your phone number, without a name. This can mean missed calls if the number isn't recognized. And not being able to pick up a cordless phone and walk around while you talk is a hardship to some. Several people have complained that the MagicJack blocks calls to conference call numbers as well, so that's something to watch for if you use it for business.