Hi everyone

i was wondering if anyone knew the answer to this question?
i am buying a laptop tomorrow for our journey to Australia in August when our house sale completes and am going to use Skype to talk to family. i am also looking at buying a handsfree phone to use through the laptop to talk, instead of sitting in front of the computer i could then sit by the pool.
has anyone bought one of these before leaving and do they work in Australia as the phone lines are different aren't they?
any help or information would be really handy before i go to PC World in the morning.

Hi my OH did he is in Sydney and uses it all the time, i am still in UK

Skype only phones are independent of the telephone network as they either connect via USB to your computer or via WiFi to your router. Skype phones still need to be connected to the Internet - they don't work via standard phone lines.

You can get Skype phones that also double up as a normal phone and connect to a phone line as well, but the Skype only ones tend to do a better job.

If you have a WiFi router then I'd suggest the Belkin Skype phone. You can switch your computer off and just have your WiFi router on to use the phone. Range is pretty good, the phone is quite nice, only downside is the battery gives you about an hours worth of talk time before you need to recharge.

OR get a webcam & microphone set up and talk to people around the world, for free, face-to-face - it's pretty weird seeing someone on the other side of the world sat in their living room chatting away to you! But it's really good for actually being able to see their new haircut/clothes/house/pet.
Only problem is you need to have a pretty good highspeed connection for it to work well, otherwise it's all disjointed & slow.

Check out www.jajah.com
We have headsets and do chores etc while chatting.

Buy an Apple Mac Book Pro, its an excellent laptop, no virus worries and has the webcam and microphone all built in so no wires and plug in webcam every time you want to use it. Best laptop I ever bought.

Hi, we've got a dual Skype/Landline phone made by Phillips. Its got two walkabout handsets. You can choose to either dial via your normal landline or using Skype. Its been really useful (especially with how much time my OH spends talking to her sister back in blighty). I'd wait to buy until you are in Oz as the phone systems are different.

We've got a macbook with built in webcam (isight). We connect wirelessly to our network and can take out macbook where ever. I know that bluetooth headsets can connect to it but haven't used that yet.

We switched from pc to mac and are loving it. We've got our own webpage which is easy to use with iphoto and imovie so for what we are doing its great.

Hi, I've got a HP DV series laptop with a built in webcam. Use it all the time on Skype for free pc to pc visual chats. Also bought 10 euros worth of credit and use it for landline calls as well, really cheap, still got a couple of euros left after 4 months. You do need 512 minimum though to work ok, I have got 1.5 and its usually pretty good.