Vonage launches V-Phone portable landline

Company calls it the world's smallest phone

5 October 2006 12:47 GMT / By Amber Maitland

Vonage has launched what it calls the world’s smallest landline phone, the V-Phone.

We were slightly baffled by the device when we first saw an image of it, but it really is quite a nifty concept. No bigger than a USB flash drive, which it is, the V-Phone plugs in to any Windows PC with a USB port and has Vonage Talk software pre-loaded so that you can use it anywhere.

Its 250MB flash drive stores all user contacts and call records, and it needs no battery as it runs off PC power.

In Vonage’s words: “It may not look like a traditional phone – be it landline or mobile, but the V-Phone does what many phones were designed to do – provide global voice communications”.

The V-Phone comes with a 2.5mm stereo earpiece microphone, and will retail for £19.99.

Vonage’s offers VoIP service for £7.99 a month and that gets you free calls to landlines across the UK, plus low-cost international and mobile rates.