Biscotti TV Phone Review

Video phones were supposed to be the future. Instead, it's taken until just the past couple of years for a company like Apple to bring us FaceTime. And of course that's not the first videoconferencing system to hit consumers, but it seemed to be one of the first systems designed with ease of use in mind. Now we've got the Biscotti TV Phone. What's different about Biscotti, aside from it being named after an Italian cookie, is that it aims to use your TV as your video phone.  By passing HDMI video through the phone, it acts as a sort of overlay so that you can take and receive calls at-will - and on the big screen of your television to boot. We got hold of the Biscotti TV and gave it a run-through to see if it was truly the next evolution of the videophone. Really, we wanted to see if it was revolutionary or just "nifty".

The Biscotti costs around $149, which is $50 less than when it debuted. It's a different take on the video phone because it doesn't need a Mac or PC to work. There's no software to install, and it's designed to work with your television without any additional inputs needed or anything other than an HDMI-enabled display and power.

Features and Setup

The slim, rounded Biscotti TV Phone is tinier than we would have thought. It's a scant 6" wide and only about an inch deep and 3/4" tall. That means that it can fit atop even the flattest TVs... well, nearly all of them anyway. Those with very thin decorative surrounds under 1/2" in depth might cause you to necessarily mount the Biscotti underneath the television. The unit also only weighs 1-1/2 ounces, so you'll want to secure it using the included sticky pads to ensure that the tension of the HDMI cable won't pull it off the top of the TV. On the left side of the Biscotti is the IR sensor for the included remote and the right side sports a light to let you know it's on. The webcam Biscotti uses is a 5 megapixel variety that takes sharp, clean images in well-lit rooms. As we alluded to above, the back contains just one HDMI input, one HDMI output and a DC power connector for the power supply. It's simple... by design.

The remote is small, close to "credit card" style, and has just 6 buttons. There are four navigation buttons which surround a center button and there's also a yellow Biscotti "back" button that gets you out of whatever sub-menu you are in. It also activates the Biscotti call menu when you're watching TV.

There's not much involved in setting up the Biscotti TV Phone, you just power it from any output, connect the output of the Biscotti to your TV's HDMI input, and then connect your source (like your DISH DVR, cable box, etc) to the Biscotti's HDMI input. After that you can follow the on-screen setup to get the system tied into your wireless network and set up your account with a user ID and password as well as a photo. Entering text is easy and quick, but the remote's buttons lack a clear tactile response, so it's easy to hit the wrong button... and then have to go to the bottom of the screen to hit the Backspace button. A bit of a pain overall, but you only have to do it once, so it's not a big deal.

About the only real potential hangup is that Biscotti doesn't include an HDMI cable - which you need if you're going to connect it the optimal way they recommend (and so you don't have to change inputs on your TV to answer the phone). Given that short HDMI cables only run around $5 or less these days (retail), it's surprising that a $150 product that needs it doesn't include one.

Using the System

If we say anything at all it will be that Biscotti really designed their system to be intuitive for just about any kind of user. After using it, we could easily see sending this to family members as a simplified way to keep in touch. Since the setup is so simple and you don't require anything beyond a wireless network (no PC or Mac) it makes it really easy to video chat with anyone, anywhere. Biscotti lets you easily store contacts, keeps a call history, and makes it simple to change your preferences through the settings menu. Everything is big, easy to read, and clearly labeled.

Making a call is easy as hitting the yellow Biscotti Bar on the remote, highlighting a name from your contacts list, and hitting the center button on the remote. I'm not going to expand on that because it really is that simple.

But you can do more if you want, like configure the system to auto-answer from selected people on your contact list. The Biscotti can even adjust the camera to better capture where you are in the room. It does this through the use of digital pan, tilt and zoom. With 5 megapixels, the Biscotti camera has more than enough resolution to frame you in the image perfectly so you don't have to adjust to the camera - it adjusts to you. We used it from about 9 feet away and the audio on our calls was pretty clear according to the person on the receiving end. The camera image wasn't bad either, though if there wasn't enough light there could be significant grain. Frame rates were decent with some pixelation, but nothing that really distracted us from the call. We loved the wide-angle image that was perfect for revealing an entire family as opposed to the close-up camera views we're used to seeing on laptops and smart phones.

In addition to calling Biscotti user, you can also call people who have Google Talk accounts. That means that you can hit up those of your friends who have Google Talk on their iOS and Android phones. It's profound because it opens up the system to non-Biscotti owners, a feature that we found to be very helpful and welcome. Most of our test calls to Google Talk accounts ended up being a lot more pixelated due to lower frame rates and higher compression (we're guessing). Sometimes they crashed, but that's mobile phone tech for you. In either case the experience with peer-to-peer Biscotti users is clearly superior.

Conclusion

With mobile phones increasingly offering ways to do video calls, Biscotti is hitting a difficult market - but they have a niche. While you can argue that it's an expensive TV Phone, it produces a decent picture and makes video calls easy. Super easy. Easy enough for your grandmother to make - and easy enough for your grandfather to set up. That's worth a lot and we think Biscotti knows it. It's hard to put a price on having your family be able to both see and talk to each other from around the country. I don't think $149 is too much for that kind of connectivity. If this describes you, then pick one up and get connected.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.