Product Review: Yealink SIP-T54W
BY JASON HARRIS, REVIEWS EDITOR
Yealink, the top-selling brand in the SkySwitch store, is best known for delivering high-quality voice products that are well built, sound great, and are a big value. Today we’re going to look at the Yealink SIP-T54W desk phone and see if this model delivers on the brand’s reputation.
Features
The Yealink SIP-T54W is a handsome phone unit with a colorful 4.3” color display that swivels vertically for an optimal viewing angle depending on your desk height and setup. The SIP-T54W has built-in support for Bluetooth, dual-band Wi-Fi, so you can use it without being tethered to an ethernet cable if you choose, and a USB port for call recording.
Those in a noisy office environment will really dig Yealink’s Acoustic Shield technology, which eliminates background chatter and distractions. I find it interesting that Yealink calls this a ‘corded-cordless’ model — what this means is that a dongle can be attached to the back of the phone unit, so you can pair this wired phone with a cordless headset unit in case you want to walk around your office.
Other features to highlight:
- Support for Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth connectivity for wireless headsets
- Power over Ethernet (PoE) support
- Support for up to 16 VoIP accounts
- LED for call and message waiting indication
Opening the Box and Setup
My review unit came with the expected kit: the phone base unit, the handset, cord, stand, and ethernet cable. One note — my unit didn’t come with a power supply, so if your office doesn’t have power over ethernet (PoE) set up in its network cabling, you’ll need to ensure you purchase a Yealink power supply for this phone. (This is also the case if you plan to use the Yealink SIP-T54W via WiFi in your office.)
Lastly, there’s an included plastic stand that enables you to customize the angle the phone sits on your desk. This phone model is easy to assemble and to connect to your network — it took me less than 75 seconds to get the phone physically ready to use.
If you purchase the Yealink from the SkySwitch store, it arrives already provisioned out of the box. For me, this unit came from Yealink, so I had to provision it myself. Luckily, getting the new Yealink handset online and ready to use was an easy three-step process:
- Find the MAC address using the YeaLink on-screen menus
- Add the phone to my Skyswitch Dashmanager PBX using the Yealink’s MAC address
- Setting the Yealink to use SkySwitch’s server URL in the web user interface
For the Yealink, I simply navigated to the Admin settings, set the provisioning server address to http://sipcfg.io/cfg – then, the Yealink SIP-T54W power cycled itself and the phone came back ready to use!
Let’s Check Out Performance
After a week of using the Yealink, I can say that it performs very well! The phone was easy to set up, looks very handsome on my desk and has sounded perfect in each call I’ve placed. I have used the SIP-T54W to call my SkySwitch colleagues via extensions, regular landlines and on their mobile phones in the U.S. and Canada, and each call sounded clear.
Yealink’s Acoustic Shield noise isolation technology came in handy when I had noisy office chatter in my work area; it was great at silencing the copying machine near me as well. The buttons and user interface on the 4.3” screen are a joy to use, and I easily figured out how to integrate my headset to mute and transfer calls.
I also tested out the speakerphone on the Yealink, and it performed as expected. Callers were able to hear me but not any of my background noise – but, of course, they also reported that I didn’t sound as good as when I was on the handset.
Conclusion
The Yealink SIP-T54W is an attractive, well-built, and highly functional office desk phone that will compliment your office or home office well. It delivers amazing call performance and has a set of features that’s unrivaled in the marketplace.
*Like all products Jason Harris is reviewing, this device is available in the SkySwitch store, accessible through the SkySwitch Reseller Dashboard.