TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter is designed to help you understand the many hardware options available for Skype. Many of these devices might not be available in your country, so the intention is to show you various types of devices and their basic features so that you can understand what these devices could do for you, and then you can set out and find one or more that are available in your part of the world. We have provided some basic information to help you understand the characteristics of these devices user level, supported operating systems, approximate cost, where to get more information, and a basic feature list. Most if not all of these devices currently support only Microsoft Windows operating systems, but several vendors have told us they are planning versions for Apple in the future, and one vendor has told us they are looking at a Linux version as well.
Many of the inquiries we have received over the past year have related to whether a particular device is easy to install, what it costs, and whether there is a version for the Mac or Linux. So we have compiled these items to give you a quick idea about each product. The User Level category is designed to tell you the level of difficulty involved for the user; Basic is for any home user who is not a Skype guru, Intermediate is for users who are more literate with Skype and might need some additional configuration, and...
