asterisk users - Jun 2012 - Administering phones

I'm new to asterisk, currently working through Asterisk, The Definitive
Guide.  I have a couple Grandstream 200 phones and a Polycom 501 to play with. 
The Grandstreams were very easy to configure, but the more capable Polycom
almost drove me crazy.  There is so much conflicting information on the web
about necessary config files and names of those files.  Anyway, all my phones
are now working on a basic level, but it occurs to me that once spend a lot of
time learning Asterisk, I might then have to spend an equal amount of time
figuring out how to configure the phones.  The polycom phone, for example, has
very large configuration files with a myriad of options.  The manual for this
phone alone is over 300 pages.

So my questions are, what phones do you recommend, are there recommended sources
for training on said phones, or in general, what advice do you have for
configuring phones the phones themselves?

And a related question, we currently use 3Com NBX system where everything is
configured via a gui, phones and all.  I don't yet know if I will want to
run asterisk with a GUI, but if I do, are there any options for configuring
phones through a GUI?

Thanks much

Richard Hiers
Director of IT Services
Covenant Theological Seminary


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I highly recommend Yealink phones. They have variety of choices - from basic to
video phones. Easy to configure manually via web ui and also supports auto
provisioning.

Price wise quite affordable. We currently deploy those phones in our asterisk
projects. From office Pbx to call centers.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 9, 2012, at 3:56 AM, "Hiers, Richard" <Richard.Hiers at
covenantseminary.edu> wrote:
> I?m new to asterisk, currently working through Asterisk, The Definitive
Guide.  I have a couple Grandstream 200 phones and a Polycom 501 to play with. 
The Grandstreams were very easy to configure, but the more capable Polycom
almost drove me crazy.  There is so much conflicting information on the web
about necessary config files and names of those files.  Anyway, all my phones
are now working on a basic level, but it occurs to me that once spend a lot of
time learning Asterisk, I might then have to spend an equal amount of time
figuring out how to configure the phones.  The polycom phone, for example, has
very large configuration files with a myriad of options.  The manual for this
phone alone is over 300 pages.
>  
> So my questions are, what phones do you recommend, are there recommended
sources for training on said phones, or in general, what advice do you have for
configuring phones the phones themselves?
>  
> And a related question, we currently use 3Com NBX system where everything
is configured via a gui, phones and all.  I don?t yet know if I will want to run
asterisk with a GUI, but if I do, are there any options for configuring phones
through a GUI?
>  
> Thanks much
>  
> Richard Hiers
> Director of IT Services
> Covenant Theological Seminary
> 
>  
> --
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