Phoneset model support for 8.0SP3?

[dg]

Hi folks -
We're running 3300 CXII's with Release level: 8.0 SP3 PR1. All our current phonesets are 5330/40's, many with DECT handsets. When looking to purchase more, I'm finding the phones really cheap, but the DECT sets around $400(!). I've seen 6930/40's with the bluetooth handsets fairly cheap as well. From what I can gather, it appears that 8.0 SP3 supports the 68/6900 series phones. Is that right?

Also, is there any particularly compelling reason to upgrade to 9.x? I think our configuration is fairly simple - just 130 or so extensions, some ring groups/pickup groups, and a MAS VM server. Nothing complicated.

Thanks for the advice.
-dg

[BlackSunshine]

Yes....8.0 SP3 is good with 6900 series phones.  I personally think the audio is much better than 5300 series phones.  The DECT headset and Bluetooth handset are much easier to install than the 5300 series.  As for going to 9.0 software ....JMO I wouldn’t upgrade unless I needed the Whitelist/Blacklist feature.  We have yet to upgrade any of our 3300’s to 9.0.

[acejavelin]

Just an FYI... The 5300 series DECT cordless handsets have been manufacturer discontinued for quite a while now, but are still in demand... Thus the high price.

The 6900 series are pretty good phones, and look better... I don't know if I would agree with BlackSunshine that the audio quality isn't as good, at least via the handset.

9.0 software I am still iffy on. We upgraded our in-house bench system and it's been working fine, but have been hesitant to upgrade any customers mostly because 90% of ours are going to need new hardware (mostly RAM, but several new physical platforms entirely).  Remember with your controller you will likely need to upgrade to 1GB of RAM unless you recently had it installed (in the last year or so).

[VinceWhirlwind]

I'd recommend going with 6930s rather than 6920s. We've had a lot of returns with the 6920s and the price difference is minimal.
It's well worth going with 6930s instead of buying old 5330s, as the newer ones are cheaper and way better.
 
With the upgrade of physical controllers to v9, we ended up with a process of building a new one on a spare HDD on a spare chassis back at HQ then sending out and replacing the HDD with v9 on it at the same time as the RAM then restoring from backup.
The direct upgrade process otherwise was very time consuming and didn't really work, and you don't know it isn't working for a couple of hours each try.

[Ronan]

53XX series DECT handsets/headsets are indeed not available anymore from our resellers (including Mitel itself).

For my team we have bought 6940s to test them (we had 5360s before) and they're very nice. The audio quality is better, with MOH on the loudspeaker you can't even compare, it's night and day. We have recently upgraded to 8.0 SP3.

One downside is that there are no application yet for the phones.

I would love to upgrade to 9 if only for the blacklist feature, however that would mean replacing a lot of old hardware, and probably going virtual for many, and ditching the E1s for SIP trunks, so it's a big project for us.

[dg]

Thanks you all. I'll get a couple 6930/40 to check them out!
-dg

[NEPhoneGuy]

I like the 6930/6940 phones. At the very least, the 6930 comes with bluetooth which is pretty neato.

We had a bunch of 69xx phones the last half of last year and the first part of this year that had bad hook switches out of the box or within a few days of deployment but I think they sorted that out.

Thanks you all. I'll get a couple 6930/40 to check them out!
-dg