Polycom RealPresence Group Series

When I started at one of my jobs, they already have Lifesize VC equipment. It was nice, they worked and they were less expensive. But once we started transitioning things to Polycom it was a night/day difference. Some of our large conference rooms had audio issues that the Lifesize had trouble picking up all the voices in the rooms but that was resolved with Polycom. We also had trouble integrating the Lifesize in with other applications which was the driving force in moving to Polycom.

As far as Teams, I don't consider it a good comparison. I list it because at first, people thought of Teams as a compeditor of Polycom so there was a question of why do we need both.... Teams handles the single-person joining a meeting, Polycom is more for a conference room. I think there's a need for both and they can work together.

We have used Microsoft Teams Rooms in some of our smaller huddle rooms that still require video, and this was due to the lower cost of the Microsoft Teams Room systems over the Polycom Presence Group series. The Microsoft Teams Rooms are perfect for small, less-used rooms, as they are cheaper, but when it comes to quality, the Polycom RealPresence Group Series beats the Microsoft Teams Room by far.

Polycom Group Series was very good for what it used to do for its time, however newer technology that provides a more simpler method to configure, join and host video conference meetings has come in the form of Zoom and [Microsoft] Teams which is hard to go back from and therefore means the Polycom codecs of yesteryear are rapidly becoming phased out. The Polycom Trio is a more forward thinking technology which can be configured for the likes of Teams, Zoom and Zoom Phone and with the Poly Studio X range of codecs, this is ultimately the way forward.

Poly has outlasted other competitor's products. I have reviewed Lifesize as one alternative. Ironically, I was impressed with the overall quality over Poly, however, the product did not last as well as Poly units.

We compared Polycom against Cisco and the potential need for Skype for Business was a deciding factor.