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AT&T 2440 2.4 GHz Cordless Telephone (Metallic Charcoal)

AT&T 2440 2.4 GHz Cordless Telephone (Metallic Charcoal)

List Price: $169.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: As Bad As V-Tech 2431
Review: As far as I can tell, this is the same phone as the V-Tech 2431. I owned (for a short time) both phones and did not see a difference either functionally or cosmetically. I found the ATT to function similarly to the V-Tech -- very poorly.

The functionality of this phone is fantastic, with interesting features that I'd never even thought of, like the speaker on the handset. However, it has incredibly poor reception. On a conversation with the base and handset in the same room (less than 15 feet apart), I suddenly experienced terrible static. I had the same experience with a separate handset that I purchased. I also had the same experience with the V-Tech phone (at a different location within my home). I did not have this problem with 2.4GHz phones that I sampled from Uniden and IBM.

Though the features are amazing, this phone simply didn't work for me.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Horrible Telephone
Review: Don't bother with this telephone. I tried two of them with the same problem before giving up. The answering system would not work, or would take a message only some of the time. Voice quality was not what what I expected.

Frankly, I expected much more out of AT&T.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Boo Hiss
Review: Features are great, the hiss is intolerable. Returning it today. What was AT&T thinking to release this to the public?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Good Product
Review: Hi-
I just bought this phone, and like most people said there was a small, but audible, hum or static in the background. (I read this b4 but thought I might get lucky and have no static). Anyway mine did have the static, so I did some testing. First I opened it up to see if it was an antenna issue, tried connecting various antennas to the internal one- No help at all...

Then the solution! I tried holding different materials over the ear slots, and noticed the hum would go away with some materials. (The material deadened the static to where it was gone). I found that an eyeglass cleaning cloth worked well. It feels sort of like suede or felt, but I think it is made of microfiber. Anyway I cut away a few very small pieces of this and then with a very tiny screwdriver pushed the pieces into the ear microphone slots and compacted them in a bit. Voila! Sounds perfect now- just like my old 900 Mhz Panasonic that has now been retired. I love the new AT&T phone now. Great features, good looking, easy to use, handset and base speakerphone, and mute. (Its VERY surprising the panasonic elite, and the Siemens phones have no mute).

Hard to believe that AT&T engineers wouldnt have noticed and fixed this with a little sound deadening material over ther ear speaker. Anyway- I'm going to relay this info to the AT&T help line, and maybe send an email to their Corp. Headquarters.

Hope this helps people out there with this phone. Scott

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fix for Static/Hum in background
Review: Hi-
I just bought this phone, and like most people said there was a small, but audible, hum or static in the background. (I read this b4 but thought I might get lucky and have no static). Anyway mine did have the static, so I did some testing. First I opened it up to see if it was an antenna issue, tried connecting various antennas to the internal one- No help at all...

Then the solution! I tried holding different materials over the ear slots, and noticed the hum would go away with some materials. (The material deadened the static to where it was gone). I found that an eyeglass cleaning cloth worked well. It feels sort of like suede or felt, but I think it is made of microfiber. Anyway I cut away a few very small pieces of this and then with a very tiny screwdriver pushed the pieces into the ear microphone slots and compacted them in a bit. Voila! Sounds perfect now- just like my old 900 Mhz Panasonic that has now been retired. I love the new AT&T phone now. Great features, good looking, easy to use, handset and base speakerphone, and mute. (Its VERY surprising the panasonic elite, and the Siemens phones have no mute).

Hard to believe that AT&T engineers wouldnt have noticed and fixed this with a little sound deadening material over ther ear speaker. Anyway- I'm going to relay this info to the AT&T help line, and maybe send an email to their Corp. Headquarters.

Hope this helps people out there with this phone. Scott

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hmm. No buzz here cuz.
Review: I bought the 2440 over the weekend -- blind. It was exactly the phone I was looking for. I bought it to replace the Sony SPP-ID975 -- which was great save for the fact that it had an annoying habit of cutting off my conversations to switch channels. I also have a Panasonic KX-TG2440B which is great, but not loud enough nor enough features (full duplex speakerphone).

I digress, this is a review of the AT&T phone. I have not had any interference, hissing or buzz whatsoever with the AT&T phone which makes me wonder if AT&T realized the previously shipped phones had a problem. Overall, the clarity, features (hands free jack is sweet) and price make this a winner. As a matter of fact, I like it so much, I'm buying another one for work -- out of MY pocket!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: nice features, bad sound quality
Review: I bought this phone for a high price and the sound quality is very poor. I returned the first one I bought because of the hissing sound and it was already used (it had local phone numbers programmed in). The second one I got has the same hissing and static sound. It is very noticeable. Also using the microwave interferes with the reception.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Cordless Telephone Yet
Review: I had absolutely no problems right out of the box using this phone with two handsets. This phone works great first of all, and is backed up by absolute top of the line features for convience and security. Its 2.4 Ghz digital transmission is completely secure due to the use of Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) which is much more secure than DSS and much more hard to find on cheaper 2.4 GHz phones. It has Multi-handset capability, which allows this to be your only phone system you need in your house. And it has a full duplex speakerphone in the base which works amazingly well and functions as a second phone! You can even transfer calls from phone to phone or phone to base or vice versa. You can pick up calls on the base too, or place calls with its separate dial pad. I have two handsets, and keep the base in the living room where it acts like a third phone at no additional cost. Another awesome feature is that you can turn on the speaker phone on the handsets as well, so you can set the phone down while on hold! It isn't full duplex like the base, so I doubt the quality is there for a two-way conversation, but it is awesome just for one way! Other cool features are a battery backed up base (if you keep a spare battery in the base) to let the phone operate during a power outage, awesome caller id, phone number storage, a voice mail indicator on each phone and the base, a phone in use indicator on the handset (great to see if someone is on the internet), 6 unique rings, separate adjustable volumes (ring volume, earpiece volume, and speakerphone volume). And to top it all off, AT&T recently lowered the price on the phone and the handsets by twenty bucks each. So I couldn't resist, and I'm glad I didn't.

My advice is to not be disuaded by other bad reviews here for two reasons: 1) My experience with Amazon reviews are that a disproportionate number of people write negative reviews since they are the only ones motivated to do so, so don't be disuaded by the bad reviews on this phone. I've found many bad reviews written by people who failed to read the troubleshooting section of instruction manuals or call customer support prior to screaming foul. And 2) This phone manual cleary states that plugging it into the same circuit as an appliance may cause interference. This means do not plug it anywhere on the same circuit, not just the same outlet as an appliance or other source of interference (TV, radio, etc). A circuit is a series of outlets wired on the same circuit breaker, and is usually broken up by rooms in the house. So, pick a room no appliances (e.g. a bedroom). Try it, and if you don't like it, send the extra handset to me :)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great Features-Poor Sound
Review: I have a love/hate relationship with the phone. It has all the features I wanted - caller ID, 2.4 Digital spectrum, speakerphone on the base, headset capable handsets, multiple handsets from one base etc. It is also the most professional looking phone I have seen. However, as many people have wrote, the sound quality is poor. Not as bad as some people have written but does have a hiss. Good news is that the hiss is hardly noticeable during a conversation. Range has been fine. If you can wait for a later version, do it. If not, it's not a bad buy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Almost a great phone
Review: I have purchased one of these with 2 extra handsets and am quite satisfied with it. There are some drawbacks I will speak to later, but all in all this a very neatly conceived phone system. The handset is quite small. It is ergonomically well-designed and easy to use. A handset with a battery pack comes with the base unit. The extra handsets each come complete with a battery pack and a nice little recharger stand. Some vendors offer packages with multiple handsets that will give you a price break. After suffering with NiCads in earlier cordless phones, I appreciate the NiMh battery pack that is used. The phone comes with a belt clip attachment and easily hooks up with the typical Plantronics headset for hands-free use. The phone's range is more than fine for me, but I don't have any need to wander more than 200' feet from the base, which I have in an upstairs room. The intercom feature is excellent, and provides office style call transfers (with or without using hold) plus simple independent intercom calls (phone to phone or to all phones).

So ... what are the downsides. As other reviews have noted, there is indeed an almost inaudible, but detectable background noise when the handset is in use. During actual phone calls I don't hear this at all, probably because there is almost always some extraneous background introduced in the typical connection. The bigger annoyance for me has to do with the directory feature. It's big enough (capacity is 50) and you can either manually save numbers or take them from caller id. That's great, but you cannot edit anything but the number. When you put in a number manually, you get to put in a text descriptor with it, but once saved you cannot access it again. You can edit the number, but if you want to change the descriptor, your only recourse is to delete the entry and re-enter it from scratch. Worse yet, the directory resides on the phone, not in the base, so you have no means of getting a uniform directory across all handsets. I can live with it, but clearly the manufacturer put little design effort into this feature of the phone.

I did buy the answering machine version of the phone, mostly because in my case it did not add to the cost. The answerer has features I don't need (e.g., mailboxes, memos), but does have time stamp, provides remote access, and handles call screening. You can set 2, 4, 6 or toll saver on the number of rings and there are things such as audible message alert and announce only that can be turned on. The capacity is 99 calls or 15 minutes; there does not seem to be any way to limit a caller's time, a downside, although the system announces when it has less than 5 minutes of recording space left. The base uses the same battery pack as the handset. The manufacturer calls this a spare battery for the handset to excuse not including one for the base unit, but it's really the backup battery for the base unit. Without it, a California style power failure will cost you your messages and answering machine setup, so expect to purchase this "extra" battery.

All in all, this is an excellent phone system, perfect for my needs, but with some notable design shortcomings that keep me from rating it more than 4 stars.


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