Rating: 
Summary: Still Pleased (update)
Review: I bought this phone for a small office with 2 phone lines and no pre-wiring. I liked the idea of it having separate answering machines in the base unit (with messages accessible from any cordless on the system), of it being 2.4 gigahertz for range and clarity issues, of it being easily expandable (in terms of being able to add up to 8 handsets) and, most importantly, I was thrilled with the idea of beating the phone company on their outrageous charges for installing jacks. We unpacked the units (base + 3 extensions), plugged them in, spent 5 minutes reading the programming instructions, and voila......we have a fully integrated 4 phone system with lots of features for not a lot of money. It's a year old now, has worked very well and it was simple to add a 5th phone. My only regret is it cannot handle more than 2 incoming lines, but I knew that up front. ADDENDUM: No problems at all thus far. The office is small, so it does not really test the range issues. I do find the handset buttons a bit of a challenge (sometimes need a 2nd push), but it remains a good solution to our needs.
Rating:
Summary: Don't understand some complaints - a good system
Review: I have had this system for about 1.5 years. I was surprised by some of the negative comments I read here. We have one base and now have 4 cordless handsets. I was about to buy this as a gift for someone and am very curious why others have had range and quality problems that I haven't had.My range is fantastic -- I live on 2.25 acres and my husband takes the handset outside with him when working in the yard and uses it to intercom me -- it works in the whole yard. I've absolutely never had a range problem in the house -- and can't even remember more than once when out in the yard I lost the signal. I find the sound quality good. I use a headset with the cordless handsets all the time (some user mentioned this being impossible -- it works great if you have a good quality headset -- some are junky). Sometimes the shape of the handsets doesn't feel comfortable cradled on my ear -- but I use the headset most of the time. One reviewed mentioned it being impossible to get messages from the handsets -- its actually simple. Hitting intercom then 9 brings you into the answering system. My few complaints are -- the issue of not being able to pick up a phone to join in an inprogress call (or switch phones) without transfering or conferencing the call in. I believe on the newer models you can set this feature -- (or on some model at least) as I purchased an additional handset recently and the directions on it mentioned that you could set to allow call barging (or whatever it was called) but you can't on my system. this is a pain when someone wants to pick up the line and all talk together or when I answer on the base then want to switch to the cordless (I have to transfer the call to the cordless -- like an office phone system). One anoying thing is that when the power goes off you have to reset the clock and date. It really drives me nuts as our power flicks at least once a week! Overall I am very happy with this product. I've recommended it to others.
Rating: 
Summary: Great potential but very poor result
Review: I really wanted this phone. Bad. But after having to return 4 (yes, FOUR) sets due to major flaws as described in some others' postings here, that was it. Now using Uniden EXS9995 and my smile has returned. Here's what I experienced: Unit #1's handset "froze" after 5 days; only sign of life was the flickering of its backlit LCD screen. Unit #2, ditto, after 2 weeks. Unit #3's speakerphone emitted a buzz/popping sound regardless of volume setting. Unit #4's handset had same issue as with #1&2 after 30 days (talk about a quality control issue). Unit's 1 - 4 inclusive had very poor range. The phone was used in residential home, in places where earleir gerneration 900 mHz phones worked perfectly fine. At any range from 1 - 25+ feet away from the base, nearly every caller I spoke with commented on the crummy reception. I thought I was nuts with my experience with this phone. but seeing other posts sharing similar issues points to a major quality / build issue with Siemens, which I had heard before about their products. So even though this puppy won an award in '99 I'm guessing the reviewer did not use the phone for more than a couple hours - if at that. BOTTOM LINE: while there are few phones with similar feature sets, I found some close enough with the Uniden mentioned above having nearly all the key features, none of the issues, ... .
Rating: 
Summary: Not What I Had Hoped For
Review: I don't see any recent reviews for this product, so here is my experience with ownership over the past four months. I purchased the 2420 set plus an additional handset. Both handsets have failed; one was replaced by Siemens, the second just failed--I hardly use the handsets conducting most of my business over the base unit. The range of these phones is less than my other 900MHz DSS phone (Uniden); my office is in one corner of my house and my calls break up if I'm in the opposite corner of the house. This is disappointing. Operation of the handsets is overly complex; the base works quite well. There is no mute function on the handsets. The handsets are slim and very convenient to carry if you're expecting a call. Overall I like the features and concept of the phone--it's great having the handsets all over the house--but it's execution is less than I expected for the cost. I'm surprised that coming into the holiday season, there are few, if any, phones that offer the same features. If I had a choice for a phone with these features I'd choose a different phone.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor range is fatal flaw of Siemens unit
Review: Based on the many positive (and some mixed) reviews of this product I decided to jump in any try the Siemens Gigaset system in my home. We have two phone lines and five bedrooms on three floors. And we desperately needed the intercom and phone solution promised by Siemens. I setup a Gigaset 2420 and two additional handsets through out the house. Setup was relatively easy and ease of use was very good. Initially the base station was located in an office in the 3rd floor loft area. But some of the handsets would report the three beep "out of range" warning all too frequently. Especially if you walk around while talking on the phone. The other problem was that sometimes the extension phone reception would be garbled like a bad digital cellphone signal. This wouldn't be obvious to the person using the extension handset, but the person on the other end of the line would sometimes find the conversation uninteligable. We have used other cordless phones both 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz and have never experienced range or signal quality problems to this extent. In an attempt to fix these problems I relocated the base station to the main middle floor. But still the problems with out-of-range warnings and occasional garbled speech persisted (even with the extension handset less than 50 feet from the base station. So the Gigaset is getting packed up and sent to the auction. I would recommend this system for a small office where the range is not too great. The ergonomics, styling and features are great. It does exactly what it is supposed to do. But in a large home or larger area business installation the poor signal quality and range make it unsatisfactory. It seems strange that a phone system that can handle 8 extension handsets wouldn't have a better range. Unless those extensions are all adjoining cubicles it doesn't work from my experience.
Rating:
Summary: Cordless handset quality problems
Review: I wish I could give the Gigaset 2420 a good review. After all, the base unit has a lot of good features and seems to work well. Unfortunately there is a real quality problem with the cordless handsets. I've had the 2420 system for 6 weeks and am now returning my 3rd cordless handset. Two failed almost completely, not responding to any keys. The only sign of life was the blinking backlight in the LCD display, but nothing displayed. The third "skipped" on the received sound. Outgoing sound was OK, but it acted as if the frequency hopping technology was missing a few frequencies. The unit I returned always skipped. I still have problems with one of my "good" units skipping occasionally. I have to end the call and retry. I'll keep sending back bad handsets until I get fed up. Then I'll return the whole thing and maybe go with a Panasonic. I have a Panasonic 2.4 GHz and the sound quality is exceptional.
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea Poorly Executed
Review: Working out of a home office about 3x/week, and fielding calls from 2 lines (and a cell phone), the feature set (answering machine, dual lines, speaker phone, dial pad on base, cordless capabilities, headset capable) of this phone appeared absolutely ideal. Au contraire. The UI is terrible, the range on the handsets is grossly inadequate, they are uncomfortable to use, the batteries die quickly. Headset use is not possible due to quality and interference issues. Of particular annoyance is that the answering machine cannot be told ONLY to answer one of the two lines -- it always answers both. Similarly, the autoanswer ring # for both lines has to be the same. Aside from the technical/quality failures (battery life, range), Siemens clearly did not speak to ANYONE who uses multiline phones in a home office setting. I ended up abandoning the cordless route and got the Nortel Venture 3line with TAD and have been pleased. I notice that Panasonic JUST released a 2 and 4 line cordless w/base, which might be worth looking into.
Rating:
Summary: Not very good
Review: All in all I've been very disappointed with this phone as have two friends who bought it at the same time. The range is less than my 900mhz Sony, the handsets are not very reliable and it is very difficult if even possible (haven't done it yet!) to get messages over the handset. The idea is good, but Siemen's implementation is not. Too bad because it has potential.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Face, Poor Implementation
Review: I own 2 of these phones and 6 handsets - bought them all at once for my home/home office. It is definitely the sleekest looking phone out there. However, for paying top dollar, it has some serious design flaws. To cut to the chase: Pros:
- Beautiful design.
- Handsets are light and easy to handle.
- Range seems very good and voice quality is very good.
- Adding handsets is easy and convenient - no jack required.
Cons:
- Cannot pick up a call from a handset after the answering machine has picked up (no call interrupt).
- Cannot use other-brand external phones to join a call in progress.
- When power is lost or unplugged, base phone loses time and date requiring reprogramming. VERY annoying and I cannot believe they overlooked this. The phone has a backup battery for crying out loud.
- Answering machine does not recognize hang-ups resulting in lots of blank messages.
- Transferring a call from one handset to another is a MAJOR pain requiring a bunch of keypresses. VERY poorly designed and non-intuitive.
- Too easy to accidentally delete a new phone message if you press delete a bit too late.
- Handsets are small and light, but not ergonomic or well designed for fitting to your hand.
- I had two handsets die within about 4 months. Questionable quality.
- Simple things like changing the volume on a handset during a call is very awkward and requires scrolling through a series of menus, so you can't change the volume without taking the phone away from your ear for about 10 seconds. Poor design.
- Virtually everything is menu driven and requires a series of button presses and scrolling through menu items. Awkward.
- Too many features are password protected on the base requiring entering a PIN every time. Is this really necessary?
There's more minor flaws and annoyances, but for the price I would expect a MUCH more user friendly design. Whoever designed these phones was probably a "tecchie" - scrolling through screenfuls of menu options is ok for software, but not for cordless phones. Many often used features should be incorporated into buttons rather than menu items (like the handset volume).
The number one thing that annoys me is trying to transfer a call to another handset. If I pick up a call one one handset, my daughter can't simply yell from another room, "I got it", then simply press talk on her handset. No - it's a series of button presses, etc. and about 75% of the time it doesn't seem to work or the call gets lost. Totally totally annoying and an inexcusable design flaw in my opinion.
Overall, for the money you can do much better. If I was able to get my money back I would in a heartbeat. I'm stuck with a $1000+ phone system which is a real letdown overall.
At least it looks nice.....
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time if you need any distance
Review: I'm returning this because I can't get the handsets to work from more than 15 feet from the base station. I called Siemens and they said that the phone was notorius for only working in short distance situations. I have a regular stud and sheetrock house and it won't work while going through a single wall. They should warn you about this. This unit was a tremendous wast of time for me.
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