Rating: 
Summary: Nice idea
Review: As a Gigaset owner for 2.5 years now, I have to say the concept itself is great, but the Siemens' implementation leaves much to be desired. The most notable problems are: (1) The range is significantly worse than a 900mhz Sony (and Siemens' tech support says it is normal), (2) The quality of the handsets is dismal, not nearly as robust as other cordless phones, (3) some features are missing or poorly designed. My advice regarding this phone is to wait until another manufacturer makes a similar model and Siemens feels the heat of some competition. I will note that two friends have the same phone and complain about the same problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Dosn't play fair with non-system phones
Review: If you are trying to use the Gigaset with other phones on the same line, forget it- it is awkward at best. The hold feature will not recognize that another party has picked up the line- it has to be manually released.Cannot barge in to call being taken by anohter family member Range is too limited. Microwave oven causes heavy interference. Wish I could return it.
Rating:
Summary: Okay at best
Review: I was simply looking for a two-line cordless phone with some sort of a mute feature. Since most handsets can't be muted, I was generally forced into a speaker phone. I am using this phone for the office line in my home-based office, so the feature of multiple handsets is useful since only my office is wired with my office line, but I can now have handsets throughout the house and also use it as my regular house phone. Or so I thought. The range of this phone does not equal the range provided by other 900MHz DSS phones I've owned. My office is in the attic of my relatively large home. I cannot use this phone in most of the downstairs of my home due to its limited range. (The Uniden I have in my living area functions fine in my office.) I also find the function of the handsets overly complex. I do not use the answering machine (since the base is in my office, not my main living area). I've also had one handset fail within about two months (customer service indicated that it was probably a short). Would I buy this phone again? Probably not, especially when price is a factor.
Rating:
Summary: Range problems
Review: I like almost everything about the system except for the range. I cannot get more than 50 feet outside and 40 feet indoors without the sound breaking up. Because of this problem it makes the system almost useless.
Rating:
Summary: Good Base Unit - very bad hand set
Review: Got this phone - yes the base unit is a very good unit and work very well. However the hand set is bad. The hand set stops working - the battery requires constant charging
Rating: 
Summary: A basic system that fills a niche
Review: Having worked in the telecommunications field for the last eight years I am very familiar with complex PBX and Key telephone systems, their features, and how to configure them. I must say that this system is far more easy to program than most anything else on the market that I have worked with. But one must also consider that the 2420 only has a small fraction of the features found in most traditional key telephone systems. The cordless voice quality is far better than any 900 MHz phone I have used. The design is ultra contemporary yet solid. My only complaints are as follows: 1. Lack of a true centralized integrated dialing directory 2. Lack of separate voicemail boxes for multiple users 3. The LCD backlight and contrast on the handset and desk unit is difficult to read under certain lighting conditions. I would have preferred a brighter black on light blue as some newer PCS phones have. 4. Lack of numeric paging notification for new voice messages All-in-all I must say the system is a quality product that fills a niche market. There are very few products, if any, that can beat the 2420 in price or performance for under $400.00
Rating: 
Summary: The single worst product I have ever purchased.
Review: What a crushing disappointment. I've owned the Siemens 2420 system for about a year now, and every day I find something new to loathe. It's my own fault; I was seduced by a pretty face. The 2420 is a beautiful-looking phone. The lines and colors are sleek and elegant. It looks fantastic on my desktop. And that's about the only nice thing I can say about it. SOUND QUALITY: Fine, when it's not screwed up... But it's ALWAYS screwed up. The remote has a tendency to delay the audio slightly, so I hear my own voice reverberating over the conversation. (Putting the remote on hold and reconnecting will eliminate this effect, but why should I have to do that?) RANGE: I can't get more than about thirty feet from the base station. After that, the audio chops in and out violently. PHONE FEATURES: Despicable. This phone was obviously designed by someone who has never made a telephone call. - Who decided that I should have to go through a FIVE step process just to transfer a call from the base to the handset? (Instead of just picking up the handset?) - Who decided that if another extension is in use, I can't pick up the phone at all? - Why does the caller I.D. often show the caller's name on the base unit, but say "unknown" on the remote (or vice versa)? - Why can't I switch from Line 1 to Line 2 by simply pressing the appropriate button? Instead, I have to "Rel" one call before I can pick up another. - Why won't the remote let me select a line directly? Instead, I have to press "Talk," then select a line, then dial the number. ANSWERING MACHINE FEATURES: Completely unforgivable. - The machine records EVERY SINGLE CALL, apparently unable to detect when the caller has hung up before the OGM ended. (My first answering machine, back in 1980, knew enough to shut off when someone hung up.) - Erasing messages is a royal pain, requiring cheetah-like reflexes. It's too easy to miss the tiny window of opportunity to erase an old message, and accidentally erase the wrong message instead. - And there's no way to erase all messages at once -- I have to erase each one separately. I could go on and on, but you get the point. If Siemens ever did a firmware upgrade, I might be interested. But for now it's headed for the auction pile....
Rating:
Summary: Simply Awful...total disappointment
Review: I have the full system with four handsets. Several problems: 1. The sound quality on ALL the handsets is terrible, even in close proximity to the base station. One handset simply doesn't work. 2. The main base station has terrible sound clarity on the speakerphone. In fact, the sound actually diminishes in volume (even at full volume), when you go from corded handset and/or headset to the speaker. 3. The controls are utterly obtuse. For example, one button controls the speaker phone and mute functions, which makes it very confusing to figure out which mode you're in and out of...had a few embarrassments on some conference calls with this button! 4. The menu system is impossible, both on the handset and the cordless units. You definitely have to use the manual...then you forget the commands after a while and have to scramble for the manual again. The answering maching requires you to scroll through multiple menu systems just to delete messages that you've already listened to...all this in the name of stylish looks. Overall, after having sunk hundreds of dollars into this unit and all the accessories, I'm at square one looking for a replacement system...total writeoff. Only buy this if you are one of the elite few who can program your VCR!
Rating:
Summary: Old Technology
Review: This phone just arrived to the US market, however i owned this phone back in 1995 and again in europe a few months ago. Having said this, the phone has a ton of features, however very few are useful in a household, unless you have a very big house, otherwise the features are more useful in a business environment. I do not reccomend this phone, there are far better products out there which are a lot more user friendly. Unless you are ready to memorize the instructions book, this phone is probably not for you.
Rating:
Summary: A great concept, but ultimately flawed
Review: My overall impression is: mixed. I have used these phones for about 6 months now, and while I don't know the actual history of these phones, I suspect they were designed by two separate groups: the base unit and then the handset unit. They show the classic problem of a marketing forced integration after the fact. Case in point, and why I guess some of the reviewers claim the phones synchronize with each other while others claim they don't. Both phones have a common memory size, but the architecture is different. Specifically, the word size in the handset units are different than the word sizes in the base unit. So you can record a phone message of say 32 characters in the desk unit (name plus number), while the word width in the handset is only 2/3 the size of the desk unit. Normal names/numbers are fine, but when you get into long names/numbers you get into the issue of where an entry which works with one unit will not fit into the other. A classic mechanism of how this can happen is where you have entered a long distance business number (11 digits) which gets you into a voice mail system, then you set up some pauses until the voice mail asks for the extension (typically 6-8 "P"s), then the extension (another 4 digits or so). The whole purpose of this is so that the auto dialer gets through the voice mail and goes directly to the person's extension. Works fine with the base unit but there are actually some numbers you can enter on the base which can't be entered in the handsets. I am an engineer, and this is very stupid for this kind of thing to happen. To compound this, it gets worse. While the base unit memory is wide, the handset's memory is long. The memory map is such that you can actually enter more names in the handset than you can in the base. So if you have a memory array which fills the handset and you try to synchronize to the base, the download will fill until the base if full and then give you a non-descriptive error message (communication's error). To me one of the greatest strengths of this product is the synchronization between base and handsets, and when this works it works well. It allows you to load addressees in one phone and then replicate them to all the other phones. Except when you get close to the limits of memory wherein the base is different that the handsets. And how close do you have to get to the end? My handset has a utilization of 56% (meaning 44% free), and I overflow the base unit. Big problem. I suspect that they have siphoned off directory memory for answering machine memory. The problem is that with a $400 product there is no excuse to not have added enough and separate memory in the first place. The handsets come with NiCd batteries. Again, with a $400 system I think this is cheap. No excuse not to have included NiMH. There are very subtle user interface issues which I think should have been resolved. If a number is busy, there is no way to automatically redial the number until completion. If you are on the phone and another call comes in, you answer the new call and transfer the new call to another phone, you actually transfer the new call and the old call (which remains on hold and to which there is no obvious way to retrieve it). A very nice feature (like my cellular phone) is a keyboard lockout so you don't accidentally press a button (you pulse the power button for this mode). But, this only works if there is no call going on. Try it during a conversation, and you turn the phone off. Make sure you have a UPS on the base station. If power goes off, you loose your answering messages and/or the phone locks up. To restart, you have to reset and redo all configuration options. Using FLASH ROM or a battery back-up would have prevented this (like most sub $100 phones these days), but not the $400 Siemens. There are many other issues like these which sound esoteric until all of a sudden they happen on you. In short, the user interface needs some work. On the positive side, there are many things the phone does very well. The sound is as close to a corded phone as I have seen in a portable. Many users have complained about distance, and I agree that the distance is no greater than the 900MHz phones. However it is also no worse. I get about 50 feet outside with the base unit inside. [Remember those 1500 feet Panasonic adds, forget it. Maybe if you add an external linear.] All in all, the handsets are very nice portable phones. However, the product in its current form is a nice first effort which ultimately remains flawed due to numerous inconsistencies and engineering aberrations. The product was good enough that I couldn't quite bring myself to return it, but frustrating enough that I cannot give it my wholehearted recommendation.
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