Rating: 
Summary: a good product, but not without design flaws
Review: Unlike some of the other reviewers, I've had no problem with the range, sound quality, etc. There are four design problems, however.1. Limited handset capability. You can expand it to 10 units, which is great, but you can only use 2 handsets at any given time, which is not so great. You should be able to use as many units as the system can support. 2. No battery backup. The handsets all have batteries but the base doesn't. That means that in the event of power failure, nothing will work, and the time and outgoing message on the answering machine will be lost. 3. Phone book transfer. It's nice to be able to transfer phone entries unit to unit, but it would be better to have a separate phone book stored in a single location, e.g., the base, that is viewable by all. Then people would have no need to program anything into an individual handset, except in the unlikely event that they actually wanted certain phone numbers to be accessible from that handset only. 4. Long distance dialing. To store a number in the phonebook, the user manual tells you to input a 10 digit number. Actually doing so, however, will result in an error message from the phone company informing you that area codes must be preceded by a 1. Having to store an initial 1 is annoying enough when you input the number manually, but it's worse when you try saving numbers from Caller ID, which do not include the initial 1. Worse, you can't even edit the number manually to include the initial 1, without first erasing the entire number and then having to re-input it from scratch. A better design would be to add a setting that causes the phone to dial 1 automatically before any long distance numbers (i.e., before any area code not expressly programmed NOT to be preceded by 1).
Rating:
Summary: Good system.
Review: We bought a Uniden TRU8885-2 last week, and have been fairly pleased with it so far.
The phone actually has a couple features that I didn't know about from the Uniden web site and the Owner's Manual:
- Even though there is no battery backup on the base, messages stored on the answering machine do survive a power outage. I actually tried unplugging the phone overnight (13 hours) and both incoming messages and my greeting were still there when I plugged it back in. (The Owner's Manual does include the symptom "After a power failure, the outgoing message is deleted." in the Troubleshooting chapter. I don't know if this is just left over from an earlier phone model's manual, or if the greeting does evenually get deleted if the power stays out long enough.)
- The "new message LED" indicator on the handset, as well as the backlighting on the handset keyboard, light up when there is an incoming call. So you can actually turn off the handset ringer but still watch for an incoming call you are expecting.
We've had reasonable voice quality, though we haven't pushed the range very far yet.
A few other comments:
- I noticed one of the other reviews here says "Another odd thing I noticed was that you cannot play back messages while using the handset." It's true that you can't play back messages over the handset while using that handset to make an outgoing call... but I did find that I could use the base (or even another handset) to play messages while talking to someone over a handset.
- Another reviewer says "The least obvious limitation is that after programming numbers into the base unit's phone book, you can't send to handsets." -- but it turns out you can to this. Once you hit the "phonebook" button on the base, the second soft key is labled "COPY", just as it is on the handset. (I did notice that this soft key isn't listed when there are no phone numbers in the phone book, so at first glance it can look like the function isn't available.)
I do agree with other comments here that several features could have been implemented better:
- You can't choose the ringer tone for the base, so you are stuck with the somewhat harsh tone they have selected.
- The ringer volume on both the base and handsets can only be set to off, low, or high -- and the "low" setting is still pretty loud for a quiet environment. The phones really should let you choose the ringer on a sliding scale from off to high (just like the speakerphone volume allows you to do).
- When there is a new message waiting on the answering machine,
the LED on the handset flashes -- but the handset display doesn't tell you how many messages there are. It would be handy if this info could be shown on the handset (similar to the "Line In Use" that gets displayed there when another handset is making an outgoing call). The LED blinking pattern doesn't seem to change based on the number of new messages waiting, either. (The new message count is displayed on the base screen.)
- Similarly, while its definitely nice to be able to check messages from the handset, this functionality seems strangely clumsy: you do everything through voice menu options, rather than using the onscreen menus that you use for all the other features. It works okay, but feels like you might as well be checking voice mail somewhere over the phone line instead of using an integrated system.
- The "Do Not Disturb" feature is handy -- but it can only be activate from the base. You can turn off the ringer on an individual handset, but it would be nice to be able to turn off all the ringers using a handset (e.g. so you don't have to get up from your nap when you hear the phones ringing in the other room...).
Rating:
Summary: Good phone
Review: Went from a Panasonic 900 mhz to this phone mainly for the capability to expand to many rooms w/o having to wire new jacks. Others have a fine job in their reviews, so just want to comment on what other see as a flaw but I see as a positive which is the Caller ID delete functionality being independent on each phone and the base unit. Some have said all should be able to be deleted at once--a "universal" delete. We have three users on the phone line each with their own handset. The way it works now, each of us can determine for own handsets which ones to delete--if Uniden ever goes to the universal delete, I hope they give the option to let the "deleter" choose which handsets (or the base unit) to do the "univeral" delete.
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