Rating: Summary: We LOVE this phone!!! Review: My husband and I have been through many cordless phones in the past few years. The last cordless phone we had was a Uniden and we loved it. We love the two headset feature that lets the phones be used as a room monitor. We love this phone and we have had no problems with reception. Well worth the money!!
Rating: Summary: Excellent communications system Review: Overall, a very nice system that we've been using about 2 months. This is not only an excellent remote phone system, but has the following features we love:- signal and talk directly between handsets and/or base - room monitor from either handset to the other or to the base - either handset or the base function as a speakerphone - call waiting caller id that works - can use both handsets simultaneously - distinctive ring based on caller id The range for us, from the main floor, goes about 300 feet outside (flat terrain) before breaking up. It works best with a direct line of sight above ground. (not over a hill etc) The battery life for us is approx. several (4-5) days with moderate usage (1-2 hours per day). It also works great with the uniden headset available at amazon: Uniden HS910 Headset for Cordless Phones It works OK on the shoulder (with the beltclip), but is a little small. Note that this model does NOT have a built-in answering machine. I consider this a plus, since we have voicemail from the phone company. Also while the base has a speakerphone, it is not really meant for much use, and does not have a built-in LCD screen etc. We use the base for emergencies only (or to locate the remotes). I agree with the previous reviews that a few features are hard to get to, such as mute or privacy (although I am glad privacy is off by default so someone else can join a conversation from the other phone). Speed dialing is easy to use, though - just press and hold one of the digits to pull up the speed dial number.
Rating: Summary: The BEST phone I have ever owned! Review: These phones are AMAZING! They are easy to use and feature rich. They do things I would only expect to find in a high end cell phone and never dream of in a cordless, being able to transfer phonebooks from one phone to another and transfer calls from one handset to another is great. Also the room monitor is wonderful for listening in on our 3 year old when she is watching TV in the living room and we are cooking in the kitchen :) 10 out of 10!!!
Rating: Summary: Almost perfect, as these things go Review: This is definitely my favorite cordless phone of about five that I have owned over the years. This surprised me, because I hated the 900MHz Uniden that I had a few years ago. But Uniden appears to have learned a lot.
First, the things I like about this phone:
+ The outgoing message and clock are preserved thorough a power outage! FINALLY - it's taken me ten years to find a phone where this worked right.
+ The handsets are small and light enough to slip into my pants pocket, and (wonder of wonders) it's really difficult to accidentally hit a button while it's in there, because the buttons are relatvely tiny and almost flush with the phone surface. If you have big fingers this might not be a good thing, but it's great for me.
+ Reasonably good range (at least 400 ft outside, unobstructed).
+ Excellent NiMH battery capacity - I get a week of standby time, and Uniden claims 6 hours of talk time, which I have no reason to doubt.
+ A speakerphone on each handset (as well as the base) - this is GREAT. Also a standard headset jack, another must-have feature for me. The handset's speakerphone is not particularly loud, but it's more than adequate for a normal work (desk) environment, it seems to work well, and I've had no complaints about it from callers on the other end.
+ The phonebook and the caller ID list can be accessed while on a call. The call timer stays visible for 10 seconds after the call ends.
+ Hold/transfer/page functions let you page or transfer a call to a specific handset. You assign a name to each handset, which makes this easy.
+ The system handles multiple phones and handsets the way I want it to: by default, anyone picking up a connected extension phone or handset is automatically connected to the call, unless you have turned on "privacy mode".
+ Each handset can screen incoming calls and access all answering machine functions, including memo. You can also record a call in progress, although the machine beeps intermittently when doing so, and the short recording capacity limits the usefulness of this feature.
+ The "wealkie talkie" direct-link mode is a cool feature, although I haven't had any need to use it yet.
+ A lighted "Do Not Disturb" button on the base turns off all ringers on all handsets, the answering machine speaker, etc. This is truly a Great feature - I only wish I could also activate/deactivate it from a handset. The handset display still lights up when there's an incoming call, also nice.
+ I expect that the 2.4GHz frequency-hopping spread-spectrum communications would make it difficult for someone to eavesdrop on your conversations (just a guess).
+ Perhaps my favorite feature of this unit is one that is difficult to describe: it generally just works the way I expect it to. Most consumer electronics products seem to get this wrong, where every feature is either awkward or annoying. On my previous phone, for example, the call timer would disappear the moment I hung up, and it was impossible for someone to pick up an extension and join the conversation. A lot of default behaviors on this phone can be changed through the menus, which is great if you're not afraid of menus (I'm not). Most of the operations (e.g. deleting all messages) are easy and intuitive, and usually just work the way you expect them to. This is astoundingly rare in the world of consumer electronics.
Although there are a lot of buttons on the handset, I prefer this to putting everything in the menus, and I like the balance Uniden has struck in putting the most-used functions on buttons and the less-used ones in menus.
There are of course some things about the phone that I think could use improvement:
- Occasionally the signal gets flaky when I walk around the house while on a call, like being on a cell phone with poor reception. When this happens the person on the other end complains that my voice is dropping out.
- Sound quality is good, but not excellent. I occasionally hear the annoying scratchy, tinny echo that another reviewer complained about, but only rarely, and it doesn't last long. If it was persistent, it certainly would be unacceptable.
- I have Caller ID, but my telco doesn't offer "Caller ID with Name", so only the number comes through. I wish the phone would display the corresponding name from its phonebook for the incoming number, as my last cordless did. The phonebook's distinctive ring feature helps to identify an incoming call, but it would be a huge improvement to also display the name.
- There is no "mute" button - Mute is accessed through the menus. However, since it's the first menu item it only takes two button presses to activate or deactivate it.
- The answering machine's fixed sound quality and available time (12 minutes) are both mediocre, though adequate for me. 12 minutes is not going to be enough for some folks who like to leave their messages on the machine for days or weeks.
- It takes an awful lot of buttons to enter a name in the phonebook (e.g., 8 button presses to get a lower-case 's').
- The handsets are so small that they're difficult to clamp between yout ear and shoulder (just like a cell phone). I suppose that's the trade-off for having a phone small enough to slip easily into your pants pocket.
- The Caller ID list does not store a '1' before the numbers; when you want to dial a number in the Caller ID list you have to first press a button to add the '1' prefix. There should be a menu option to make adding the prefix the default.
Overall, I really like this phone, much better than any of my previous cordless phones, and I would certainly recommend it. I can't offer any information about possible interference from 2.4GHz wireless routers, since I don't have any other 2.4GHz devices in my house.
Rating: Summary: Excellent Product / BUY IT !!! Review: This phone system has more features than I'll probably use. The reception is crystal clear and static-free. I especially like the ability to choose different ring tones much like a cell phone. It comes with belt clips which are great if you're walking about the house or want to set it up for hands-free capability. It comes with 2 phones which is a great buy ! It's also expandable to carry more phones. Excellent buy !!!
Rating: Summary: Excellent Product / BUY IT !!! Review: This purchase was a pleasant suprise. Things I found unique were the ability to copy phonebooks from one phone to another, ability to name handset so I could intercom directly to another handset by name (I've got one in each of the kids bedrooms upstairs and no longer have to yell) and distinctive ring based on incoming caller ID. Great buy. I even bought extra handsets so we have a total of 4 now. The answering machine is simply and can be retrieved from any handset as well as remotely.
Rating: Summary: I could not add additional handsets Review: Twice I went through the hassle of ordering an extra handset (#3), but my base would not accept it. I even called Uniden customer service and surprisingly they couldn't get it to work.
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