Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: I've found the MD681 to be an excellent phone on the whole. Pluses: nice looking, friendly operation (the opposite of the Siemens Gigaset), great handset speakerphone, excellent range, no WiFi interference. Minuses: poor answering machine sound quality (muffled), no phonebook tranfer between handsets/base.Overall, a much friendlier phone than Siemens, more attractive then Uniden (I have the Uniden at work, it's fine), less bulky than Panasonic. I'm happy and will buy a few more MD handsets to outfit my house.
Rating:
Summary: A very nice phone
Review: I've had this phone now for a week and have come to really like it - so much so, that I'm going to go out and get an additional handset for my home office to replace a corded speakerphone. The handset itself has a decent speakerphone built in and I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality. Others have mentioned that the sound quality of the answering machine is poor. In my opinion, it's every bit as good as any other answering machine I've ever owned. Others have also complained that the handset and base station don't share a phone book. There's a simple solution to work around this. When somebody calls you, you simply enter the Caller ID menu and then press save on the handset and the base station. It takes about 5 seconds. The same works if you call somebody. I dialed a number and the caller ID worked in reverse, showing me the name of the person who's number I just dialed. Menu > Caller ID > Save. Done. It's that easy. I wouldn't want to enter numbers by hand on each device, but this is such a simple way to do it, I don't know who would try anything else. Spend an afternoon calling your friends and you'll be done. The handset, while slim, fits comfortably in your hand. I was concerned about this, but it's not an issue. I've mounted the base station to a wall and while it sticks out a little bit farther off the wall than I'd like, it's less than others and after about 2 hours, it really doesn't bother me anymore. The menu system is nice and you can even adjust the contrast of the screens. My only gripe about the phone is the ring tones. Can't any phone mfr (cell, wired or wireless) make a phone that has a good old-fashioned ring to it anymore? I had to cycle through to the 6th ring tone before I found one that wasn't annoying. Oh - you might want to make sure to set the ring tone on the phone and the base station to be the same. Otherwise, when the handset is on the base station, the rings are out of sync and the two different tones are annoying. This and only getting one battery in the box are what keep me from giving it 5 stars. I would have no problems recommending this phone to anybody. I bought it direct at Circuit City so I could return it easier if necessary, but I'll be keeping it and ordering another handset.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally, a Cordless that works
Review: I've never used a cordless yet that compared to any decent corded phone & you always KNEW you were on a cordless. This MD681 is truly unbelievable. I started with a base station & 2 handsets. They are so good, I am going to replace every phone in the house with additional handsets. Not only are these phone truly unbelievably clear, they're mini computers ... they do everything you could want a phone to do & every feature can be adjusted to your taste. Don't let the 70 page user guide scare you; just take it one feature at a time. PS: it has the best damn answering machine (built in) also. I was pleasantly surprised by this purchase & I'm not easily pleased!
Rating:
Summary: NICE JOB MOTOROLA
Review: In August I bought the Panasonic 5110 and was very impressed by the many features and fine performance BUT the handset was huge, there were antennae all over the place and the gaudy chrome accents ate away at me to the point of me searching for something else (yes, even after spending $250+). A week ago I noticed the new 5.8GHz Motorola MD681 and bought it the next day to check it out.
I was more than pleasantly surprised. Although it doesn't have quite the full complement of features of the Panasonic 5100, it does have the following valuable and unique features: 1) Battery back up-doubles as a spare handset battery.
2) NIMH batteries-more power,less memory problems.
3) Sharp blue backlit displays that you don't need
glasses to read.
4) Sleek slender handsets-light and comfortable to hold
with the very functional trademark rubber grips along
sides.
5) No antenna on the base and just a vestigial nub on the
handsets. The 5.8GHz performance is excellent and the menus and operation are so intuative that one hardly needs to read the manual. The simple sleek styling, already attractive at first, grows on you even more over time. Motorola, a newcomer to the cordless market, has perfected their earlier models both in performnce and style in the MD681.
Rating: 
Summary: Still searching, but this is a good choice for now.
Review: Just assume this phone has great sound, and features that you might expect. Speaker phone is very good.
I am going to focus on what it does not have or possible improvements needed from my point of view. This is a fine phone and I would never go back to a 2.4mhz system.
* only one phone line.
* base does not display time of day, or talk time, so I can not track those 3+ hour Microsoft tech help phone calls.
* Very hard to see if a message is waiting, takes msg even if caller hangs up.
* very small, hard to read base LCD. At times I wish the lighting of it would stay on longer.
* Base keypad is to small, numbers are printed small,in black, and keys are gray. Keys are oval too close together, and raised. Now that I have bought two of these types of systems I will have a better grasp of what to notice the next time.
* can not set up standard handset settings, from base.
* No minitoring feature using additional handsets to monitor other rooms.
* Need to have plenty of patience when teaching your small children how to use this phone.
* I have not learned whether or not this phone will be able to connet to dial tone when Power is out. There is a location for charging batteries on the base unit and the base is said to use this source for power if needed but as I said I have not tried it.
* The phone system does not come with batteries for the base unit. Have not started the hunt for replacement batteries, going to start with Radio Shack first and if needed I will call Mototola for help.
* The base hand set is cordless just the same as a remote handset. If you are using the speaker phone and want to switch to the hand set there is a bit of noise. I would rather the base have a corded handset.
Now you are wondering why I bought this unit? right? When in the store reviewing or doing research online features get over looked or are not realized until a person has had an opportunity to use the product. We have had this system for over six months and have had more than enough time to realize what we like and what changes we need to see before we upgrade again.
This Item replaced the Siemens 2.4mhz system we had which was ended up to be worse than using two soup cans with a string between them, if you know what I mean. 3+ to 4-
Rating:
Summary: Steve
Review: Looking for new phones to replace a bad GE 2.4 GHz phone that not only sounded terrible but had a defective LCD screen. (6 months old) The Motorola phones appear to be made by VTech...same menu system, etc. Great phone...and works well with extension. Seems like they got it right.
Rating:
Summary: MD681, good looking, functional home office essential gadget
Review: Negatives first: Very poor Motorola tech. support... you gotta figure this device out on your own. Finding a back-up and/or replacement battery pack was a scavenger hunt to say the least, come on Motorola... get with the program and train your customer service rep's and techies to actually understand your products! FYI; Radio Shack has a battery, P/N #23-272 (2.4V/1400mAh NiMH) and it's widely available at most stores or on the web. Overall, I like this device (great speakerphones in the handsets) I have three remote handsets, scattered about my home and office). O.K., so the answering machine is disassociated with the base operating system and remote handsets... who cares anyway! Cool blue lights for evening usage and I like the "brick style" handsets... kind of muscular instead of the ever popular feminine styled crap that's out there from the competition! This phone is for hi-tech users only... not fuddies, lackeys and techno-idiots. Buy this phone system if you are using a WiFi 2.4GHZ network to avoid transmission interference. I purchased mine 01/08/04 at Circuit City in Indianapolis... they had more cordless phones on display (and in stock) than any other retailer in the metro area.
Rating:
Summary: Accessory phones hard to find
Review: The phone is fine, but beware if you're buying this system with an eye to adding handsets in the future. I need a couple of new handsets and I can only find them in stock at one website. This isn't Motorola's most current model and I get the feeling that when they're gone they're gone.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor quality
Review: The physical quality of this phone is excellent. it is the right size and weight. I purchased a base and three expansion handsets. Two out of the the three handsets did not work properly. I was deeply disappointed. I returned all four rather than deal with the poor quality. The two that worked worked great.
Rating:
Summary: Good phone but poorly integrated system.
Review: This is a brief review of the Morotola MD680 series. This a 5.8 ghz cordless telephone system consisting of a cordless phone and a base station that has a built in answering machine. I've owned this unit for three months now, and here are my comments. 1.Base Unit.
a. Speaker phone: The base unit includes a built in speakerphone, dial pad, and electronic phonebook, meaning that you can make your own phone calls directly through the base unit without using the handset. The speaker phone quality is rather good, and you can have a conversation from a few feet from the phone without having to yell. The base unit speaker phone is most likely used for intercom conversation with the hand set units - more on that later.
b. Answering machine: Motorola uses the same digital answering machine system as found in my old AT&T 90mhz cordless phone system. The difference is that the better microphone on Motorola's base unit renders your message to your callers clearer than the AT&T system, but the recorded voice quality coming from your callers is the same thin and scratchy audio. I wonder how many other phones share this same system. My main displeasure with this system is that the menu system is presented in audio only - which makes accessing system parameters a tedious affair. Think of setting the time, for example: "1am, 2 am, 3 am" etc just to set the hour, then "01, 02 03" etc to get the minutes. Ugh!
c. Menu System: The base unit comes with an lcd menu system that is easy to navigate. Without the manual, I was able to setup the ring tones & the volume I wanted to hear from the base unit. Unfortunately, the lcd menu does not control the answering machine.
d. Phone book: You can create phonebooks using the keypad, the lcd screen, and caller id. I'll touch on this later, but the phone book on the base unit is not shared with hand set!
2. Handset.
a. Ergonomics: The handset has a nice rubber grip on the side that makes it comfortable to hold.
b. Speakerphone: The handset has a built in speakerphone - which like the speaker phone on the base unit - is rather good.
c. Menu LCD: Easy to view & navigate, but the phone book is not integrated with the base unit.
d. Battery Life: Good. Just threw this in because my hand unit always shows it's charging when connected to the base unit. Perhaps the batteries have a huge apatite.
e. Call Quality: Here's some advice: never pay attention to sections talking about phone quality. Cordless phones are at the mercy of local interference - so much so that there is no way useful way for a review to talk about reception. The only way to tell how a phone will operate in your home is to take it home. Still, I'll throw in my useless comments -- next to the base, the phone quality sounds excellent. 2 rooms away, and the phone sounds no better then my old 900 mhz phone. 3. Integration of Features: Normally this wouldn't be a section, but Motorola did such a poor job of integrating these components that it bears some additional focus. Within the base unit itself, the answering machine & the lcd screen do not share the same clock or menu system! Only their common plastic housing suggests they are from the same product. The base unit & the handsets do not share a common clock. Most importantly: the base unit & the handsets do not share a common phonebook. The latter is a big deal design flaw - users will have to enter numbers at least twice. And if they purchase additional handsets, well, they have to enter common entries in every new handset too.
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