I bought this triple Dect phone about 2 years ago now and one thing that is as true today as it was the day I bought the phone is that it has just about the best digital quality I have ever heard on a phone. Admittedly I have only ever had two digital home phones but almost everyone I know now has a digital phone, and the quality on this Panasonic model is the best I’ve heard. I can talk for hours on end and make any number of calls and I never get anything other than perfect call quality on each and every call I make. Personally, for me, that’s the one main thing I want in a phone above anything else, and after never having a digital, Dect or wired home phone in my life before that has had such perfect sound quality, this phone really impresses me every time I use it.
With regards to features I doubt it is the very best, but starting with the opening screen you have three options... Phonebook, Main menu and last dialled numbers.
Phonebook
The phonebook is similar to that on a mobile phone, you simply enter a number and name to add, select a group (i.e. Friends, family, etc) if you so wish and bang, it’s in your phone. The capacity is 200 entries.
As I have three handsets then I simply need to transfer any new number to the other two handsets, which takes a matter of seconds. Or every so often I can simply transfer all new numbers across to the other handsets when I feel like it, which takes less than a minute.
Also, if anyone calls whose number you don’t already have you can easily add it with one press of a button and then simply add a name.
You can also create your own groups for this phone which is extremely handy as on mine I have My friends, family and my daughter’s friends. Along with the separate ringtones set up for each group you can tell instantly who the call is for, which saves rushing to the phone if you are busy.
Main menu
The main menu consists of....
Caller list - This shows the last 30 calls made to the phone. Extremely useful if you have lost a number.
SMS - You can make and receive text messages on this phone, which I have found quite useful as a lot of friends often send texts to my home phone by mistake rather than my mobile. So it saves me having to listen to them in that silly voice. Text messages cost 10p to send.
Answer system - From here you can listen to new and old answer messages. All new messages remain in the ’New’ folder which is extremely handy if like me you forget to check messages every day.
You can also listen to any old messages which I think will record for 30 minutes, although I’m not 100% sure if this is 100% correct as I have lost the manual, but I have had more than 25 minutes of messages on my phone in the past.
From this menu you can also change answer phone settings, including message alert, number of rings, own greeting or pre recorded greeting and answer phone on/off.
Handset setup -From here you can register or delete a handset, set ringer, volume, backgrounds, wallpaper, colours, volume and a host of other things.
Base setup - As above.
Display setup - This includes wallpaper, background, language, colour and contrast, and will over-ride any handset setting if you so wish (i.e. If you don’t mind having the same settings for all of your handsets).
The main menu is extremely easy to use and navigate and options are self explanatory, unlike some phones I’ve used.
Last dialled numbers/redial
----------------------------------
This quick short cut allows you to view and redial the last ten numbers you called. Another useful feature which you find on most mobile phones.
I have found this phone to be extremely easy to use, the keypad is the perfect size which makes dialling numbers and texting very quick and easy.
Other features on this phone include Caller display, telecom, caller barring, speakerphone, put caller on hold and a few other features I’ve never used so probably not fair I comment.
The speakerphone is fantastic on this phone. I have often put it on and been chatting from the other side of the room with hardly any drop in quality. Most friends and family simply think I’m holding the phone different and can still clearly hear me. This I find a very useful bonus because most phones I’ve used you either have to keep the phone to your ear, shout or still hold the phone whilst on speakerphone to be heard. With this I can easily put the phone down in front of me or even away from me and still chat and be heard.
I forget the range of this phone now but I have used it all around my house, in my garden and even in my local newsagents which is at the bottom of my road, approx. 75 yards away and have had no drop in quality.
When it comes to home phones (Especially) I don’t care too much for state of the art features but am happy with what’s on this phone, it’s more than enough for most users. The phone offers 20 polyphonic ringtones which range from classical tunes to standard rings and buzzers. Certainly enough to prevent the tunes driving you mad.
And they are loud! I can hear my phone from the garden.
The LCD lights up and is clear and easy to read. Not having the best eyesight when I bought this phone I really needed something I could see clearly and this is one of the few phones I could read clearly after I had laser surgery in my eyes two years ago, so it certainly does the job in that respect also.
The Negative
----------------
There is a negative to this phone which I think is applicable to all Dect/Digital phones (Although someone may correct me on this) and that is that if you have a power cut the phone is unusable. Which is the one disadvantage of using a digital phone over a corded phone. But how often do you have a power cut to make this an issue? It certainly hasn’t ever affected me enough to not want this phone.
When I bought this and bought the triple handset version. I am delighted I bought this phone. At the time it was over double what I had ever paid for a phone before and after my old high quality Dect phone died I really wanted something better, and I found it with this.
The best thing I can say about this phone is that digital quality of each and every call is perfect. I really can’t fault it at all and after all that is what should be the most important thing with a home phone.
And with a 7 hour talk time battery life I have never yet had the battery die on me during a call.
Since this phone was released Panasonic have upgraded and no doubt improved this model but if for the call quality only I intend to stick with this phone for as long as it lasts.
The single version with no extra handsets is available and I would very easily pay that for this phone.
I’m sure there are more modern, better looking phones out there now (Although this looks modern and sleek to me) but overall for the price, features, battery life, range and certainly the digital sound quality I would easily choose this phone again.
Update
Just to update this a little. One feature which I forgot about which I’ve only actually used once and have totally forgotten how to do it, is that you can record phone conversations. I forget how long but I think you can record up to 40 minutes.
The answer phone also has call screening which I forgot to mention above and the answer phone has 40 minutes recording time and not 30 minutes as I said above, but as I said I have mislaid the instruction booklet and have never used full capacity so wasn’t too sure.