Telephone Reviews

I bought the KX-TG4000 as well as the extension telephone listed above as the 420B as This telephone system does not have acceptable voice quality, even with both base and extension in the same room.

In addition, this base station is not powerful enough to cover a large, pre-World War II house with hard plaster steel lath walls and ceilings in some of the rooms intervening between the base and the extensions. It was a disaster, frankly.

I have been using a Uniden 900 mhz digital cell phone in this house for 5 years, without the slightest interference, and with first class voice quality.

To rule out defectiveness of this unit, I borrowed another 2.4 ghz base and extension and placed them in the same relation as the 4000/420 combination. The results were just as bad.

I had to return the whole kit and caboodle, including 4 420's, the base unit and three cordless handsets, incurring [expensive]restocking fees from the internet supplier who sold me the system.

The one star is scarcely enough to convey my disappointment and anger about this system.

P.S., the system does not allow paging, a significant drawback. Nor does it have a one step automatic transfer of calls into voicemail.

I purchased a KX-TG2000 2-line base with two handsets and a KX-TGA420 extension for use in my turn-of-the-century three story Victorian. The phones work well everywhere I have placed them except near cell phones. They even work in the yard and carriage house. I never have to worry about placing phone lines. Programming the phones is not intuitive but the manual is clear and once you have the instructions programming is easy enough. The phone will call your pager if you get a message and you can use the extensions as an intercom. It beats running up two flights of stairs. You can have voice mail for everyone in the family if you want, and access voice mail from the KX-TGA420. The phones allow you to store the numbers of people who call, you if you have caller ID. The only complaint my family has is that you can't pick up an extension and listen in without the originator consciously conferencing the phone call or transferring it to an extension. Personally, I enjoy the privacy. The only drawback is that the extensions only work through the base unit, which means whole system goes down if your base fails. I tried and returned several expandable phone systems including ATT and GE before settling on Panasonic.

Did you know that you are not buying from Amazon.com and they don't care if you get your order or not.

I've owned this phone for 3 years now and haven't had any problems so far. The spare battery compartment on the phones base is a big help when I forget to charge my phone. The only draw back is that the answering machines digital voice recording makes both incoming and outgoing message sound garbbled.

This phone was great for about the first 6 months of owning it and actually we have two handsets. On both handsets the #1 buttons stopped working then the HOLD buttons stopped working. A couple of months later the #2 and #3 buttons stopped working on one handset, on the other handset just the #3 stopped working. I called several local repair shops to inquire about repairing the phones because we spent a lot of money on these phones, and found that no one would even touch the phones, let alone repair them. We are disappointed and are now in the market for new phones.

Sony's "QuadraStation 2.4" phone is just a good product - which is becoming a rarity in consumer electronics. It's been in operation for a year and both the base as well as the wireless handset have performed flawlessly and beyond reasonable expectations. The remote handset has been half-way down the block and reception was still strong.

Keep the manual close at hand; there are so many functions - most are useful - that referring to the book will stay a habit for a while.

Until the "next big thing" in phones comes along, this will be a keeper.

This phone worked ok for about 6 months. It then got worse
and worse each month. I can not recommend this phone.
In addition it was always really bad around the microwave oven.
Best to look for a different phone.

Purchased this phone a year ago and would definitely recommend it. I have not had any of the static and other issues with all previous cordless phones I've had while living in this flat. Well worth the money. Solved my problem of not having a phone jack in the room I needed the cordless phone, since the cordless does not need to plug into a wall jack. Battery life is decent and does not take long to fully re-charge. I never have to change the channel, get static or hear other people's phone calls. Hopefully, they don't hear mine. Has the headset capability which will come in handy now that I will be telecommuting. The only bad thing is you have to program numbers into both phones. I would rather program into one and the directory apply to both phones.

I revert to my walgreens $5 phone for important calls because the sound quality is better. Make sure you realize the phone is NOT call-waiting ID ready. Or better yet.. spend more onb something decent.

This phone is just the ticket. Great looks and feel and is easy to set and use. No problems with the range or sound quality. I love this phone!

I revert to my walgreens $5 phone for important calls because the sound quality is better. Make sure you realize the phone is NOT call-waiting ID ready. Or better yet.. spend more onb something decent.

This phone is just the ticket. Great looks and feel and is easy to set and use. No problems with the range or sound quality. I love this phone!

I do not like this phone. The option selections are not very intuitive. The volume on the headset seems to go down every time you hang up the phone. The next time you answer you have to turn it back up to hear the caller.

This phone is a really(!) good concept. The base unit is the only part which needs to be near a jack. Any of the (up to 4) handsets, then, only need to have their charging stands near an electrical outlet. This makes the system excellent for older homes and apartments with a limited number of telephone jacks, which often are in out-of-the-way places.

The phone has an amazing range, and works quite well in my 2-level home, even though there is much structural steel in the walls. After 2-months of use, I have yet to have a bad/static-y connection.

My only(!) negative comment is with the Caller-ID redial "feature". I live in CA, where 1+dialing is a requirement when using area codes. There is no way to set the area code in the phone system (according to customer service), as the phone automatically senses the area code. However, the phone doesn't automatically strip out the area code for local calls, nor append "1" to the beginning of the dialing string for out of area calls. This is maddening!

I had the previous model of the st louis phone and it lasted awhile and was great, but it quit working and I got this model. Its absolutely worthless! I can hardly hear when im on the phone with someone. And, the retractable cord would be a great idea if it actually retracted properly and had enough cord to actually retract. There are also little lights in the top, I think they are supposed to work.. they don't. and they clock seems to work randomly. This is the most unreliable and useless phone I have ever owned. It looks really cool though. They should have spent more time on its funcionality instead of packaging.

It's big, it's bulky, it's heavy; it's completely impractical-and it's terrific! This is a fully functional telephone, modeled after the field telephone carried by Lindbergh on his famous solo Atlanic flight. The top case has a working compass, and a series of lights which flash in sequence to display the route of Lindbergh's flight when the phone rings.
The receiver isn't a plastic toy-it has a satisfying heft; the cord retracts into the base; the buttons for redial and speed dial are big chunky push buttons. This is a "retro" phone in the best sense-smoothly functional and up-to-date technology without the feel of being a plastic knock-off.
If you're looking for a telephone to compliment a den, library, etc. this is a handsomely crafted & interesting item.

I loved the features for this phone, I mean how fun ringtones, faceplates, flashing antena's. Its a cell phone lovers dream. But unfortuantely like a cell phone it isn't a clear call maker. It makes a popping , yes I read the reviews before purchasing and I thought it was just their faulty phone, I was wrong. Were not just talking one popping noise it happens through the whole time you are on the phone about every 10-15 sec. It sounds like someone keeps pressing flash and swithching lines. It got so frustrating that I finally gave up my cool features and went for a phone that just worked. I guess we will have to wait for them to work out the quirks and try again in a year.

I have had this phone for about a week now, and I am planning to exchange it today to see if they all pop or just this one. If they all have the popping problem, I have narrowed my search down to three other phones that I would like to try:

a) Panasonic 5.8GHz KX-TG5100M/5110M
b) VTech 5.8GHz VT-i5881
c) AT&T 5.8GHz 5840

These phones are all more expensive than this one, but they are 5.8GHz instead of 2.4GHz like this VTech phone, and they are all expandable systems. I like the Panasonic the best, and the reviews on it were all great, very few problems with that phone it seems. But the other VTech I mentioned has programmable ringer types like this one does, so it's also a definite possibility.

Now, on to the review!

Pros:
1. The phone is very easy to set up and use.

2. The caller ID is time and date stamped for each incoming call, marking multiple calls from the same number with an asterisk using the most recent call time.

3. The downloadable/customizable ringtones are really cool. My husband and I aren't teenagers, and we still get a kick out of it! You can set the phone to ring with a different musical ringtone and animation for different people in your phone book. There are six tunes preprogrammed into the phone, and you can replace the last one of these with your own tune. There are three animations preprogrammed in the phone, and you can replace any or all of these.

Cons:
1. The VTech gz2456 Phone often pops when I talk on it, and it's frustrating to constantly ask the person on the other end to repeat themselves.

2. The phone doesn't update the caller ID when you answer a call, so it still says that call is "new". I have to manually hilight that call for the phone to recognize it as "old."

3. The software to edit your own ringtones and download animation didn't work on my Windows XP desktop computer but did work on the Windows 98 laptop. VTech didn't include a backup of the preexisting animations or ringtones that were on the phone (a cute heart with arrows, a bird, and a chatting friend), just a few different ones (dinosaur, bicycle, golf). When you download a different animation or ringtone to the phone, you can't replace the one you copied over top of because they don't provide a backup of it on the software or the website, and the company refused to provide them for me. That was a pain because I liked one on the phone better than the one I copied over top of it, but didn't realize you could choose which one to delete because of the poorly written manual.

4. Which brings me to this next point: Who wrote the user manual for this phone?! It is very poorly written.

Conclusion:
I love this phone, and if I can exchange it for one that doesn't pop when I talk on it, I can deal with the small quirk with the caller ID not updating itself if you answer a call. At least with exchanging the phone, I can get the animations back that I erased, that they refused to give me the files for! There was a very cute little heart and arrow one that I loved, but I accidentally copied over with a dinosaur when I was playing with the downloads.

This phone has never been useful to us. You can talk 10 minutes and the battery starts beeping and the phone goes dead. We kept the phone on the charger when not in use BUT to no avail. We had to buy another cheaper phone and discard the Panasonic KX-TG2570B which cost $79.99.

Hi,

I've had this phone for about 3 years now... Its been quite unreliable.

The phone went "OUT OF RANGE" after about 6 months of buying it. It became unusable. Went to the Panasonic service center and got it repaired under warranty. The service person told me that the problem is VERY COMMON for this model. He said that there is a faulty chip or something and after repairs it will not have problems.

But after a few months after repairs, the "OUT OF RANGE" kept happening. But now, it has become much worse and the handset hardly ever picks up when there is an incoming ring. There is also so much static that its become unusable.

I've lost confidence in Panasonic after this product (Made in Japan) and I am considering other brands as replacement.

Cordless phones are quickly becoming the standard in active homes. The Panasonic 2.4 GHz line (2500, 2550, 2570) are among the current crop of high end cordless phones, boasting longer range and better sound quality. I personally have the 2550 (with CallerID but to Answering Machine), but the basic design is almost identical to the 2570. Here are some of the pro's and con's:

Pros:

- Range. In my experience, it is great. I've walked several hundred feet away from my apartment, and still had good sound.

- Headset. The ability to use a headset is liberating.

- Sound Quality. It is very good - since it is digital and of a high frequency, there is little room for static.

- Phone Pager. The pager stays on until you find the phone.

Cons:

- The menus are not intuitive. I am usually a very quick study when it comes to programming electronics. However, the UI of this phone is not really user friendly.

- The redial function. There is no button for redial; you need to press the function button in order to find redial. Furthermore, it only stores one previously called number. With all of the memory it has, it should have a buffer of three or four numbers.

- Caller ID. Having the functionality of Caller ID right on the headset is great. For local numbers, all you have to do is bring up the entry for a number, press the "on" button, and the phone will dial the number. You should be able to do this for long distance numbers as well. Unfortunately, the phone doesn't know to add a "1" before the number. This is a needless problem.

- Volume. There is a volume control for the phone. However, it does not have enough settings for handset AND headset use.

- Headset Size. The trend in phones is smaller. This makes having the phone on your shoulder difficult. I guess that's why there is a headset input.

All in all, it is a good phone. However, for my money I would spend it on something more user friendly. I liked the UI for the Uniden phones, but I've had problems with RF (Radio Frequency) interference. If you are looking for a 2.4 GHz phone with Caller ID, this may be the phone for you. Just wait for a sale.