Telephone Reviews

1. This machine had the worst manual I've ever seen. Even setting the clock required digging in the back of the book somewhere instead of being in the setup section. Did not explain functions clearly or completely.

2. A battery backup would probably be more worthwhile than than the handset spare battery charger feature. Every time the power glitches here (frequently) it loses its settings. Haven't had it working long enough to tell whether it loses its messages when this happens, but I suppose it does. The manual doesn't say one way or the other.

3. Mine (1 wk old) has started talking Mickey Mouse and I can't understand what it's saying when selecting functions any more.

Overall I am totally disillusioned this AT&T product and I certainly would NOT recommend it to anyone.

This phone started out great. Then within 1 year the answering machine started cutting off incoming messages or not recording them at all. Also, the phone no longer connects correctly with the base so it is difficult to get it to charge. Not a happy customer.

Beware if you are thinking of buying this phone: there is only one outgoing message, and the answering machine does not distinguish at all between the two lines. So you cannot disable answering on one of the lines or have one line automatically routed to a different mailbox. In my opinion that makes this phone useless for a two-line home or office.

I PURCHASED THIS PHONE AND NOW MY BATTERY IS FAULTY AFTER ONLY HAVING IT FOR THREE MONTHS AND TO MY SURPRIZE I CAN'T FIND A REPLACEMENT BATTERY. IT IS A SHAME BECAUSE I LIKED THE DESIGN.
SO NOW I AM NOT SURE IF BELL SOUTH IS MY NEXT SELECTION FOR MY FUTURE PHONE.

Need I say more? Noise, echo, static. Not user friendly.

This phone is great. The reception is as clear as a bell. The caller id on call waiting is great,let's you know who is calling while you are already on the phone. If it is not an important call you don't have to interupt your call that you are already on. Has alot of extra features that are convenient. There are 4 mailboxes each with thier own ext. #. So everyone in the home can recieve their own messages. Also has remote access to each mailbox. It even tells you if another extension line is in use so you don't have to interupt a family members call,simply wait until they are done to use the phone. Can't say enough you'll have to but it and try it yourself.

The good part was the excellent performance and the bad part is the handset
ceased to function. Presently, I am looking for a replacement.

Although unrated by Consumer Reports, the other Uniden products were highly appraised. So I was very discouraged and disappointed by its performance.

My sense is that the "cordless" aspect of the phone (900 MHz DSS) works quite well.

It is everything else about the phone that stinks!

1) The acoustics on the phone are awful. The speaker sounds awful, and the microphone is incredibly tinny. I would expect better performance from a $...phone. Also, the location of the mic (microphone) is quite poor. When friends & relatives call, they all comment on how poor we sound (using the Uniden 3965).

2) There is a huge time delay when picking up the phone before the phone becomes active. We will be saying "Hello Hello", while the caller can't hear us. Once or twice, the caller has inadvertently hung up.

3) Lots of other small anoyances. For example, it has the num pad on the base unit (nice for using using voice-mail). However, if one selects this key pad, then all audio goes through the base unit and not the head set. Pretty poorly designed!

I would have returned this to Amazon if I had not exceeded the 30 day limit (I had procastinated setting it up). My loss!

I bought this telephone a few years back as a new year's gift for my husband. Our previous phone was 2.4 Ghz and always interfering with our wireless setup. The range on this phone is just fine, just dont bring it into your mechanical room and you'll be fine.

We've had no complaints at all with this telephone. It features different types of rings so I can always tell when it's my mother calling me. And the speakerphone feature is awesome. Clear and clean. Folks on the other end of course know you're on speakerphone but it cuts back and forth between their conversation and yours very easily.

Without doubt, this phone is the most pathetic, depressing and frustrating piece of electrical equipment I have ever purchased. After about 3 months of using it, the batter life went from several hours down to 30 minutes. Yes, THIRTY minutes. Which makes it the most unusable and horrible P O S phone I've ever seen. Shame on the kid right out of design school who thought up this one. And please, vtech phones might look nice, but... well, you know how the saying goes. STAY AWAY FROM THIS ONE!!!

I completely admit that I dropped the phone once. It fell off a kitchen table -- not down a flight of stairs. I can no longer hear from the ear piece, but the caller can hear me. I can now only use the phone with my headset. Like I said, I admit I dropped the phone, but one fall shouldn't have done that much damage. The phone is only 5 months old and I'm already shopping for a new one.

I have been a fan of v-tech phones for a long time. They tend to be very ergonomic in terms of handset shape, keypad use, and features. The t2426 is no exception. This phone seems to have been designed with the frequent cell phone user in mind. If you tend to miss all those little features which are standard on cell phones but lacking (until now) on cordless units, you'll absolutely love this phone. Dialing can be done the standard way, or you can type in the phone number first and then hit the "Phone" key to dial. This allows you to back up and correct any mistakes before you connect. Not surprisingly, the layout of the phone/off keys, as well as the navigation buttons are also very similar to that of cell phone. There is a phone number directory in which you can program both names and numbers, without having to rely on an existing caller ID entry to do so. The phone also comes with caller ID and call waiting (or the combination if you subscribe to both services). The 3-line display is easy to read, with the Name & Number lines in slightly larger text than the time/date stamp. If you have a voicemail service, you'll love the indicator light on the base that flashes when there is a voicemail message waiting. I found the sound quality to be very good. If you're looking for a home phone that behaves more like the cell phone you're used to using, this is a great product, and its a great value for the price.

The features are great, reception good but the power supply went out after 9 months.

The only reason this phone is getting a single star is because of its features (i.e. caller id). However, in terms of reception, this phone is inferior to any other phone I have ever used. It's clarity is even sometimes worse than my cell phone. I have nearly constant static even when I'm standing virtually on top of the base. Stay far, far away from this phone.

Good battery life, nice caller ID features, but I've had such difficulty with the reception I couldn't possibly reccommend this phone. As some the other reviews have mentioned, I get constant static almost everywhere in my home. Maybe you'll have better luck in your home, but beware.

Amazon is the best, and offers the best deals anywhere. However this phone is the WORST!

I never realized how bad it could be until my daughter swallowed some day glow liquid from one of the silly party bracelets. In calling our doctor, local ER and Poison Control Center, I was so frustrated that I couldn't hear anything they said (the static is so bad). To complicate matters, the dialing is so slow that it added to the stress. Thank G-d for cell phones!!!

Do not buy this phone, because you will never know in an emergency if it will perform.

I bought this phone because I needed a cordless 2 line phone. The phone get allots of static and interfernce. The speakerphone has poor sound quality. The rest of the functions though present do not work well i caller id memory .

I was looking for a moderately priced 2-line cordless with caller-id and there aren't a lot of choices...

Because of the mixed reviews here, I was wary - and bought this under the Radio Shack label so I could easily return to my local store if I had any problems...

BUT it's a nice phone. No problems.
One feature not mentioned in the "editorial" is that you can store NAMES and numbers in the handset memory/speed-dial and scroll through to select - just like most cell phones.

The features are great, reception good but the power supply went out after 9 months.

The only reason this phone is getting a single star is because of its features (i.e. caller id). However, in terms of reception, this phone is inferior to any other phone I have ever used. It's clarity is even sometimes worse than my cell phone. I have nearly constant static even when I'm standing virtually on top of the base. Stay far, far away from this phone.

Good battery life, nice caller ID features, but I've had such difficulty with the reception I couldn't possibly reccommend this phone. As some the other reviews have mentioned, I get constant static almost everywhere in my home. Maybe you'll have better luck in your home, but beware.

The sound is awful, but I trudged on...as I laid my plans for the purchase of a future network appliance with voicemail capabilities. Unfortunately, it's reliability matches it's quality and it locked up my phone line at least 4 times.

Replaced it with a cheap AT&T unit today.

The user interface is ridiculously complicated. When you entera password for the mailboxes, it announces each number loudly afteryou entered it, making it difficult to maintain any privacy--why havepasswords at all if everyone nearby can hear your password when youenter it? The sound quality on the recordings is terrible--the firsttime my mother heard my outgoing recording, she said "What'swrong with your answering machine? It sounds like you're speakingfrom Jupiter!" Also, after a few months, the screen beganflashing "lo", which means the backup battery neededreplacing. Replacing it involves unscrewing a compartment on theunderside of the machine with a mini-screwdriver (why on earth nothave it just pop off like most?). So I put a brand new battery in.Less than a month later, it's flashing "lo" again, eventhough there haven't been any power outages, so the battery shouldn'teven have been used!...

this is the worst sounding answering machine I've ever had or heard...no matter how many times I recorded my message, it sounds like absolute crap...it makes me want to go back to my tape machine...its amazing how poorly a digital machine can sound...i'm going to return this immediately. Don't buy this!

I got this phone thinking that the name brand would stand for quality but it completely did not. The replacement cost me lots of shipping cost and did not even been to work. My advice it see this model do not buy unless you like pain and suffering with big cost for a truly inferior product. Clearly IBM does not care about their customer base. Their service after the sale is extremely bad. Their design on this phone was so poor that the phone only almost worked for 1 day.

this is my second cordless phone with a headset-this one I can not hear out of. I contacted the seller Rainbow Barter and they said all sales were final. So I tried to contact IBM sat on the phone 25 minutes the first time on hold, was disconnected and I am sitting again 25 minutes. maybe this time I will get luck :(

I have had no luck with this product. It seemed to work fine in the beginning, but after a few weeks I began to get terrible static problems, which can be very disruptive both to me and to my callers. Sometimes a call comes in and it gives a funny ring that tells me there's no way I'll be able to answer the call on that phone. Sometimes it tells me the battery has run down, even though after I put the unit back on the base and pick it back up again the battery will read fully charged. I really can't go into all the strange things this phone does in just 1000 words.
I do like the headset feature, which allows me to wander the house and do stuff with my hands while I'm yakking away, but the belt clip is a mystery. It's hinged, so that it just flips out of my belt or whatever. I have to be sure to wear a shirt with a chest pocket if I really want to be hands-free. The headset offers good sound, both to me and my callers.
I should note that this is my first cordless phone and it's possible that the problems mentioned above are to do with my environment and not the phone, but I find that hard to believe.
Maybe after I replace this thing I can come back and say.

In addition to the below mentioned issues, the phone has a large annoying Southwestern Bell logo along the side that does not come off.

In addition to my previous review, let me add that if you answer the telephone before the second ring, the unit will not display any Caller id info. Not a problem for me, but, I know some people may not not be patient enough to wait and "see" who's calling before a second ring.

Was looking for a phone for the bedroom. This one fit the bill (almost). I have not had any problems adjusting the contrast (you press down on the arrow buttons to adjust when you first program the phone). The caller id display has worked fine once you program it with your area code. My only complaint is that I wish the company had designed it with a "backlit" caller id display. It's a bit of a hassle to turn on the bedside lamp at night to see who's calling on the caller id display. It has a lighted key pad which is great for dialing in a darkened room. The ringer volume can be adjusted to a low or high level. Works fine.