Telephone Reviews

The title says it all. Wanted to pick '0 star' from the dropdown list, but it's not available, so I had to pick '1 star'.

I'm very disappointed with this machine, it is a total piece of crap. Messages are so garbled I need to play them back 4-5 times and still can't understand them. The volume also wavers during playback. Most of my messages are cut off after a few seconds. Now it doesn't take messages at all. I gave it one star but it deserves much less than that. I would give it a negative 10 stars.
In summary, DO NOT BUY!

With the DSL filter you can hear someone leaving a message but it doesn't actually register and record the message. Without the DSL filter it records the message but it's so garbled with interference that you can't understand it. I'll give it 3 stars despite these issues, because set up was easy and it works without DSL (as well as can be expected for a CHEAP product).

If you have DSL only buy this: 1-to screen calls when you're home (with filter on), 2-to set an outgoing only message, 3-for any sort of target practice, or 4-to dissect for a science project...

Buy this phone if you want to use the phone for only 2 minutes, because after that the battery discharges.

It seems that there is a oproblemw ith the Panasonic battery. If you buy a generic one - it works fine. I bought 3 panasonic ones, all just a sbad - dies very suddenly

I own several 2.4 Ghz panasonic phones including two 1-line phones and a 2-line. My latest experience got me motivated to share a true test of their sturdy construction.

While wearing the belt clip, I went into my backyard to check on my swimming pool equipment. Leaning over the edge, I accidentally bumped the phone and knocked it into the water. Before I could grap it, it sunk to the bottom. After getting the net and fishing it off the 8-9 foot depth at the bottom, it stopped functioning (temporarily!!!)

That night, after removing the battery, shaking out all the water I could and setting it on a countertop to dry, I went to a local store to buy a replacement (this time a 2-line panasonic Model #KX-TG2267 (which has great fidelity, battery life, and general functionality.) I use these phones for my home office; they get intermittent use throughout the day, in an environment where my professionalism depends upon their performance.

After a day or so of partial function of the phone that went for a swim (after repeatedly shaking the water out of the phone by whirling it around in my hand), the phone is working exactly as it did prior to the incident. Now I know that these phones are advertised as "splashproof," but they are clearly not designed for a prolonged dunking at 8-9 foot of depth! Do not try this at home -- but mine survived!

Bottom line: They're not perfect, but a very solid, dependable product. As for their battery life, I've never had any problems ... by simply following the start-up charging instructions.

I have owned this phone for about 14 months. I have had static, inability to leave the immediate vicinity of the base unit, etc. Recently, the battery life has shortened so much that the phone is useless for more than 5 minutes. So, after running to grab my other phone on a conversation tonight, I thought I'd go on line and order a replacement battery. But after laughing to the point of crying over some of these reviews (love those people who are slamming their phones to get them to work) I think I will just get a new phone, before my answering machine starts blurting at me in the middle of the night!

I want to give this phone a good rating because the features it provides are amazing- I can't find any phones (at least not at a reasonable price) that have all the features this phone has packed into it! I LOVE the talking caller id and the answering system is great as well. Unfortunately, I get the worst static when I use this phone to talk- worse than any other cordless phones I've used. It's got it quirks too- for example if i'm talking on the phone and receive an incoming call which i do not answer, the phone disconnects when the incoming caller hangs up. I can then press the phone button to pick back up my original call- but it gets a little bit annoying. I have friends who have this same phone and experience the same problems I have with it. The people I talk to regularly while using this phone are begging me to get a new phone (the intermittent static sounds are driving them crazy-as well as me!), but like I stated before, the features are so great that I'm having a hard time finding a replacement I like. But I think I'll have to purchase something new and will end up just using this phone for the answering machine and talking caller id.

I've had this phone for about 2 years and I already need a replacement. The reception is to the point where no one can hear me when I speak. I'm constantly being asked "What's wrong with your phone"? If you're going to shell out a decent amount of money for a phone, then it should have a longer shelf life than 2 years. I'm relunctant to ever by a AT & T phone again. Think twice before buying this!!

Trying to discern the time or phone number at night or day in the prone position is virtually impossible due to the poor quality of the lighting display . Who wants to get up to read the time or phone number ?? Not me.

Their products are full of glitches. This bedroom phone stopped displaying the Caller ID correctly the first time I bought it. After I brought it back to the store for a replacement, the time was always wrong. It would show the right time when a call came in, but would get stuck there until the next call. Look for similar statements about other GE phones and take the advice not to buy a GE phone.

Don't waste your money on this item. You can't read the display at all, so you never know what time it is. The base is so light that when you answer the phone, the base comes along and falls off the nightstand. GE, you should be ashamed of yourself! I always trusted that brand name.... until now

We have had this phone for under a year and has stopped the phone lines in the house. We had to have a [company] come to our house only to find out that our phone was faulty. After many phone calls to Casio we finally had a new phone shipped to our house to replace the faulty one. Within 6 months the phone went completely dead. We took it to a repair man and he said it was cheeper to buy a new phone because the phone would only die again. So in conclusion this phone is the worst purchase ever

Do yourself a favor and stay away from this phone. I agree with all of the other reviewers here in that the sound quality is terrible (even a few feet away I was having conversations garbled and cut off), the design is poor, and worst of all the answering machine cuts off and loses messages. Almost all messages that are recorded are cut off half way and the machine also fails to record messages at all. I had the same experience as another reviewer in that I heard a message being recorded over the speaker, but when I went to play it back, the machine didn't record it. I got this phone as a gift but I will be going out to buy another one as soon as possible.

Contrary to other reviewers, I have had very good experience with this phone. First of all, I think it is a very nice looking phone and is not too big (most phones with answering machine combo are big and ugly). The phone is very clear, and the digital answer machine works very well and never cuts off any message.

I purchased this phone with high expectations based off product features especially the auto attendant. We purchased 2 each 944 and 2 eacch 964. This was for a small office (2 people) The 944 phones worked together but the 964 phones did not. The manual was the worst to date I have read on a phone system and gave no detail. After countless hours with support staff on phone (email support was a joke they copied sections from manual and sent them to me even though I had described following every step of the manual to them in detail) it was determined that while they advertised it would work with any anaolg line system it would not work ours because our system had been upgraded by BellSouth. During course of events I found out that it was common for the phones not to work together. The system never worked as promised and phone manufacture gave up trying to solve problem.

Nothing about this product is intuitive or simple. The hardware and software for this product are poorly designed. The only reason to purchase this product is if you want a product only you can use; this may give you job security but your job will become coping with the phones. Most important, our clients didn't like the process necessary to leave a message.

The most basic operations, like taking messages and retrieving them, are complex to set up and perform.

I could not figure out how to set the machine to pick up messages without calling AT&T support. I wanted to have the machine answer the phone and take messages if no one was in the office. Instead the answer message was played three times or the caller had to select an extension to have the machine accept a message.

If the line you set up to receive messages is busy, you need to have a second 964 if you want to take a message on the second line. This means that you have to check more than one phone for incoming messages. And, if I wanted someone else to pick up messages, it took a half hour to train them because the operation was so confusing.

The phone has too many buttons. Even after using the phone for several weeks I was not able to find the redial button easily. The directory holds lots of entries but it is not easy to set up or retrieve them.

The problems just went on. Rather than waste more time trying to use the features on these phones, I set them where they are only used occasionally -- throwing away most of the purchase price for these phones.

We bought 3 of these phones and tried out 3 more... they came from 3 separate locations. All 6 had the same problems!!

Minor problem: Intercom never worked.

Minor problem: Set-up is difficult to scroll through. You have to go through many options to find the one you want, because of poor organization & layout.

MAJOR problem: This is why we returned the phones. When you receive an incoming call on any line, if either Auto Attend or DTAD picks up to either transfer call or take a message, whatever happens from hereon out, when the caller hangs up, the 964 phone will continue to HOLD THE LINE for approx. 3 minutes while the phone company comes on with their automated message of "If you'd like to make a call please hang up and dial again." followed by a loud off-the-hook beep-beep-beeping. Finally, the line will be released. This also happens if you're talking on one line and someone calls trying to leave a message on another line. You can hear the other phone being "off the hook" so to speak and it is irritating beyond description. This has been thoroughly researched and tested on our end and it ahs nothing to do with our line, the region we're in, or other phones on the system. We eliminated everything and the problem persisted! We went through dozens of calls to Lucient to get help and Customer Service was unknowledgable and unwilling to give more than surface assistance. Research Team was very thorough and tried a lot, but they were unsuccessful at solving the problem. To complicate the problem a little further, after a couple of weeks with that problem, the line-holding suddenly became sporadic. That couldn't be eliminated to why it did/didn't work... The best answer we got was that, "These are very new phones and we don't have everything smoothed out yet."

My advise from much painful experience is to NOT BUY these phones, unless you relish the development of your patience through coping with numerous problems on your own.

I liked the combo phone/alarm/cd but found the product to be the worst quality of any home electronics I have ever purchased. Both the original and the replacement lost keypad functionality within a month of use making it impossible to dial out. Also both phones slowly lost all contrast on the caller id lcd so that you couldn't make out any display after a couple of months.

Almost sure to break within a few weeks of light use.

I ordered this phone/clock radio and while the electronics seemed to work fine, the phone was dead and would never produce a dial tone, no matter what I changed or did.

I have had this machine since early 2000. Everything works great when you read the instructions thoroughly. Great sound, nice alarm features such as wakeup to radio, CD, and buzzer. You can set all three alarms. When you turn off the alarm in the morning you do not have to worry about turning the alarm for the next day, as it will remember your settings. However, the problem with the phone not being able to dial out at times is a legitimate complaint. I called the manufacturer and they provided three tips that have worked but all are temporary fixes. If the phone stops working such as not being able to dial out or the caller id display is locked, first replace the 9 volt battery that is used for powering the features on the handset. Generally, this will fix the problem. If this does not fix the problem, the phone may also have been affected by a surge. Just unplug the cord that goes from the handset to the base of the phone and leave it disconnected for an hour or more. This should reset the handset. However, their may be ongoing problems where you may have too many phones on a phone line through out your house. Each phone has a REN (Ring Equivalence Number) on it. This phone shows 1.3 and is displayed on the black sticker on the handset. If the other phones simply stop working, check the total REN (Ring Equivalence Number) value of all the devices sharing your phone line. The total REN value on any one phone line should not exceed 4. If it does, some phones may not ring or even work at all, and computer modems will tend to drop the line or not connect properly. Most normal phones and computer modems have a REN of 1. If your other phones or PC modem is one of several devices on the same line and you have trouble, try removing one or more phones. Long extension phone cables can also cause similar problems and should only be used if absolutely necessary. The REN value is usually displayed on a sticker on the underside of the phone (eg, REN=1). With the phone annoyace I would have rated the phone 1 star if I didn't have the manufacturer's tips. If your phone does not have the problem, I would rate it a 5. Since I was able to use the tips with my phone problems, I rate it 3 stars.

is a very bad phone, no more coments

I have seen this phone sold under the IBM or the Bell label, but it's all the same machine. All I have to say is that I'm rather disappointed. I never had any trouble with reception like some of the other reviews stated, but the pixel screen on this phone became scrambled and unreadable within a month of purchase. Also, at times when it rings, I would push TALK to pick up the line, and the phone just keeps ringing!! Buttons are rubbery/mushy and impede fast dialing. All buttons have the same loud and annoying BEEP tone when pressed - there are no varying tones when pushing different number buttons, unlike most other phones. The usage is very counter-intuitive, and now that the screen is dead, I have no use for either the Called ID or the address book.

One friendly piece of advice: stay away from this phone!

I have had excellent experience with Panasonic cordless phones. Sony phones also have been a big disappointment - they go out of range whenever they feel like it, and you often lose your line and have to redial.

Please do not waste your money on this phone. Even thought it might look cool it has horrid static 24/7. Sometimes it won't dial and if you are 2 rooms away from the receiver there is no reception. We bought this phone in April and have hated it from the start. The buttons are confusing and it seems no thought was given to the layout. I'm not saying anything aginst IBM I love their computers but this phone stinks. Stay away at all costs.

For some reason I have kept this phone for 2 years, even though I absolutely hate it. It gets really bad static, which is best remedied by banging it on the counter a few times. I am looking for a replacement now because I can't hear at all most of the time.

I Just returned this phone. I liked the features however, I could not hear who I was talking to. Even with the phone volume on the highest setting, I was not satisfied. My wife also could not hear. We used the phone for two days and returned it.

The search continues.

I bought this phone about 3 weeks ago for the answering machine and a second phone. I can't use the phone though, because no one can hear me when I talk...I am sending the phone back to the company and will never buy a NW Bell phone. Do not buy this phone!!!

For some reason I have kept this phone for 2 years, even though I absolutely hate it. It gets really bad static, which is best remedied by banging it on the counter a few times. I am looking for a replacement now because I can't hear at all most of the time.

I Just returned this phone. I liked the features however, I could not hear who I was talking to. Even with the phone volume on the highest setting, I was not satisfied. My wife also could not hear. We used the phone for two days and returned it.

The search continues.

I bought this phone about 3 weeks ago for the answering machine and a second phone. I can't use the phone though, because no one can hear me when I talk...I am sending the phone back to the company and will never buy a NW Bell phone. Do not buy this phone!!!