Recommend a Phone - land line

[deadheadskier]

Home phone has pretty much died. It was a Uniden and I thought it to be a POS since I first brought it home.

Looking for a replacement not to exceed $100 that has both a corded base and a cordless hand set for another room.

thanks

 

[Moe Ghoul]

Vtech or AT&T. Siemens is decent, but out of that price range.

 

[dmc]

GEt one with a high ghz so cell phones dont screw with it...
I have a 6.5ghz uniden - works good..

 

[deadheadskier]

Perhaps I got a lemon. The two issues I have had with the Uniden is that the corded receiver had to be rested 'just so' for the phone to be 'hung up'. Secondly, they are not compatible with platronics head sets, which I need for work.

 

[SKIQUATTRO]

Panasonic...their residental phones are built alongside with their business-multiline phones...

 

[SKIQUATTRO]

Panasonic is compat with Plantronics, i have a hardwired headset and a wireless CS50

 

[Geoff]

Pretty much all telephones are made by the same group of ODMs in China. The brand doesn't mean much.

If you are going cordless, you probably want to go with DECT 6.0 technology. The audio quality is somewhat better. They run in a 1.9 GHz frequency spectrum that the FCC has reserved for voice-only so you are less likely to have other things interfere with it. DECT 6.0 really doesn't mean anything. It should be called DECT 1.9. DECT is an open standard so if you fall in love with the base unit, you can often swap in a cordless handset you like better. I'm involved with that stuff in the cable modem company I work for. Soon, you'll be able to get a cable modem that does DECT to several handsets and can also drive a couple of analog POTS lines.

I personally don't think they have made a decent analog POTS telephone in a decade. The handpiece on the new ones suck. Uber-cheap microphone and speaker. I like the heft of the old AT&T Western Electric handpiece. I have a 1990's AT&T 730 speakerphone that I hope never dies.

 

[billski]

One thing to watch out for is to stay away from the frequencies that wireless nets use (have one?). I don't recall the frequencies. Keep your phones away from the access points too.

In general, we've been through probably 7 or 8 wireless units over the years. Every brand imaginable. It has always been hit or miss for us. Once I had to bring home 4 different sets before I found one that worked well, so we tend to buy locally. 5 out of 7 simply died after 2-3 years. We have the same luck with toasters. The others we got rid of because the batteries could no longer hold a charge and the proprietary replacement batteries were half the cost of a new phone set.
My only peeve is finding one with a mute button.

Which reminds me, our current set will be two years old this summer...