Bosch Cordless Drill | Cordless Phone with Answering Machine

Posts Tagged ‘Directory Dial’

Panasonic Dect 6 0 Metallic Gray Cordless Corded Phone with Answering Machine KX TG1062M

The Panasonic KX-TG1062M is engineered to work in 1.9GHz frequency, Panasonic’s DECT 6.0 phones wont conflict with common wireless devices such as 2.4GHz routers, wireless keyboard and mouse, microwave ovens and other household items. And because its digital, you’ll enjoy long range and clear sound while deterring eavesdropping.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars 2nd eek review
I wanted a phone with high quality audio transmission and receive. This phone does that and I rate those performance features a 5 star! The true test came with calls to my very hard-of-hearing mother. She seldoms says “what?” when I call her now. My own hearing is far less than perfect, but this phone is very clear with adequate earpiece volume. I do wish the ringer volume adjustment was easier to access, for it takes seven key strokes to reach that function. Range was respectable, with indoor to unobstructed outdoor solid reception of 300′. Obstructions limit reception, but I managed an very undependable performance max. range of 500′ (200′ of that, wooded). The owner’s manual barely gets a 3 star rating from me. Menu and function navigation a 3 star. There is a learning curve with this phone. Speaker phone on the portables get a 4+ star rating. Battery type feature is a welcome innovation!

4 Stars Speed Dial!
Speed dial… Most of our calls are through speed dial. But we want to replace our aging 900MHz with a DECT phone. (The higher frequency 2.4/5.8 phones have a set of problems that kept us from buying them – DECT is on a lower frequency; 6.0 is a meaningless number.) It’s nearly impossible to find a modern cordless that has speed dial, but thankfully this Panasonic does.

Fewer and fewer phones have speed dial anymore. The phone makers are doing away with it in favor of a “directory dial” model where you scroll through a list of numbers and then call it. So what used to be about two button presses to call a number (speed dial) is now much less convienient, to the point that you may as well just dial the whole number.

The only reason I can think of for the phone makers’ move to directory dial is to mimick the user interfaces found in cell phones. That’s a terrible idea for two reasons: 1) the directory model is just bad because it’s slower to navigate, and 2) the users who are more familiar with cell phone interfaces than basic speed dial are moving away from landlines and not coming back – they have no interest in a phone like this. So why get rid of the speed dial we landline users know and love? (Note to the phone makers: you can offer both speed dial and directory dial.)

Anyway, go to the various manufacturers’ websites, dig up the PDF manuals to see which phones have speed dial. None of the Unidens do and none of the other Panasonics do. But the Panasonic KX-TG1061 series has it. It’s more like a business phone where you use a separate panel of buttons instead of the number pad, so it’s restricted to five entries instead of nine. But it’s there.

Let’s hope these phone makers return to including some of the common sense convenience features for their landline phones, instead of blindly adopting cell phone characteristics. I’d like to have a choice when shopping, but at least Panasonic still has speed dial on life-support for the time being.

I’m taking off one star because I really wish that there was a way to allow one of the cordless handsets to transfer a call to itself without involving the base, the same way the handset on the base does when you pick it up while the speakerphone is active. The satellite phones only enter a “conference” mode and require some sequence of button pressing between the new connection and the old one in order to transfer the call. I’m sure that’s helpful for large households where people mistakenly pick up the phone a lot, but I wish there were a “transfer call” by default setting. I may return it for the cordless version to get that feature, even if it means losing speed dial.

Otherwise it’s a good phone so far.

4 Stars Very nice, but complicated to run
This is a nice set up and I am happy to find a phone that works, and the answering machine and light to signal messages on my Qwest mailbox works. However, it seems that I have to reprogram the sound down each night, and I have to reprogram the sound up and down all day as it does not maintain those settings. In a clinic, that is a bother.

But I do recommend it. Also, the portables actually receive better than any ever have through my two-foot-thick adobe walls. I try to only use corded due to the health dangers of EMF signals from the portables, but they are nice for an emergency.

3 Stars Not perfection
This is my third cordless phone in three years, and it dissapoints me. I’m still looking for the perfect mix of features. The Displays on both the base and hand units are hard to read in poor lighting. Caller ID is very inconvenient to use. It takes three menu steps, it doesn’t display all of the information in a single screen. i.e. you have to switch between two screens to get the name and mumber. When you answer the call, the caller ID does not stay on the display so another user can see who the call is from. And finally, received messages on the answering machine are only indicated on the base unit with a hard to read small indicator. It should be more visible that you have a waiting message on the base unit. This alert should also be indicated on the portable units with a flashing light, not just a displayed message on the hard to read display. Overall, its missing a lot of user friendly Caller ID features that I had gotten used to on other brands.

4 Stars Almost perfect
Good:

Can be used as an intercom system.

Does not interfere with WIFI router.

Cordless units have great speakerphones.

Great voice quality.

Nice sleep feature: phone does not ring during specific days and time ranges.

Built-in call blocking for specific caller IDs.

Bad:

It’s pretty pricey for what it is.

The base unit works in an outage; but the cordless units, even if they have full charge, do not. It would have been nice if the cordless units were still able to function in a black out. They could have designed the base unit to take optional rechargeable AAs given the price of the system.

I may have missed this in the instruction manual, but it would have been nice to have custom ring tones for specific caller IDs.

Summary:

If you’re still into out of date landlines like myself, this is the phone to get. I do not know of any better landline phone on the market.

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