Customer Reviews

AT&T 2230 2.4 GHz Dual-Handset Cordless Phone with Caller ID (Champagne)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(44)

 

 

Few cordless phones I've owned have been as well designed and manufactured as the AT&T 2230 dual handset. I'm a little obsessive when it comes to the "touch" of consumer products, and if something doesn't feel quite right, or cheap, I don't buy it. In the world of cordless phones, you truly get what you pay for. There may be cheaper 2.4ghz phones available, but none that I found were as well made as these two beauties.

The 2230s are a pleasant surprise. Lightweight, solid craftmanship, with a nice arc in the back that fits comfortably in your hand. The face is just slightly concave, with sturdy, tight numerical buttons. The buttons are actually my favorite part. They're solid, don't slide around in their holes, and your fingers don't rub up against the other buttons while pressing them. In other words, the user interface gets an A+. The phone feels like it was designed for the natural curves of your hand and fingers.

The outside casing feels very sturdy and tight around the edges, which leads me to believe they'd easily survive a fall. The description reads as being "champagne" in color, and I never really noticed the color before. They're more metallic than cream, and very nice looking.

The ear piece is also slightly concave and smooth, and fits your ear quite nicely.

To top it all off, the display is a wonderful backlit green light that's bright with easy to read LCD. The menu interface is very easy to figure out; allowing you to program in numbers, check your caller ID, and even change the name of the phones (mine are named Harold and Maude).

In case the "dual" part isn't clear, one of the sets plugs in to a power outlet and a phone jack. The other just plugs into an electrical jack anywhere in your house -- no phone line required. This was the deal maker for me, for I needed a phone in an office that didn't have an easy to reach phone jack.

All in all I'm very pleased with the set. The previous review talking about volume / sound quality could be because they didn't turn up the receiver volume on the phone, which is quite easy to do and gets as loud as you could possibly need. I guess "quality" is a personal thing, but for me they blew my old 900mhz phones out of the water.

If I needed another set for an office or second home, I wouldn't hesitate buying another pair.

pros:

2 headsets
call swapping btwn headset works

cons:
* keys are not backlit so dialing in low light is very difficult
* caller id often does not show who is calling (even after 2 rings)
* there is a humming noise on the phone
* there is sometimes an echo on the phone
* redial does not work well
* dialing then pressing the phone button will not work sometimes
* sometimes can't walk out the front door w/o dropping the call (~500 ft from base)
* cannot easily navigate menus
* does not show call info for numbers stored in phone book
* for no reason it will make a loud piercing noise and you have to unplug it from the power supply to make it stop

... i could go on. i do not recommend this phone. the best thing about it are the two handsets for two rooms.

These phones are convenient in size and features. We haven't had any problems at all with them and have had them for several months. The charge lasts a good while, the handset volume, ringer volume, etc., are easy to program once you get the hang of it. The intercom feature is very handy. In the bases they take up very little room and 2 phones need only 1 phone jack. Away from the jack the phone fits nicely in any pocket. These can also be used as walkie-talkie type radios (with the intercom feature) as the range is quite far. We can talk from the grocery store to home (about 1/2 mile away) on them. All in all we are excited about this product and if and when they go we will replace them with the same or similar.

I bought the AT&T 2230 2.4 GHz Dual-Handset Cordless Phone set last summer for my small one bedroom apartment. It seemed like the perfect phone and it was for a while. I had absolutely no problems with it for the first 6 months. It had all the features I wanted plus a few more I did not use. The range was fine, I could take it all the way down to the laundry room and it still worked perfectly. I never had a problem with battery life, signal, or clarity. I thought I had purchased the last phone I would need for a very long time.

When it came to move into my house I bought a second set with the answering machine thinking the convenience of all four phones being the same and being able to stick each handset in any charger was worth it. The pager system between handsets also sounded handy for getting a hold of someone say in the garage and whatnot. About two months after settling into my new home the phones started acting up. First the signal strength would go in and out. Calls would get disconnected and the battery life stinks. Then the phones just stopped working. When I get a call now the base unit rings but when I go to grab a receiver it shows "OUT OF SERVICE" on the display and will not work. I end up running around the house looking for one that will respond. I tend to miss most of my calls now because of this. The receivers go in and out, sometimes working, sometimes not. Less then a year after purchasing them I am already shopping for a new phone. In the beginning I figured I would spend a little extra and get a phone that would last, but it did not end that way.

I would highly advise at looking elsewhere towards a different brand. Unless you like the idea of having to replace your phone every six months, this phone set is not for you.

This is, unequivocally, the worst phone system I've ever used. As several of the other reviewers have noted, the phones don't hold their charge for more than the blink of an eye. Far more aggravating to me, however, is the quality of the reception. Since I started using these phones, everyone I speak to on the phone complains that they can't hear me any more when I do so much as tilt my head to the side. I use cordless phones so that I can be mobile and continue to get things accomplished around my house. If I wanted to be tethered to a single location while using these phones, I would have been better off purchasing an old-fashioned corded wall phone! Another problem is that sometimes, even though I've set the phone in its charger OVERNIGHT, the phone has accepted no charge. Why this happens, I have no earthly idea. What I do know is that these phones are getting the old heave-ho in favor of something else. If you buy this phone system, the only thing you will gain is an increased vocabulary of curses, maledictions, imprecations and vociferous enathemas! Save yourself a WORLD of frustration and get a different phone!!

When we were looking for a new phone and saw this duo at the store we thought we'd found the perfect phone for us. Finally we could have a phone in the bedroom without the phone jack - and with caller id on each unit to boot!

Unfortunately, no matter how much we liked the idea, the phone was unusable. No matter where we were in the house or how close we were to the base the reception was horrible to point of being unable to understand the person on the phone.

I'm not sure what the problem was, and the manual had no suggestions other than 'move the base' or 'move closer to the base'. We tried both with no effect, the sound was fuzzy and distored and you could hear an 'echo' of your own voice as you talked. Worse than a bad cordless phone!

With our old Panasonic 900mz cordless the sound was clear as a bell, so we were a bit baffled how a phone with a greater frequency would have such horrendous reception.

The other thing that bugged me is the phone manufacturer's push towards making phones look like cellular phones. It's not comfortable, and you can't lean the phone on your shoulder while you do something else. Other than fashion, this is a very uncomfortable, non-functional trend!

We stuck it out for two weeks, and somedays the distortion was better than others, but my father could barely hear us and we'd go back and forth saying, "What did you say?" and "Huh?" and "Speak up!".

I started to dread using the phone, so we brought them back.

I compared the 2230 with the Uniden TRU346 and bought the AT&T because it had a mute button and fit better to my ear. Unfortunately, as did another reviewer, I note a bad buzz when connected to another caller. The person I was calling remarked about the buzz also.

I like the feature set, but I can't keep a phone that sounds worse than the 900MHz phone it is replacing.

The AT&T 2230 appears to be a good deal if you have one phone jack but need multiple extensions, and the phones feel good in your hand and look pretty cool.

Noise is a subjective thing, and it's clear a few folks below are satisfied with the sound quality. However, when I charged these phones up, I noticed an immediate increase in background buzz over my 10-year old Sony cordless, which was indistinguishable from a corded phone when you were within 50 feet of the base. I tried following a previous reviewer's advice to just kick up the volume (the buzz doesn't get any louder) but at that level I was holding the phone 3 inches from my ear. I called my wife at work and she noticed the buzz too. And I had made sure I was observing all the standard warnings about proximity to other devices, etc.

I ended up returning the AT&T and spending more money for the Sony Quadrastation. Still some hiss relative to my old phone, but quiet enough relative to the AT&T that I'll keep it.

... I looked long and hard for a quality cordless phone most are very cheaply made and are a joke. I purchased the At & T phones and I am extremly happy with them.They work flawlessly. The phones are easy to use and you can tell they are made very well.They are comfortable to you ears, the buttons are easy to use etc. The reception is perfect, I can walk through out my house with no interference at all. There are two idenical phones which you can press intercom on and talk to the other person or transfer the call over to the other phone. I would highly recommend this phone.

You may be tempted to read some of the positive reviews and give this phone the benefit of the doubt, but please don't do that to yourself.

The battery in this phone is the type that requires the phone to be dead before you charge the handset. This means that you cannot place the handset into the charger until the battery is dead. Heaven forbid you forget because you will eventually kill the battery. You can use the 2nd handset for your calls. However, if the 2nd one dies, you are out of luck. If you take it out of the charger before it is fully charged, the battery has a memory and you will never get a full charge again, only the amount you partially charged it. Multiply this several times and you eventually have to buy a new battery and repeat the cycle over again.

One of the selling points for us on this phone was the ability to tell if you have a voice mail (we use the phone compnay voice mail). I think it showed an indicator once in the year we have owned the phone but never again.

On the positive side, the reception is very clear and no noise whatsoever and caller ID works fine. The positives just do not out weigh the totally negative features. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT but this phone!