Customer Reviews

AT&T 2440 2.4 GHz Cordless Telephone (Metallic Charcoal)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I just got this phone today. It is pretty impressive. Since there are no specs on Amazon.com, so I will add one.

The sharp-as-a-tack metallic charcoal 2440 model ATT speakerphone operates at a digital 2.4GHz bandwidth--the ultimate in cordless transmission. Frequency hopping Spread Spectrum technology assures you secure high fidelity connections. Multi-handset capability accommodates up to 4 satellite handsets. Clearspeak full duplex speakerphone in base.

Features: Dual keypads.

Lighted keypad. Spare battery charger. Power fail operation. 50 name and number directory. Cordless handset speakerphone. 4-way conferencing. Announced call transfers. 2-way page/intercom. Visual message waiting. Software enhanced lighted display Caller ID with Call Waiting capability. 50 name/number Caller ID history. Software enhanced lighted display

Pretty good. I don't have a 2nd handset (which I plan to get soon), but you can call bettween and transfer calls. I already tried this to the base, and it works great. Unlike the Vtech phone, you don't have to type in the handset #, it gives you a menu with all the phones that are connected. The phone is like a cell phone. You can dial the number and press phone. Press off to hang up. Pressing phone while on a call is flash (call waiting). I like the way the caller id is organized. The only thing I think is that the sound quality could be better. I don't know if it because the battery is not fully charged, but the base has no antenna (unlike Panasonic gigarange). I have yet to test the range (I got like 300 feet with my "old" Lucent/ATT 900 mhz DSS's, I expect at least 500 feet, but I cannot expect a mile or so as promised by panasonic due to the lack of an antenna on the base)

Perhaps I've just been lucky, but I've found the signal quality of this phone to be very good. Not flawless - I occasionally hear an echo or notice the channels switching - but significantly better than my previous Panasonic 900 MHz spread spectrum phone. Add to that a host of useful and usable features, and this is an excellent phone.

One problem I had with my previous phone was its use of Nicad batteries, further complicated by its lack of a charger in the base for a spare. Given the memory problems of Nicads, this meant that you had to run the phone down to zero before recharging, and during recharging the phone was out of commission. The AT&T (and many other 2.4 GHz phones) uses a NiMh battery that doesn't have a memory problem. You can top-off the battery by placing the handset on the base at any time. Additionally, this unit lets you charge a second battery in a compartment within the base. This has two advantages: if you do run the battery in the handset down, you can swap it with the charged battery. Secondly, if there's a power outage, the battery in the base will power the unit.

Another consideration in buying this phone is that you can add extra handsets. This means that you won't have to hunt all over the house for the one cordless handset. You can easily install extra handsets in any room without having to put in a telephone jack. Each handset comes with its own charger stand, and once 'registered' with the base, you're ready to go. The handsets can also be used as walkie-talkies for handset-to-handset calling.

The handsets themselves are very compact - on the order of cel phones. This is good and bad. The buttons are a bit smaller than one might like, and don't have a positive click. On the other hand, the contact seems to be good, and I haven't had too many problems with misdialing. The phone can either be pre-dialed (like a cel phone) and then activated, or activated and dialed like a normal phone. The display is easy to read, and lights up when in use. The display handily tells you when the line is in use - important if you add handsets, or if you use the phone line with your computer. The earpiece, like so many cordless and cellular phones, is a bit flat, and doesn't isolate the ear as well as one might like.

In addition to the dialpad and speakerphone on the base, each handset doubles as its own speakerphone. This is hugely useful, and the quality is suprising. Essentially this provides you with a wireless speakerphone.

Perhaps I will come to find that the signal quality doesn't hold up, but for now, the battery technology, features and sound of this has made it a very welcome replacement for my previous 900 MHz unit.

I had absolutely no problems right out of the box using this phone with two handsets. This phone works great first of all, and is backed up by absolute top of the line features for convience and security. Its 2.4 Ghz digital transmission is completely secure due to the use of Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) which is much more secure than DSS and much more hard to find on cheaper 2.4 GHz phones. It has Multi-handset capability, which allows this to be your only phone system you need in your house. And it has a full duplex speakerphone in the base which works amazingly well and functions as a second phone! You can even transfer calls from phone to phone or phone to base or vice versa. You can pick up calls on the base too, or place calls with its separate dial pad. I have two handsets, and keep the base in the living room where it acts like a third phone at no additional cost. Another awesome feature is that you can turn on the speaker phone on the handsets as well, so you can set the phone down while on hold! It isn't full duplex like the base, so I doubt the quality is there for a two-way conversation, but it is awesome just for one way! Other cool features are a battery backed up base (if you keep a spare battery in the base) to let the phone operate during a power outage, awesome caller id, phone number storage, a voice mail indicator on each phone and the base, a phone in use indicator on the handset (great to see if someone is on the internet), 6 unique rings, separate adjustable volumes (ring volume, earpiece volume, and speakerphone volume). And to top it all off, AT&T recently lowered the price on the phone and the handsets by twenty bucks each. So I couldn't resist, and I'm glad I didn't.

My advice is to not be disuaded by other bad reviews here for two reasons: 1) My experience with Amazon reviews are that a disproportionate number of people write negative reviews since they are the only ones motivated to do so, so don't be disuaded by the bad reviews on this phone. I've found many bad reviews written by people who failed to read the troubleshooting section of instruction manuals or call customer support prior to screaming foul. And 2) This phone manual cleary states that plugging it into the same circuit as an appliance may cause interference. This means do not plug it anywhere on the same circuit, not just the same outlet as an appliance or other source of interference (TV, radio, etc). A circuit is a series of outlets wired on the same circuit breaker, and is usually broken up by rooms in the house. So, pick a room no appliances (e.g. a bedroom). Try it, and if you don't like it, send the extra handset to me :)

I have purchased one of these with 2 extra handsets and am quite satisfied with it. There are some drawbacks I will speak to later, but all in all this a very neatly conceived phone system. The handset is quite small. It is ergonomically well-designed and easy to use. A handset with a battery pack comes with the base unit. The extra handsets each come complete with a battery pack and a nice little recharger stand. Some vendors offer packages with multiple handsets that will give you a price break. After suffering with NiCads in earlier cordless phones, I appreciate the NiMh battery pack that is used. The phone comes with a belt clip attachment and easily hooks up with the typical Plantronics headset for hands-free use. The phone's range is more than fine for me, but I don't have any need to wander more than 200' feet from the base, which I have in an upstairs room. The intercom feature is excellent, and provides office style call transfers (with or without using hold) plus simple independent intercom calls (phone to phone or to all phones).

So ... what are the downsides. As other reviews have noted, there is indeed an almost inaudible, but detectable background noise when the handset is in use. During actual phone calls I don't hear this at all, probably because there is almost always some extraneous background introduced in the typical connection. The bigger annoyance for me has to do with the directory feature. It's big enough (capacity is 50) and you can either manually save numbers or take them from caller id. That's great, but you cannot edit anything but the number. When you put in a number manually, you get to put in a text descriptor with it, but once saved you cannot access it again. You can edit the number, but if you want to change the descriptor, your only recourse is to delete the entry and re-enter it from scratch. Worse yet, the directory resides on the phone, not in the base, so you have no means of getting a uniform directory across all handsets. I can live with it, but clearly the manufacturer put little design effort into this feature of the phone.

I did buy the answering machine version of the phone, mostly because in my case it did not add to the cost. The answerer has features I don't need (e.g., mailboxes, memos), but does have time stamp, provides remote access, and handles call screening. You can set 2, 4, 6 or toll saver on the number of rings and there are things such as audible message alert and announce only that can be turned on. The capacity is 99 calls or 15 minutes; there does not seem to be any way to limit a caller's time, a downside, although the system announces when it has less than 5 minutes of recording space left. The base uses the same battery pack as the handset. The manufacturer calls this a spare battery for the handset to excuse not including one for the base unit, but it's really the backup battery for the base unit. Without it, a California style power failure will cost you your messages and answering machine setup, so expect to purchase this "extra" battery.

All in all, this is an excellent phone system, perfect for my needs, but with some notable design shortcomings that keep me from rating it more than 4 stars.

As far as I can tell, this is the same phone as the V-Tech 2431. I owned (for a short time) both phones and did not see a difference either functionally or cosmetically. I found the ATT to function similarly to the V-Tech -- very poorly.

The functionality of this phone is fantastic, with interesting features that I'd never even thought of, like the speaker on the handset. However, it has incredibly poor reception. On a conversation with the base and handset in the same room (less than 15 feet apart), I suddenly experienced terrible static. I had the same experience with a separate handset that I purchased. I also had the same experience with the V-Tech phone (at a different location within my home). I did not have this problem with 2.4GHz phones that I sampled from Uniden and IBM.

Though the features are amazing, this phone simply didn't work for me.

This phone has all the features I needed: Small size; cordless; base keypad & speakerphone; built-in caller ID; voice messaging light; and a lot of other features. However, all of these are useless if the reception is horrific. The speakerphone works fine, but don't even think of using the cordless - there is a constant, annoying humming noise. This noise happens regardless of how far away you are or where the base set is located. For all intents and purposes, it makes the phone useless. I'm sorry I wasted the time to go get this phone, along with the 12 hours to charge it for use. The best thing I can do is take this back for an immediate refund - the emotional distress it has caused, however, is nonrecoverable. At least my old Sony 900 mhz SPP-ID910 has crystal clear reception (hundreds of feet away even), and I'll now have to set it back up again. Where were these candid reviews on this phone when I needed them. Warning to all consumers: If clear reception is important to you, think twice before buying the AT&T 2440 phone.

It does have some background hissing sound. Cannot agree with people saying it is worse than 10 year old models, does not look that way. I did not have enough time to test it yet, but noticed, that, somehow, default setting for 'volume' on ANY of 4 handsets I ordered was 'Low', actually, the lowest possible. Increasing the volume to the MAX increased sound quality considerably. Try this - it makes sound much better. Hissing sound is still there, but reduced a lot.

I just don't get it. It is clear from these reviews, and the fact that EVERY unit for sale at the local frys had a "returned sticker" on them that there is a flaw in these units that makes them just about worthless as a high end unit. A loud buzzing maybe OK in a $19 bottom of line generic phone, but a unit selling for $159??? Why would AT&T put their name on it??? Everyone's going to take them back and feel less confident about the AT&T brand name. I'm just upset that I wasted my time.

However, if you just use the speakerphone in the base unit and toss the cordless handset, you might be happy with this phone.

Hi-
I just bought this phone, and like most people said there was a small, but audible, hum or static in the background. (I read this b4 but thought I might get lucky and have no static). Anyway mine did have the static, so I did some testing. First I opened it up to see if it was an antenna issue, tried connecting various antennas to the internal one- No help at all...

Then the solution! I tried holding different materials over the ear slots, and noticed the hum would go away with some materials. (The material deadened the static to where it was gone). I found that an eyeglass cleaning cloth worked well. It feels sort of like suede or felt, but I think it is made of microfiber. Anyway I cut away a few very small pieces of this and then with a very tiny screwdriver pushed the pieces into the ear microphone slots and compacted them in a bit. Voila! Sounds perfect now- just like my old 900 Mhz Panasonic that has now been retired. I love the new AT&T phone now. Great features, good looking, easy to use, handset and base speakerphone, and mute. (Its VERY surprising the panasonic elite, and the Siemens phones have no mute).

Hard to believe that AT&T engineers wouldnt have noticed and fixed this with a little sound deadening material over ther ear speaker. Anyway- I'm going to relay this info to the AT&T help line, and maybe send an email to their Corp. Headquarters.

Hope this helps people out there with this phone. Scott

What a shame, this phone has some great features, but it has one flaw that makes it a almost unusable. It's the constant hiss that is played through the earpiece anytime you have the phone on (making a call, etc). I have tried 2 model 2440's and 2 model 2455's, and all 4 of them have this same annoying sound! Maybe my hearing is extra sensitive, but I can hear this noise during conversations, and turning the volume up just makes the hiss louder. There is NO reason AT&T should have ever released this phone, or the model 2455, can their product engineers not hear the terrible hiss in the background?!?! I am returning mine immediatly (again), and giving up on this model series (24xx) of AT&T 2.4Ghz phones. I hope they improve them soon, the hiss has got to go. Stay clear of these phones, unless you can't hear the electronic hash and hissing noises coming through the earpiece, then you might be able to appreciate the other features this phone has to offer. I'm switching back to my 5 year old Sanyo 900Mhz phone, at least the earpiece is quiet when using it. You've been warned....