Customer Reviews

Clarity 5.8 GHz Professional Amplified Cordless Phone with DCP and Digital Answering Machine (C4230)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

We bought this phone for my mother-in-law who is to phones the exact opposite of Will Rogers to people. She never met one she liked. This one, however, has enough adjustment range in both volume and tone, has a simple to operate answering machine and a cordless handset so that she actually seems to like it. It's an excellent phone for anyone who has trouble hearing on a "regular" phone.

This is a great cordless phone as long as you don't wander more than one room away from the charging station. The range of the phone is my biggest complaint. I literally find it difficult to go more than one room away without loosing reception. For the price, you think they would do something to improve this feature!

We've been through two of these phones now and most of the time they don't ring. Other phones in our house wlll ring but not this one. Bought it for my mother who has to wear hearing aids. The volume is good but the clarity is not that good. Would not recommend this phone.

I bought this phone for my mother who is very hard of hearing but refuses to use hearing aids. I no longer have to spend our phone conversation screaming and not being heard. My parents are not very tech savy but did not have much difficulty setting this us. They have also called customer service for the phone a few times and found them to be very helpful also.

My 86 year old Gram does NOT like changes. But after her phone from 1970 started falling apart, I talked her into getting a new one. After careful searching, this is the phone I thought would work best for her. It has all the features she wanted and FINALLY she can hear me over the phone. It is simple enough to learn to use, and was a very smooth transition. I highly recommend this phone.

We purchased a C4230 base unit plus three C4230HS handset units for my parents in their 80's. They were having trouble seeing their phones, hearing, and we were having trouble hearing them. This is a fantastic system -- when it works. Unfortunately, after 6+ months of troublesome resets (taking out batteries and constantly rebooting) we're pretty much ready to throw it all in the trash (over $500 wasted!). Technical support has never been able to solve the problems that keep arising, but the handsets keep losing signal from their bases. Whenever this happens, the batteries must be removed... including from the base unit handset AND answering machine. It's a royal pain -- especially for someone in their 80's who just want simplicity. I feel so bad having ever put this whole system in my parents home now. Would not recommend buying until you read consistent reviews that these glitches have been resolved.

UPDATE Feb 2010: Clarity replaced the base unit and handset. It works even worse than the first one! The handset is routinely losing "registration" with the base... forcing you to remove and replace the batteries, and then reregister the handset. So after more than a year of struggling to try to make this work reliably, we're tossing over $350 worth of phones. DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE!!

[...].

The power supply needed to be replaced once, a few months after I bought it. Then came the really chronic problems. On many occasions, the phone just plain would not ring. Other times, the ring was intermittent, as though the "ring signal" was being interrupted.

The biggest problem is the handset becoming non-functional. The phone rings, you pick it up, hit the TALK button, and nobody's there. When this failure mode is going on, it's also impossible to get a dial tone. The solution? Pull out the battery for one minute, then set the handset back on the cradle. Then it beeps to indicate it's working correctly.

Sometimes, doing even that won't work, and it's necessary to both remove the battery and unplug the power for a moment.

This is a real pain in the butt. Why Clarity/Plantronics' engineers haven't fixed this is beyond me. Again, this is the third identical phone from them; they have replaced it twice.

This handset problem is now occurring a few times daily, and this is unacceptable. I'm currently searching for a replacement.

Update 7/8/09: I neglected to mention that the Caller ID feature quit working on my current C-4230. LOL

Due to its chronic problems, I can't recommend the Clarity C4230...but I wish I could.

We got this phone for my mother. She has enjoyed it and it has helped. After a little over a year the batteries are going out. They can't be purchased locally (we tried many stores). You must order them from a subcontractor of Clarity and they are $25 each. We will get them. The phone is worth it but it is a hidden cost one should know about.

This is a fine phone. I can now talk with my 86 year old mother for the first time in years.

The phone is well constructed, has lots of features but unfortunately we could not get rid of the static on the line. I called Clarity to find out if we were doing something wrong and they thought it might be the phone itself but the tech support person said that maybe we had too many electronics in the room. I don't think we do but then he said with the amplification, you can hear more static than you might be able to hear on other phones. I've had plenty of cordless phones installed in my house and none had this static problem so I ended up having to return it. My 85 year old mother who would be one of the main people using the phone didn't like the display. I think if you had an area where static isn't a problem it would be a great phone. I wouldn't NOT recommend it, but beware, static could be a problem. Because of Amazon's return policy, I was able to return the phone with no hassles.