Customer Reviews

Dect 6.0 Cell Fusion Caller Id 2HS

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

 

 

After considerable research (and reading all these reviews) I chose this phone for its many features. Chief among them are it's base keypad, DECT 6.0 technology and bluetooth capability. In a week of use I have found a few of the quality issues mentioned by others such as the occasionally inoperative center button. By and large though I find the quality acceptable.

There are two issues, however, which cause me to knock a few points off this phone's ranking. The first may be more my misunderstanding than the phone's fault. I bought this phone thinking I could use my cellphone and Plantronics earpiece together. Not so. Both the Cell Fusion and my cellphone (LG 8350) only accept one bluetooth connection at a time. I also thought one could use the cellphone to make or receive a landline call. Not so. Think of this phone a giant bluetooth earpiece. A cell call is still a cell call, incoming or outgoing. Also, after purchase I learned that the phone will not connect to my Plantronics bluetooth earpiece. Only cellphones allowed.

The second disappointment is the internal phone book. While it is nice that you can transfer names/numbers from base to multiple handsets and vice versa you can only do them one at a time. If you have 150 names with alternate numbers (home, office, cell) this is beyond tedious. I have no idea why they don't have a simple routine to transfer the entire phone book. Likewise, there is no way to dump the phone book. One at a time for each unit. This is a pain and should be fixed.

All in all, not a bad product. Voice quality is excellent and the phone's many other features make it worthy of consideration. Tech support personal are friendly, sometimes helpful, sometimes frustratingly mis-informed. It took about six calls to get the cellphone issues resolved. But at least they answer when you call. Forewarned is forearmed.

I really wanted to like this phone. Although I could not find any to see in stores, the feature set was so spectacular (DECT 6.0, ability to interface with 2 bluetooth cel phones, ability to check answering machine messages with the handsets, base keypad, headset jacks, belt clips, the ability to conference a cel and land line) that I bought it sight unseen. Buying from Amazon, of course, makes this a pleasure given their return policy.

The build quality is nice. Everything fits together tightly, the buttons have a solid feel, and the LED interfaces are generally elegant and intuitive. Alot of the negative comments in other reviews are ones I did not experience -- syncing was easy and, after the first set-up, automatic. Yes, the answering machine volume is kind of soft, but it's adequate (and the fact that you can use the handsets to listen to messages makes up for this). The numeric keys are solid and all work.

I bought one and it was DOA. The unit would simply not "boot up"; its screen stayed blank, although I guess it was comforting that I could illuminate it with a nice blue ;). The replacement started up and worked well, exhibiting decent range and sound quality with all features working.

But here's the rub. If someone calls and gets the answering machine and hangs up in the midst of the greeting (as most phone solicitors would do, and as I have done in a number of tests), the phone goes into what I'll call a "failure mode". In essence, after such an event, the handset will no longer generate a dial tone. But, amazingly, a call can be originated from the handset while in this failure mode. Dialed digits will go through despite their being no dial tone. Unfortunately (and maybe not surprisingly), when the call goes through one is unable to hear the other party on the GE handset (although the called party can hear the person speaking into the GE handset). So, the failure seems to be that the handset -- while in this failure mode -- cannot transmit a dial tone back to the user (yet can accept and transmit the dialed digits) and cannot transmit a voice to the user (yet can transmit his voice to the caller). All in all, a lousy scenario, and one I reproduced repeatedly after observing the problem first-hand with someone hanging up mid-message.

While in "failure mode" (with it being so reproducible, I figured I'd test it some more, since GE apparently did not <g>), I tried calling the phone from my (unpaired) cel phone. The GE phones all rang (handsets as well as base); however, on answering, the cel caller could not be heard on the GE handsets (yet the GE user could be heard on the cel phone). So, in short, this "failure mode" seems to cause the GE handsets to be incapable of receiving audio -- whether it be a dial tone or a caller -- yet capable of (embarrassingly) transmitting audio to a caller who cannot be heard.

This "failure mode" can be cleared up by pressing the speaker phone button on the base. But this is unacceptable because it will return repeatedly and consistently when a caller hangs up without leaving a message -- which I view as a likely scenario.

Sigh...maybe this is limited to this unit. But after having a previous unit that was DOA, seeing similar problems reported on the earlier model of this phone (see the 28128EE2 reviews), and noting the customer service issues reported by others, I sadly have to advise others to avoid this product.

Easy to set up. Bluetooth paired with Sanyo Katana LX and automatically reconnects flawlessly. My wife loves that she can leave her cell in her purse and answer calls on the house phone. Each handset and Base can each hold up to 200 contacts, but have to transfer each contact individually (would prefer to program one and transfer whole phonebook to other sets).

Only negative so far is that handsets seem cheap. Center 4 position button sometimes doesn't respond. A few times have had feedback between microphone and earpiece with volume on max. Operation after two weeks is acceptable but have concerns as to the reliability of the handsets. If they fail, I will update my review.

Update:11/17/08. I would lower my rating to a 3-. In addition to the cheap handsets, the answering machine playback volume is too low. With volume turned to maximum, many recordings are barely audible. If/when Panasonic offers a DECT 6.0, Bluetooth, answer maching phone, I will switch.

We liked the technology of using the home phone make / receive our cell phone calls. Originally we started with the "Panasonic KX-TH1212 DECT 6.0 Expandable Bluetooth Cell Link Convergence Telephone System" with no such luck.

I tested this out today with the IPhone and success (after the 16 hour required charge time).

The range of the bluetooth (cell to base) started to cut out at about 30 ft. or so. That's good enough if my wife leaves her cell in her purse. The bluetooth can be set to look for the cell phone bluetooth but the default is 1 min so we did not change it.

The set up was very easy. No need to open any instructions. There are little reminders (tiny slips of paper) insisting on a initial 16 hour charge time. If you cant wait (like me) just use the base only for the 16 hour time.

The phone system worked well out of the box. Each phone linked quickly with two separate cell phones. Calls in or out using the land line or either cell phone were clear and worked well through out the house. It worked like we had three separate phone lines. Neat. The audio volume from the hand set or base station is a little low for our older hears. We also experienced some difficulty using the the round multi-functional button at the top of the key pad. The button seemed to not function periodically and we kept having to press the button repeatedly. Overall, we liked the phones and we decided to place them through out the house. This is were the real problem started. We ordered 4 extra handsets as listed on the GE web site for the GE 28129FE2 phone system. The same extra hand sets were recommended on the Amazon.com web site as well for this phone system. The extra hand sets arrived properly and then did not link to the base. The model supplied was GE 128101FE1 and on the instructions supplied with the extra hand sets say they are not for the base station as indicated. GE customer service says I need the GE 28107FE1 hand sets for this phone. We are starting the process of exchanging the four extra hand sets. Buyer beware. Amazon and GE are trying to sell the wrong extra hand sets for this phone. Do your research before buying this phone. I like it but GE is messing up on the instructions for this system and it is costing me a lot of time.

Update: July 17, 2009. I never was able to purchase the extra phones. The advertised statement that you can buy up to 4 more phones and link it to the base was baloney. They never became available. Finally, the phone tone generator which provides the various tones as you push the keypad failed and started staying on continuously. When ever you picked up any extension and turned on the phone, you heard a loud continuous tone. The phone was useless. I have sent it back to GE and am working on a replacement. This phone is a great idea but the execution is absolutely horrible. Stay away from it. Buy something else.

We got this system so we could make & receive cell phone calls while in the basement (bad reception area in our house) and it works like a dream. Once bluetooth is activated during setup, you never have to worry about it connecting to your cell phone again. When I walk in the door after work, within a minute or 2 the phones are linked and I can answer cell calls from handsets. Only issue I had was after entering all family & friend phone numbers into base unit, I found that I had to transfer those #'s to the handset connected with the base manually, and could only transfer #'s one at a time! There may be an easier, quicker way but I couldn't find it. Other than that, I love it. Handsets work all over the house and yard and answering machine plays back messages very clearly, no static. System fits the bill for us.

The phone has a nice appearance and I did not have issues with it's bluetooth capabilities. However, I did have issues with other simple functions: (1) I can not use this phone to dial into teleconferences when the meeting number or pin number must be prefaced by an "asterisk" or "pound" sign. I have spoken to the teleconferencing centers and they have never heard of this issue. I have not asked the manufacturer about it yet. (2) Every once in awhile I'll answer a call but will hear no sound on the line. The caller can hear me, but I can not hear them. Sometimes this lasts all day, and other times it goes away when they call back again. (3) I typically hear a soft clicking when I am on a call. The person I am speaking to doesn't hear it though.

The concept for this phone is great, however it is extremely unreliable. I had it for almost a month and had to return it because it was defective.

Pros: Great sound quality, no interference, a lot of features not found in other cordless phones, and easy to use & set-up

Cons: On many random occasions when I'd answer the phone, I could not hear anyone on the other end, but they could hear me. Or, if I picked up the phone to make a call, I got no dial tone but the call could still be dialed and I couldn't hear anything on the line. To reset the phone I had to unplug it for 10 seconds and plug back in.

I used this phone for business and it is completely unacceptable to continue to say "hello" many times and hear nothing, while the person on the other end thinks your an idiot. I read other reviews of the similar model to this phone: Cell Fusion Dual Hs and people had the same problem with not being able to answer phone calls and dial out properly. I would not waste my time and money again on this phone, so I am back to square 1 to find a good cordless phone - which is a daunting task! Hopefully they will work the bugs out of this phone because when working properly, it is a great phone.

Despite all the reviews i have read about this product, i have had no issues whatsoever. It works great, attaches effortlessly to the cell phones (i connect to two) has great call quality, good battery life etc. It transfers addresses between phones and base units. Frankly i am not sure what the negative reviews i have seen have been about - maybe they have had quality issues in the past.

The only feature missing is the ability to attach a bluetooth headset. Overall great product

The sound on the hand sets is very good, the keys have good response. I purchased the set with the intension of dropping the land line and using only a cell phone. the cell and base pair very easly. I currently having no problems with dropped call or interferance which I had with the previous Cordless system. THE BIG PROBLEM, I purchase a system that was suppose to be EXPANABLE (it is in all caps in the user's) guide)which was my intension, to be able to add sets for additional areas I needed to cover. So, I start to try to order a hand set to expand, I find there is lots of confusion, apparently, the model number (Model 28101) in the user guide is wrong, it will not registration with the base unit (the instruction in the user guild is vague here, I think that is where additional hand sets are paired to the base). Their seems to be a Black and Silver handsets, and the silver will NOT work with the 28129FE2-A which is what I have (I found this out on the WEB, so it must be true).
From what I have been able to find out the Model 28107FE1 hand set may work, but I do not know for sure. I did find one place that indicated the hand set was discontinued? It would be a help if places like Thomson Consumer Electronic would inform their customers of issues of this nature prior to purchasing.It does need more message time for the ansering system, but can work with what it has. Handling contacts between handset and base could be improved. I do like the ability to pair two cell phones to the base. All in all It would work well fo me, EXCEPT for all the confusion around the expandabillity of Model 28129FE2-A It has all the earmarkes of becoming obsolete very soon after it got on the market, it does seem quite a shame because it has many of the features I needed.