Customer Reviews

Motorola MD681 5.8GHz Cordless Speakerphone w/Answering System/Caller ID

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

After reading all reviews on the MD681 I was a bit concerned regarding motorola customer serivce, finding batteriy replacements, answering maching voice quality, and not having the handsets talking to the base (in terms of synching phone book numbers, and messages waiting.) that I have read about.

I decided to buy the MD681 after considering the Panasoni 5100. The other top line competing phone.

The 5100 reviews had me more concerned (LCD Screens not working, poor battery life, low volume on handset). These seem to be larger issues to me because if I paid all that money to have one of those features fail or not work properly to my satisfaction I would be very upset and the phone would be useless. These shortcomings of the Panasonic appear to be true quality issues compared to the feedback on the MD681 which are just personal preference issues related to system process and customer service.

I did speak to the sales rep at the electronics store before I made my final decision, and he said that he sells more Panasonic 5100s (they are popular brand among phones, have more bells an whistles) than MD681's but he see's a lot more returns of the Panasonic (quality issues).

Therfore my decision went to the MD681. Bottom line I decided that I wanted a simple expandable phone that is well built to quality standards, that is reliable, take messages, and will let me hear and talk well. I believe the MD681 meets all these needs. I do not need all the bells and whistles (offered by the 5100) to complicate something as simple as making a phonecall and having a conversation, and then need to be worried about the technolgy holding up to reliability standards.

I am not sorry one bit that I purchased the MD681. It is a very simple system, very well built, the handset and base sound quality is very good, and I was very surprised that the handset speakerphone mic and speaker worked extremely well. Reception is also very good. I have the base set up in my office on the first floor and I can walk through my entire house (up and down stairs) and backyard without losing any reception quality. Not even a hiss.

I did not find customer service with Motorola an issue. I did write them an email from their web site requesting where I could find a replacement battery (If I needed one) and recieved a quick response back. These batteries can be purchased through radio shack for about $14. This eliminated my concern regarding battery replacement which I don't think I will need.

The answering machine voice quality is good. I do not know what folks are complaining about. It works!

As for the central system and synching the handsets with the base in terms of phone book, and message waiting. I will get around those issues. Once the phones numbers are programmed I will have no issue there. As for message waiting, I'll just hit clear as necessary.

If you are looking for a solid, simple, and satisfactory expandable cordless phone product the MD681 is a sure bet compare to others.

:-)

In August I bought the Panasonic 5110 and was very impressed by the many features and fine performance BUT the handset was huge, there were antennae all over the place and the gaudy chrome accents ate away at me to the point of me searching for something else (yes, even after spending $250+). A week ago I noticed the new 5.8GHz Motorola MD681 and bought it the next day to check it out.
I was more than pleasantly surprised. Although it doesn't have quite the full complement of features of the Panasonic 5100, it does have the following valuable and unique features:

1) Battery back up-doubles as a spare handset battery.
2) NIMH batteries-more power,less memory problems.
3) Sharp blue backlit displays that you don't need
glasses to read.
4) Sleek slender handsets-light and comfortable to hold
with the very functional trademark rubber grips along
sides.
5) No antenna on the base and just a vestigial nub on the
handsets.

The 5.8GHz performance is excellent and the menus and operation are so intuative that one hardly needs to read the manual. The simple sleek styling, already attractive at first, grows on you even more over time. Motorola, a newcomer to the cordless market, has perfected their earlier models both in performnce and style in the MD681.

I've had this phone now for a week and have come to really like it - so much so, that I'm going to go out and get an additional handset for my home office to replace a corded speakerphone. The handset itself has a decent speakerphone built in and I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality.

Others have mentioned that the sound quality of the answering machine is poor. In my opinion, it's every bit as good as any other answering machine I've ever owned. Others have also complained that the handset and base station don't share a phone book. There's a simple solution to work around this. When somebody calls you, you simply enter the Caller ID menu and then press save on the handset and the base station. It takes about 5 seconds. The same works if you call somebody. I dialed a number and the caller ID worked in reverse, showing me the name of the person who's number I just dialed. Menu > Caller ID > Save. Done. It's that easy. I wouldn't want to enter numbers by hand on each device, but this is such a simple way to do it, I don't know who would try anything else. Spend an afternoon calling your friends and you'll be done.

The handset, while slim, fits comfortably in your hand. I was concerned about this, but it's not an issue. I've mounted the base station to a wall and while it sticks out a little bit farther off the wall than I'd like, it's less than others and after about 2 hours, it really doesn't bother me anymore.

The menu system is nice and you can even adjust the contrast of the screens. My only gripe about the phone is the ring tones. Can't any phone mfr (cell, wired or wireless) make a phone that has a good old-fashioned ring to it anymore? I had to cycle through to the 6th ring tone before I found one that wasn't annoying. Oh - you might want to make sure to set the ring tone on the phone and the base station to be the same. Otherwise, when the handset is on the base station, the rings are out of sync and the two different tones are annoying. This and only getting one battery in the box are what keep me from giving it 5 stars.

I would have no problems recommending this phone to anybody. I bought it direct at Circuit City so I could return it easier if necessary, but I'll be keeping it and ordering another handset.

I purchased this phone 11/11/2003 from Circuit City. I was replacing a very troublesome Siemens Gigaset 2420 (2.4 GHz), used for about 2 years. The Siemens handsets just went spastic at random,experienced repetitive choppy,wavy sounding and dropped calls. I knew some of this was interference but a Panasonic 2.4 GHz I owned had far less problems with interference. I decided to move to 5.8 GHz which solved the interference problems from microwave, garage door opener, computers, wireless hubs and routers, etc..

Pro's on the Motorola MD681:
Nice slim handset with the rubber grips, very nice blue backlights, sounds great using base or handset speaker phone, headsets, or handset mike. Mute available on all modes. These DO NOT have NiMh batteries, has NiCad. I will have some battery packs made me by a local vendor and use my NiMh from my Siemens handsets. Very easy menus and buttons are crisp with good contact, should last a long time.

Cons- When receiving a call, MD681 DOES NOT check it's phonebook from the caller id, it displays CID from call. It CANNOT transfer a phonebook or entry from one handset or base to another handset. These are minor issues and the other features, fit and finish more than make up for them.

In the 5.8GHz category, I would recommend this Motorola unit as well as the Panasonic KX-TG5110M 5.8 GHz DSS Expandable Cordless Phone with Answering System and Dual Handsets. I picked the Motorola because of the form and design of the base and handsets.

I would not recommend Siemens...

My previous phone was a Siemens Gigaset 2.4 GHz system with a base plus 3 extra handsets. I had to sell that due to severe interference with my 802.11g WiFi system. I replaced it with the Moto MD681 with 3 extra handsets.

After two weeks of solid use, I'm happy with my purchase, but only because I had my expectations properly set by the previous reviewers here.

Comparing this directly to the otherwise great Siemens system, here are the key highlights and downfalls of the Moto 681 system.

Pluses:
+ Excellent voice quality
+ No interference with WiFi/microwave/other electronics
+ Better range
+ Excellent speakerphones on handsets (having the speaker on the 'back' is not a problem at all)
+ Clean look, good blue backlighting including keys
+ Vibrating alert available
+ Base can be powered by backup battery during power outage

Minuses:
- No way to sync phonebooks and/or clock of base and handsets
- No way to check messages from handsets
- Mediocre sound quality of answering machine outgoing message
- Poor selection of ringtones
- Caller ID system poorly integrated (saving a phonebook entry from caller ID of previous call defaults to just number without 1, must manually edit)
- Can't customize handset names (always just 'Handset 1' etc.)
- Must buy base backup battery separately (Radio Shack carries them, #23-272)

If you accept these caveats, the basic phone function and call voice quality itself is really solid.

This is a brief review of the Morotola MD680 series. This a 5.8 ghz cordless telephone system consisting of a cordless phone and a base station that has a built in answering machine. I've owned this unit for three months now, and here are my comments.

1.Base Unit.
a. Speaker phone: The base unit includes a built in speakerphone, dial pad, and electronic phonebook, meaning that you can make your own phone calls directly through the base unit without using the handset. The speaker phone quality is rather good, and you can have a conversation from a few feet from the phone without having to yell. The base unit speaker phone is most likely used for intercom conversation with the hand set units - more on that later.
b. Answering machine: Motorola uses the same digital answering machine system as found in my old AT&T 90mhz cordless phone system. The difference is that the better microphone on Motorola's base unit renders your message to your callers clearer than the AT&T system, but the recorded voice quality coming from your callers is the same thin and scratchy audio. I wonder how many other phones share this same system. My main displeasure with this system is that the menu system is presented in audio only - which makes accessing system parameters a tedious affair. Think of setting the time, for example: "1am, 2 am, 3 am" etc just to set the hour, then "01, 02 03" etc to get the minutes. Ugh!
c. Menu System: The base unit comes with an lcd menu system that is easy to navigate. Without the manual, I was able to setup the ring tones & the volume I wanted to hear from the base unit. Unfortunately, the lcd menu does not control the answering machine.
d. Phone book: You can create phonebooks using the keypad, the lcd screen, and caller id. I'll touch on this later, but the phone book on the base unit is not shared with hand set!
2. Handset.
a. Ergonomics: The handset has a nice rubber grip on the side that makes it comfortable to hold.
b. Speakerphone: The handset has a built in speakerphone - which like the speaker phone on the base unit - is rather good.
c. Menu LCD: Easy to view & navigate, but the phone book is not integrated with the base unit.
d. Battery Life: Good. Just threw this in because my hand unit always shows it's charging when connected to the base unit. Perhaps the batteries have a huge apatite.
e. Call Quality: Here's some advice: never pay attention to sections talking about phone quality. Cordless phones are at the mercy of local interference - so much so that there is no way useful way for a review to talk about reception. The only way to tell how a phone will operate in your home is to take it home. Still, I'll throw in my useless comments -- next to the base, the phone quality sounds excellent. 2 rooms away, and the phone sounds no better then my old 900 mhz phone.

3. Integration of Features: Normally this wouldn't be a section, but Motorola did such a poor job of integrating these components that it bears some additional focus. Within the base unit itself, the answering machine & the lcd screen do not share the same clock or menu system! Only their common plastic housing suggests they are from the same product. The base unit & the handsets do not share a common clock. Most importantly: the base unit & the handsets do not share a common phonebook. The latter is a big deal design flaw - users will have to enter numbers at least twice. And if they purchase additional handsets, well, they have to enter common entries in every new handset too.

Cons:
1. Surprisingly this model lost many features from its predecessor MD481. I first bought the MD481 model but had to return it twice to Motorola and finally gave me this MD681 "upgraded" model. (MD481 has some failures with the answering machine system)
2. Answering Machine is totally separate from the system.
3. Can't check answering mailboxes through handsets.(MD481 can)
4. Handset doesn't show that you have new messages in the answering machine (MD481 shows it)
5. Handsets and the Base do not share Phonebooks. (MD481 can)
6. While listening to messages, CallerID does not show caller's info (again because answering system is a totally separate unit.
7. Ring tones are terrible. (MD481 has better choices)

Pros:
1. Good voice quality
2. Has a battery compartment for the base too for power outages.
3. Great microphones and speakerphones on handsets and base.

This is a great phone with some really annoying problems. I know it's been said before, I read all about how you can't sync the handset address books with the base. Now that I'm using this, what an incredible frustration! Motorola, pay attention: Add this easy feature as an option people can use to sync the handset with the base. This is a great phone, really nice reception, very clear, easy to use, nice backlighting, feels great, etc. But the lack of sync drives me nuts. Now that we own the base + 1 additional handset, my wife wants to upgrade the whole house. But I'm definitely not going to program the phone list 5 times. The other problem I've heard mentioned before is the quality of the answering machine. It does sound awful, it's way overcompressed on both the inbound and outbound messages. I also wish there was an "auto-redial" feature when the line is busy. Lots of cell phones have this now.

If you don't get easily annoyed by small details, this is a wonderful phone, but for those people who really want to feel like they got their money's worth on this expensive of a phone, hope Mot fixes these problems for the MD682.

I purchased an MD681 to replace a Radio Shack 900 MHz analog headset phone and have been using it for about 3 weeks now. So far I am extremely happy with it. First, the sound quality is excellent. Everyone complained about poor voice quality on my old phone and on this one the voice quality is a good as the wall phone. Setup is very easy, though I only have a single handset. I bought the 5.8 GHz so as not to interfere with my wireless router and indeed there appears to be no interference problem, even though the router and phone base station are both in the same small study.

The speaker phone on the base station works great and so does the handset speaker phone. The handset speaker phone is an unexpected bonus. When I pushed the handset button labeled `Speaker Phone' I expect it to turn on the base station speaker phone. Instead the handset functions as a good quality speaker phone.

I like the feature that lets you store Caller ID numbers into the phone book complete with names. Perhaps all phones let you do that these days, I have not looked carefully, but in any case it is very handy. Unlike some users who complain about not being able to share a phone book with the base station, I have no problem with the phone book management, because my needs and expections are simple. While it would be nice to share, I use the handset most of the time and see nothing wrong with having different phone books. In fact in some situations it could be an advantage. With the phone book capture of Caller ID, it is very easy to enter the same numbers into the base station and handset if you want, because both base station and handset capture the same caller ID numbers/names.

The range is quite good. I took it outside and down the street and it worked at a range of several hundred feet. I paced off about 200 steps, which is around 400 feet. This was unexpected given complaints by one of the earlier reviewers. I suspect it cranks up the power at the longer range and shortens the time before you need to recharge.

Battery life if more than adequate. I sometimes leave the phone around the house a day or two and it looses a small percentage of charge linking to base station. The bar graph battery charge meter is useful.

I use this with a headset (got a plantronics M175) and the combination is very comfortable for long term use. Typically I walk around the house or outdoors wearing the headset and holding the phone. If I sit down it is convenient to put the phone on a nearby table while talking.

I have dropped the handset once on the floor and it does not seem to have affected performance.

I am not currently using the answering machine, but Amazon had such a great price ($110) on the MD681 that I got it rather than the MD671.

The base station is sitting on a flat surface so I can not comment on complaints that wall mounting is a problem.

I did scratch my head for awhile when I first set it up, looking for the battery backup for the base station. It appears you do need to go out to Radio shack and buy one, since it does not take standard AA batteries, but requires a special battery. On the other hand the battery is NiMH rather than NiCd, which is very nice from a charging standpoint.

In short I like this phone a lot and strongly recommend it.

Motorola has misrepresented this phone as a 5.8 GHz phone. It is not. The base-to-handset path uses 5.8 GHz, but handset-to-base uses 2.4 GHz. Thus, this unit WILL cause interference with a home wi-fi network. The handset is also uncomfortable to use as a home phone, if you are used to resting the phone on your shoulder while conversing, since it is a thin phone (some people might prefer this compact design). I would suggest going with a different brand that offers a true 5.8 GHz design, such as Panasonic, if you are concerned about your wi-fi.