Customer Reviews

Motorola MD7091 5.8GHz Digital 2-line Phone

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I have a largish house, and have wanted to use VOIP (Vonage) for my phone service, but at the same time make sure I have robust communications that will survive a power outage or internet connection failure. This phone handles that problem quite nicely.

I have my VOIP line in Line 1, and the cheapest Verizon POTS service in Line 2. Vonage will automatically forward calls for you if the internet connection goes down, so now my phone service is seamless, even when the internet connection goes down. The battery backup on the base means that the phone can tolerate a blackout as well.

My wireless network coexists nicely with the phone, as do the usual range of household appliances (microwave, TV (which is right next to the phone), radio, etc.). The extensions sound quality is fine, and the base is very good. The speakerphone is a godsend. And it's nice to have the added security of a corded base when transmitting sensitive info over the phone, not that digital wireless is likely to be intercepted anyway.

A couple of design flaws (in my estimation) keep me from giving it 5 stars. One is that while it is nice to be able to just plug the extensions in to electricity without other cables, it would be nice to have the option to plug in a phone line as well. My extension is sitting next to a phone jack, but must still rely on cordless transmission from the base unit. The other is that the base and extensions do not talk to each other when deleting caller ID info - you have to delete it from each extension individually, which is a nuisance.

Otherwise, it's a solid phone system.

I read some of the other reviews and was disappointed to see the troubles others had. My experience has been very positive.

I was looking for a 2-line phone, with speakerphones, an expandable system and a corded handset as my wife doesn't like the cordless.

First, this is the only 5.8ghz phone I could find that had the features I needed. My 2.4ghz phone gets garbled when the microwave runs and this phone does not do this. The speakerphones work well and have become the primary way that I use the phone. The cordless handset looks a little large but is actually very comfortable cradled on your shoulder. The corded handset feels familiar and comfortable.

I found the design a little odd at first, but have come to enjoy the futuristic orange back-lighting and general design. It looks better turned on than it does on the box. Functionally, the phone works very well and does exactly what it supposed to do, make and receive calls. We use it for a standard landline plus a Vonage account.

As with any product, there are a few things that could be improved (this is for the Motorola engineers). The cordless should really be shipping with a NiMH battery, not a NiCAD. The handset does fall off the base a little too easily, you need to use the wall setting hook and even then, it needs improvement. Volume controls on the speakerphone are too coarse, there are only 4 levels where there should be 10. The answering machine should pause after playing back each message and ask you what to do (i.e. delete, save, skip). The keypad on the base is a little too small. It would also be nice to have a few hard quick dial keys.

There are also plenty of things done right. Toll saver for the answering machine. Separate answering functionality for both lines. Message call forwarding. Shared directories. Room monitoring capabilities. Good speakerphone. Good overall sound quality.

Anyway, I can't give it 5 stars, it doesn't quite make it. But to me, it's a solid 4 and a good selection if you have similar needs.

One wonders if anyone at Motorola did any real world testing with this phone it's that bad. My wife and I work at home and we were looking for a good quality 2-line phone. Nothing fancy, we didn't really need an answering machine but just something that was easy to use and would not cause our blood pressure to rise when doing simple things like putting someone on hold and then retrieving the call. Unfortunately, it's neither easy to use nor a quality product one would expect from Motorola. The battery life for the cordless handset is terrible. It allows for 1.5 hours talk time, if that. We've also had other people tell us the call quality is not that great. All in all, a terrible phone and a waste of money as it's been such a hassle, we're now looking for a replacement only 8 months after buying it.

Purchased this phone from J&R through Amazon. Hoped to use it for my new home office. It's performance was absolutely horrible in all regards:

1. Answering system - Poor sound quality. Not user friendly.
2. Caller ID - Rarely worked properly. My other phones all recognized names/numbers of callers. This phone almost never got it right, or at all.
3. Wireless phone - Absolutely terrible sound quality. Callers could hardly hear me. Sound, connection and duplexing were worse than a bad cell phone call.
4. Dialing on the base or wireless unit - There is a delay as you press each number, so that you had to dial phone numbers very slowly as the phone did not keep up with your fingers! Like they are using some very old technology for the dial pad and wireless part of this phone. Strange.
5. Overall quality was so bad I was embarrassed to hold a conversation with anyone on it. Forget the speakerphone - not even close.

I returned this Motorola phone within 2 weeks. (No problems with J&R on the return. Of course, I still had to pay for the shipping both ways). I replaced it with a simple ATT single line ansering machine (ATT model 1738) for $20 for my 2nd home office line, and went back to my corded 2 line ATT caller ID phones, which work great. The ATT answering machine is not nearly as good as the SBC voice mail we use on our main line, but then again, that costs almost a $100 a year. However, this ATT answering system is significantly better than the answering system on the Motorola unit I returned.

Now, imagine my astonishment. After receiving this beautifully designed futuristic looking set from my favorite communication device manufacturers, I set it up only to realize that the cordless phone only works when there is a direct line of site to the base!
Unbelievable!! I live in a compact apartment ok, and believe me when I say it isn't 20 feet between the base and my bed room, and last night after setting up, I retreated to my room took up the cordless handset to make a call only to realize that there was no connection to the base.
This phone in a nutshell, looks good, but it sucks!!

I have used the phone for a few weeks now and I love it! It is a good-looking, 2-line phone that does not need a lot of space. Those were my primary requirements, and believe it or not, you don't have a lot of choice with these reqs! I also have connected it to a regular phone line and to my broadband phone connection. All works great with good quality. The only thing I noticed as well, is that you cannot determine your primary line; I wanted to set my home phone as Line 1, but when I connected the broadband phone to Line 2, it seemed both lines got mixed up (literally!). When I put the broadband as Line 1 and my home as Line 2 all worked fine. Also the corded handset is indeed easy to fall off, but if you keep the cable on the desk it's fine. I can image if you hang the phone on a wall it's fine too. To me that is a minor issue.

Bought this phone for the looks of it, despite the reviews and low ratings... regretting the decision now as the sound quality is terrible. I decided to write this review to urge others to trust the several other bad reviews this phone gets!

I should have heeded the warnings! The sound quality on this phone is lousy. Its noise suppression is too aggressive with the result that the beginning of every syllable is chopped off. Makes it often difficult to understand the person talking. The overall feature set is acceptable, but if the sournd quality isn't there, then nothing else matters! I'm returning this phone and am off to the next one. Dang, I'd pay [...] for a top-noth phone, but it seems there's only cheap crap out there!!!

Other annoyances are the fact that you can simply join a call you started on the corded phone with the cordless handset, you have to go through an elaborate "call transfer" procedure, when all that happened is that you couldn't immediately locate the cordless handset, picked up the corded one, and now want to switch.

Another annoyance is that there are no "quick dial" buttons or sequences. You have to go though the phonebook menu with several clicks to reach anything. Really stupid for the "call husband", "call office", "call wife" entries you need several times a day...

I bought the phone because it was the only 5.8 ghz 2 line phone I found with the satellite included. The other phone I found was a uniden base unit only and the store did not have the satellite available for sale. I bought the Motorolla, came home and read those awful reviews. I decided to give the phone a try, and found it worked really well.

I suppose that there could be other factors why some had problems with the satellite - mine covers all 3 levels of my home. The sound is fine.

I am not finding the problem with the caller ID not working with other phones connected. Perhaps I just had the right phones but I have three other phones connected.

We too are using Vonage and Verizon for lines 1 and 2. I never tried to connect Vonage to line 2, so the problem reported did not impact me.

I have no real negatives. The sound is fine, the answering machine was easy to set up. I get no interference with two wireless routers, microwave, and normal household appliances.

I find most phone displays to be too small to be anything other than confusing, but the caller ID is fine within that typical constraint of size. I think the soft keys are easier to use than most.

The satellite is larger than others I have used, and I think that is a plus - it puts the microphone in a better position, and makes the controls a bit easier to use and to see.

Is it possible that some people got defective units? Line of site is not an issue for the satellite.

I would recommend that you try the phone, especially if returns are an option if it doesn't work out for you.

The base unit repeatedly loses contact with all of the MD7001 cordless units - always during a call. The cordless units show "out of range", and take about 10 minutes to re-register themselves to the base unit before they can be used again. In a call of 1-hour duration, this can happen 3 or 4 times.
Motorola tech support's only solution is to remove the base unit's power and batteries when this happens.
Who wants to do this 3 or 4 times an hour?