Customer Reviews

Panasonic KX-TG9344T Dect 6.0 Expandable Digital Cordless Phone with Answering System, Metallic Black, 4 Handsets

5 star:		(101)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I agree with the previous reviewer that this is a great product. I bought it to avoid interference with my home wi-fi network (g and n); absolutely no interference.

I really like the backlit keypad and the talking caller ID (a noticeable improvement over previous Panasonic phones). I notice that these were the biggest gripes on previous Amazon reviews, so Panasonic is obviously taking notice.

If you want to save about $20, you can buy the version without a phone keypad in the base unit (KX-TG9334T) but I like having the "extra phone" in the base unit (you have to use the speaker phone option with no headset plugged in). Works great at a workdesk or kitchen and almost makes this a 5 headset system.

Unlike the previous reviewer, who thought the headsets too small, for me they are slightly bigger than I like. I would prefer something slightly smaller that could fit inside a pants pocket while I'm working in the yard or in the garage. Not possible with these headsets--you need a belt clip--but not really a big deal.

The phone book is great--easy to add an incoming call--and MOST IMPORTANT it automatically updates the phone book in EVERY headset with that new name and number.

We plan to add another headset but there are three different options. A little disappointing that the Panasonic parts center could not tell us the differences (we eventually found out via the internet--the TGA 630 has no lit touchpad and is white/pearl color, the TGA 930 is pretty close to the supplied headset but the keypad is black, and the TGA 935 has drop and splash resistance (for a kitchen or bath?).

Bottom line: great product!

I upgraded to the Panasonic KX-TG93xx series phone after our older KX-TG5771 model's caller ID stopped working. I have always been pleased with Panasonic quality, and this phone is no exception. Great sound and the talking caller ID is a must-have in our house. The old and new models are very similar in many respects. Here are some features that stood out in our use of the KX-TG9344:

PROS:
The talking caller ID will announce the names that you have stored in your phone book. So instead of hearing "Out of Area" as on the previous model, you hear "Uncle Bob's Cell Phone" if that is in your phone book.

Changes to the phone book on one extension are automatically updated on all phones. On the earlier model, you had to select a menu item to download the phone book to every other phone one by one.

CONS:
No display of number of new messages on the base phone. I knew this before buying the phone, but did not realize how much I would miss it. If a telemarketer calls, for instance, and you let the answer machine pick it up, all you have afterward is a blinking light on the phone. You assume it is the telemarketer's call, so you ignore it, not realizing that a few minutes ago when you stepped outside, a call came in from a family member that you want to return right away. But you have no indication that you have received an additional call on the answering machine until you decide to play back the messages.

When screening calls that the answering machine is recording, you can only hear the caller on the base phone, not on the extensions. So when you are in a room with only an extension and an unfamiliar number calls you, you cannot tell if it is really someone you wish to speak to, until after the call and you listen to the recording.

When playing back your recordings, the answering machine does not announce the date and time that the call was received. So you cannot be sure if the message is an old one that everyone has heard before and can be erased or if it is a new one that you need to keep until another family member has a chance to hear it. The caller should not be required to say "It's Monday at 3:30 pm" -- that's what the phone should be able to do!

Extension handsets are identified by number instead of by name. So when you need to find out which room an extension belongs to or you want to connect via intercom to another room, you have to remember that #2 is the kitchen phone instead of just seeing "Kitchen" on the display.

SUMMARY:
All of the cons listed above are features that were on the older model KX-TG5771, but are missing from the newer KX-TG93xx series phones. Most of them would seem to be a simple matter of programming. Why can't phone manufacturers keep all the good features of an old phone when they add new ones to an upgraded phone?

I was pleasantly surprised at both the sound quality and the range of this phone system. My driveway is 200 + feet long and I was able to walk all the way down to the mailbox without losing reception or crispness in my conversation. Will I ever need to be 200+ feet away from the base on a call? Probably not, but the option is there.

The talking caller ID is a great feature, but you have to program names so that the lame caller ID labels arent called out (for example, I tried calling the house with my cell phone and the caller ID said "PA Cell Phone" and that's exactly what the talking ID said - how am I supposed to know who the heck that is!).

The phonebook is slightly tedious, but it's easy enough to program a phone number once a phone call comes in.

The keypad is easy to read. Even my mother said right away that she could read the numbers without glasses.

The ringers are another shortfall to this phone, but again, that's not a big deal. There are about 6 options - 3 rings and 3 songs. Nothing really great. One day, they'll make a phone you can program MP3s to (like a cell phone) but for now, it is what it is.

The four handsets are a Godsend. No more running to get the phone. They're in every room that my wife and I spend the most time in. They each have an "extension" and you can easily transfer calls.

The only other downside is the hanset size. They are a bit small. But so are all cordless housephones these days. I personally prefer something a little bigger.

Anyway, overall a great purchase and I am extremely happy. Nice job, Panasonic!

[updated 10/2/10. It's now been two years, but I see Amazon is still selling the phone. It's getting more annoying with time. The phone is still the same, but I'm less patient with it. The most common issue I have is that the phones will ring, and as soon as one is picked up, the Caller ID on all the other phones becomes inaccessible. Maybe they've changed the firmware by now, but mine still ticks me off.]

[updated 2/19/09. See notes below summary at bottom. It's been many months and I still can't get used to this phone]

The machine is well-made, and will do the job for us. It does the basics reasonably well: answering machine, talking Caller ID. Voice quality is okay through the earpiece and via speakerphone. So don't ignore all the good things mentioned in other reviews. However, there are some serious limitations that I find maddening, especially considering the price.

The answering machine is limited to about 18 minutes of recording time. In this day and age, that's pitifully low. Fine for daily use, but not for a 2-week vacation. My previous answering machine, from almost 10 years ago, has more internal memory. On top of that, when the memory runs out, it doesn't necessarily tell the caller that their message will not be recorded!

The worst, most maddening annoyance: Suppose someone calls, and another family member answers the phone. You, in the other room, pick up the handset to see who called. When you press the Caller ID button, it says "System is busy...please try again later." So until your housemate hangs up, there's no way to tell who called.

In fact, when someone's using the phone, you're pretty much locked out of doing anything else with the system. You can't access caller ID. You can't access the phonebook. You can't play any messages on the answering machine. If I'm on a phone call and my wife comes home, and I tell her there's a message on the machine for her, she cannot listen to it until I hang up. In only a few weeks, this one limitation has already caused annoyance and frustration.

Other problems...

In some circumstances, the phone displays "Missed Call" when no call has been missed. I'm not sure what causes this to happen, but all I know is that someone will call, and afterward I'll notice a "Missed call" message. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that our phones perpetually display "Missed call." There are so many false alarms that unless I've been out of the house, I find I no longer bother checking to see if, in fact, anyone's called.

You can't tell from looking at the phones or base unit how many messages have been left.

There is no speed dial! You can use a built-in phonebook, but it can take many keypresses to find the entry that you want to dial.

The Caller ID is annoyingly slow. You don't get to see the whole Caller ID message at once. It shows the text part of the caller ID, waits a second or two, then shows the phone number. I did a test, and it takes approximately 5 seconds per entry to scroll through the Caller-ID list, if you want to see both names and numbers.

The Talking Caller ID is a nice feature, but could be implemented better. Many of our calls are tagged as "Unavailable." My guess is that's pretty commonplace. Unfortunately the Talking Caller ID apparently doesn't have the word "Unavailable" pre-digitized, so it has to synthesize it in that awkward hard-to-understand computer-like voice. We're already making a joke out of it.

There are a bunch of other ease-of-use issues. I won't go into all of them. A few are:

* The main base unit doesn't have an LCD, which means that you can't use the phonebook from the base. Since there's no speed dial, you can only make a call from the main base unit if you know the number.

* If you're on a handset and another call comes in, you can see the Caller ID - very nice. But, if you're on the speakerphone and a call comes in, the Caller ID does not display on the handsets. So you're in the dark.

* The tone duration/spacing is long, and you can't adjust it. So when the phone dials a phonebook number or Caller ID number for you, it takes awhile for the number to be dialed. It's only a few seconds longer, but my previous phones never had this problem.

* I was on the phone the other night, when another call came in via Call Waiting. The display lit up for only 10 seconds. By the time I had put on my glasses, it had gone black. Even though I still had time to pick up the new call, I couldn't see the display to find out who was calling.

Summary: It gets the basic job done, but I'm constantly reminded of its limitations and quirks. And I need to have my old answering machine on standby for when we go on vacation. And my wife has been looking at the handsets with skepticism and trepidation, and then she looks at me. I know what she's thinking, and it's not good.

Update: User 'Ricky' left some comments to my review, so here are my replies to him. My overall rating has not changed.

1) I had earlier written that when one handset answers a call, the other three handsets would display "Missed Call." Ricky said that this is wrong. At first, after I tested this feature, I thought he was correct. However, I've continued to have problems with incorrect "Missed Call" displays.

2) Ricky suggests that I can check my messages while on vacation to keep them from overrunning the 18-minute time aggregate time limit. This is certainly true. However, I marked this down against Panasonic because I shouldn't need to worry about such things while on vacation. It's a vacation. I can buy a 1GB MP3 player for $25 that holds many hours of CD-quality audio. So I don't understand why this phone can't hold even an hour of phone-quality audio, or at least as much as my digital answering machine from several generations ago.

3) Ricky commented that my comment about Talking Caller ID is misleading. I don't see how. All I meant was that they didn't bother to pre-digitize some common words (which they could have known about in advance), so the computer-generated voice is unnecessarily awkward.

I've had a hard time finding cordless phones that have all the features that I am looking for. Foremost among these is talking caller ID. Panasonic is the only mainstream manufacturer that has phones with this feature. Although the KX-TG9344 is not perfect, it is the best of the phones I've looked at so far.

It utilizes DECT 6.0, which is the latest technology for cordless phones and is supposed to have greater clarity and privacy without having interference issues like the older 2.4 GHz phones. Not sure if this is primarily a marketing gimmick or not, but the Panasonic sounds clear and has good range. The screen is nice, and the handsets are smaller than previous generations of cordless phones (which is a pro or a con, depending on your personal preference).

Regarding the talking caller ID, it's a godsend not to have to get up to pick up the phone only to find out you have a telemarketer on the line. You have to subscribe to caller ID with your phone company, and not all the caller labels are always understandable, but the nice thing is that you have the option of putting in your own labels for folks in your address book. It usually takes a couple of rings for the talking caller ID to kick in, which is a bit of a drag.

The only things I wish the Panasonic had are a speed dial feature and larger "talk" and "end" buttons. I'm so used to hitting one key to call frequently-dialed numbers in my cell phone, that not having this feature seems strange on a cordless phone. Regarding the buttons, the two most frequently used buttons are "talk" and "end". Is there a reason why these aren't any bigger than the other buttons on the keypad? May be a case of form over function.

Minor gripes aside, the Panasonic stands out among the current generation of cordless phones. Having three extra handsets is also a major plus - means a lot less running between rooms to pick up the phone.

I rarely waste my time with posting product reviews, but I'm really ticked off by some really really stupid things that Panasonic has done here.

This phone system is buyable (and for the record I'm keeping mine) but I think it's nowhere near what it could be. So I'm giving it 2 stars because w/ this many generations of product lines behind you Panasonic, both with phones and in general, you should make much much better. You have people with full-time jobs to think through this stuff and I've realized these limitations literally in my first browse through the product manual. So, it's 2 stars relative to what I think many buyers are expecting from this higher-end Panasonic product.

Some of these drawbacks could be enough to keep you from buying. Also if you're thinking about using this for a very-small office phone system these feature shortcomings are probably deal-killers.

I'm also really glad that I got this at a ridiculous discount. I paid about $55 pre-tax for the 4 handset system w/ the keypad on the base unit (TG9344T). Yes, $55. Had I paid north of $100 (which a/o this writing is a decent discount from MSRP) I might be thinking differently.

I'm not even going to bother with the PROS since those can be found in other reviews.

So here's what's irking me:

Intercom is not a public address system - you're "calling" specific units and they have to pick up to have a conversation. Can't say "dinner is ready" throughout the house - (base can call all, but still no public address). It's not like Nextel Push-to-Talk. Wouldn't that be cool?

You can't intercom ALL units at once, except from the base station. So if I don't know where somebody is but I need to talk to them I need to guess where they're at (or walk over to the room w/ the base). Or just do it the old fashioned way and yell like the jeeter I am.

Can't name the handset units. So now I need to remember which handset is in which room.

Can't listen to messages while somebody is on a call. Nor can you do vice versa. How much did that cut from the cost of this system Panasonic? Think about how often you need to listen to several mssgs and while you're doing it decide to initiate a call back? W/ this system you can't do that. Just really stupid. I used to do that w/ my old panasonic that had micro tapes. How is this a step forward?

Wall mount not included.
Need to pay extra for the wall-mount adapter and even when you do it looks absolutely stupid with the base unit sticking out of the wall. There should be a way to have the base unit flat mounted to the wall - and to do that you'd need to support 2 different perpendicular ways for the handset to be stored in the base unit. Couldn't they have sprung for at least 1 wall mount to be included? Sheesh.

Voice quality of outgoing message is terrible. Sounds +/- like through a tin can. Couldn't they have better sampling / bitrates for the OGM and/or a better mic on the base unit to support this? I expect this sound quality on a no-name digital answering machine selling for $5. Even the voice quality of the mssgs themselves is lousy. 10, maybe 5 years ago this still would have been OK, but not now. You should be able to retain the quality of the voice delivered over the mere 3khz on a POTS line.

Speed dial? Not really.
There's nothing speedy about the speed dials. If I'm not mistaken, you have to dial almost as many buttons for a local call as you'd would by hand keying. You have to choose Phone Book, then search for your contact by scrolling or by name and then press a button to call them. That's ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC. On my cell phone I can just type a speed dial number and then "Send" and the phone does the right thing. Maybe it's not a coincidence that Panasonic calls it "Phone Book" instead of "speed dial". Unbelievable. This one stupid feature is enough to cause me to take the system back. Or rather it would be for my wife. Fortunately we have one other cordless phone that we'll keep live (and a separate set of speed dials to manage!) to avoid taking it back. It also seems really slow when it's punching out the tones - could be faster.

New mssg indicator on handsets is lame.
It's faint and just on the unlit LCD - why not have the yellow power LED on the top of the handset blink when there's a voicemail?

Mssg indicator should stay on (red instead of flashing maybe) even if a mssg has already been heard if there's still a mssg. This is always a problem w/ many in a household (husband and wife for example).

So maybe someday Panasonic will deliver the holy grail. But that day is not today.

These phones are by far the best cordless phones. The sound quality is great on phone calls. The intercom is a very handy feature and makes it easy to transfer phone calls. The talking caller id is nice, but it does not say some names correctly. The speaker phones are good on the handsets and base. The shared phone book makes putting numbers in easy.

The phone is missing some very obvious features. There is no speed dial, who does not put speed dial on a phone? The phone book works well, but still a speed dial would be nice. The light on the top of the phone is to bright when it is on the base during the night.

The handsets are small & light and come with an optional belt clip.

The sound is clear even next to the wireless router. The range is excellent. It sounds great throughout the house and around the yard. The speakerphone is clear & loud. To get off speakerphone, you have to press "talk" rather than press "sp-phone" again.

If you're a caller ID subscriber, you can block calls for specific numbers. The phone will ring once and immediately hang up. You can add to the shared phonebook or block calls from any handset by manually entering the number or selecting it from the caller list.

Messages can be accessed from any handset and remotely.

Some other useful features are talking caller ID and alarm (once or daily with tone & melody or 7 fixed voice announcements) for each handset.

The intercom feature between the handsets is also nice.

I recommend this cordless phone system.

All buttons on the keypad are not backlit, namely the TALK and OFF buttons. Trying to operate a handset in the dark is extreamly frustrating.

Each handset is identified only by a number (one through six) and it is difficult to remember which handset number is in which room. We worked around this problem by affixing labels (that identifed the room to its handset number) to the backs of all handsets. But a more vexing problem is that from an individual handset, you can't page all of the other handsets at one time if you want to page someone and you don't know which room they are in. The base unit does have a PAGE ALL feature but not the handsets.

All the other features that we have tried work very well. The system is a wonderful piece of equipment except for the brain-dead items mentioned above.

Let me start off by saying that I may have a fairly unique situation than most. I work from home and use my phone constantly. While I do use the answering machine, it's not my primary focus. I bought this set of four because I need many phones to get me through the day and I like the freedom of a cordless. I made the jump to DECT because I was hoping that it would be interference free with a little more control at the phone. I should also note that I never use the phones without a headset.

I like the weight. I can clip it to a shirt or pants pocket without fear of the clip popping off the phone like my previous phones. The sound is great and the display is decent. The menus are intuitive and I find it's easy to pull up a missed call and dial it out. Battery life is good, but this leads me to why I'm writing....

The Bad. The battery indicator is useless. I'll have two bars, but then my call will randomly get dropped. I'll put it back on the base and it'll say I need to charge it for 7 hours. At first I thought I had gotten one bum phone out of the lot, but it happens to all of them.

I've also found that a slight bump to any of the handsets will make them drop the call and crap out... needing to be put back on a charger to reset. I never clip it to my belt anymore, because if I brush the corner of my desk or a counter I lose the call and have to scramble to find another phone.

I really the love the convenience of how light the phone is, but the battery indicator and reliability issues have forced me to go back to my old Motorola 5.8s.