Customer Reviews

RCA ViSys 25450RE3 4-Line Corded Base Full Duplex Speakerphone Expandable to 16 Handsets (Black/Silver)

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

 

 

I was not sure about this after reading the 1st few Reviews.

I needed more than 8 extensions so the Panasonic was out of the Question.

This Phone is Excellent for a Small Business.

As far as the All Phones Ring complaint, that is actually a Feature to me.

Additionally, when the Auto Attendant is on they do not ring.

With the Auto Attendant you can record your OGM (Outgoing Message).

Ours says "You've reached INTEC... Press 00 for the Operator, 01 for Jeff, 02 for Scott, etc...

People complained about not knowing that the operator was 00 and 0.

This can be solved with the Outgoing Message and you can also Record 30 seconds of On Hold Message. In your On Hold Message you can state that 00 will return you to the Operator.

The Phone Clarity is Good. We have had no Range Problems. I would not call it Crystal Clear, but there is no Static or cutting in and out.

The Speaker on the Handsets work well.

The Voice Mail is Very Nice Feature, considering we had no Voice Mail at all before this system. You can also Transfer Voice Mail messages to other extensions which is quite nice.

The Voice Mail for Each Incoming Line can be set for How Many Rings before going to the Main Voice mail. However, one problem with the Voice Mail for each extension I have is when you Transfer to someones extension it Rings 6 Times before going to Voice Mail for that extension and it is Not Configurable... Due to this I found out how impatient people are. Everyone would call back and tell me their Voice Mail was not working... I called back on my cell after writing down their message and the Voice Mail works fine. So apparently people are too impatient to wait 6 rings, so now we tell people it will go to their voice mail after 6 rings before we transfer them.

After considering the Price to Wire all the Jacks and/or get a Full System this was the most economical solution and we got more than I was expecting for the Price.

We purchased this phone system for our small business. It has all the features we needed -- 4 lines, 17 mailboxes, auto attendant, etc. Set it up -- seemed to work great -- until the complaints started coming in. Seems that after auto-attendant directs a caller to a specific extension, another auto-attendant greeting plays that says "This extension is busy or unavailable. Dial another extension or press # to leave a message."

The message should say "The person you are trying to reach is on the phone or is unavailable. . . " This greeting sounds like the extension is unavailable.

If the caller presses pound, then the custom-recorded vmail greeting plays and all is well with the world. However, most people think the extension is "unavailable" and they dial "0" to reach the operator. Unfortunately, this system uses double-digit for all extensions, so the operator is "00". WHO WOULD KNOW TO PRESS "00"??! So, they go around in circles. One customer said they called me about 20 times and could never reach me. Another customer called my mobile phone and was very upset. My caller ID showed lots and lots of calls that we never received.

Bottom line: Our phone rang only one time all day today.

Also, there's no way to retrieve a call once it comes in. You have to wait until the call rings an extension and then the phone that rings must be answered. There's no way to answer it from another extension or from the base.

We sent it back, and we're considering a TalkSwitch system.

The cordless handset always rings, which is better than another cordless 4 line phone I have used where the #1 button wouldn't work half the time. 2 things worth noting. 1) Once you conference a call with two other outside lines you cannot disconnect one person and still talk to the other. 2) after about 6 weeks line one became frozen and I can't call out on it. It will receive calls. I still have 3 other lines to dial out on so it hasn't been too bad. When I want to tranfer lines to a different phone however, I have to unplug it from the in jack for lines one & two in back of desk phone and put it in the single phone jack/plug in back of the phone Then I can tranfer the lines. But still for a cordless 4 line phone it is the absolute best I've used so far.

I decided to buy this RCA 25450re3- visys high power 900 mhz phone system. Its very expensive. 500 bucks gets you a base phone with auto attendant and voicemail, and one handset. extra handsets are 160 bucks, but you can find them a tad cheaper. i gave up on waiting for a DECT 2 line system, and from what i read, the range on this unit promised to blow dect away.

I also gave up on one system doing everything i want it to. this one does most. heres what i can tell you about it. they advertise 2000' range thats thousand. the reviews i read said this was mostly true. i can tell you that this is hands down the longest range and highest in/out audio quality phone i have ever owned. You will easily get just about any size city block range out of this phone. i drove home from the store, and i kept trying to connect. I was IN my truck, and it connected, i'm guessing probably 500 yards+ down the street. i pulled over and checked my voice mail from there. crystal clear. that brings me up to what i hate about this phone. I am a one man office, and i will never use the auto attendent. great to impress people, i dont need it. i also dont need voicemail. i run a commercial subcontracting company, and i am the only person in the office, which is in my largish two story home. i wanted a two line phone that i can use for biz and also a quality intercom expandable cordless system ( up to 16 handsets). There are no answering machine function keys on the base unit, ie play, delete. thats what i really need. at the moment, i have to press a total of 9 keys to listen to a message on my new 500 dollar answering machine :-). you have to press voicemail key, then enter a two digit extension (even though i am keying in these numbers on the base unit, i have to type its extension number, then a 4 digit password, anyway, its softkeys in the menu system and another 6 digits you have to enter just to hear a message. this phone is TOTAL overkill for my small office, and i emailed rca to find out if i can defeat having to enter the two digit extension and the 4 digit password. i seriously doubt this is possible without a firmware or eprom upgrade. ps rca emailed me back, please CALL them to find out i cant defeat the 9 key thing. arrrgh..

if i cant, i will certainly wear off the silkscreen numbers on the keypad eventually.

also, i cannot screen calls with this system, or if i can, havent figured it out yet. i actually thing this might reduce interuptions, and might be a good change of habit for me. i can probably live with that. i havent decided if i can live with the 9-key thing to hear messages, but i am getting used to it. this is an AWESOME looking phone, and its build quality is much better than say uniden, probably on par with panasonic, although i think the panasonic cordless units are more rugged. the rca cordless is shiny plastic, and very modern looking, but i will scratch it up in no time, on a panasonic cordless it would be less obvious thats all.

the base unit is gorgeous, and a huge selling feature for this whole series for me is the 16 dedicated speed dial keys, which double as 16 dedicated intercom keys. so far i havent been able to use the intercom keys in conjuction with the 9 key press thing (to reduce the keypress count) to check voicemail, but i havent given up.

The audio quality and the cordless range on this system is probably unbeatable, even by DECT. if you need auto attendant, voicemail, great sound, great looks, and unbelievable range, this is the phone system for you. I have also considered buying ANOTHER rca phone, with a standard answering machine, if the 9-key entry gets to me too much. i would keep this expensive system for my home/biz intercom and stellar cordless system, and just use the 100 dollar RCA 25205RE1 visys 2-line answering machine to play and delete messages. the drawback of that is that i have to have another phone sitting somewhere, and i wont be able to remotely in the building check voicemail from a cordless handset, something do a lot while at the pool, or in the garage. I'm guessing i keep this system as is, cause pressing 9 keys to hear messages still beats having to climb up stairs to press one button. my uniden cordless which was CRAP, buttons quit working, sound was horrible, and range too, could do this in two key presses.

also you can only set hand sets to automatically sieze line 1 first, or then 2 if one is busy, OR you can set manual where you press talk, then press line1 or line 2 to get a dialtone, using the number keys #1, or #2. i'd rather have a dedicated line one, line 2 button, but this isnt that big a deal. Also, you can transfer a call initiated from the base unit to a cordless unit, but you have to press the transfer softkey on the base, and enter the two digit cordless, extension, the cordless in your other hand rings, you answer it, and your'e cordless. this will amount to pressing Xfer, and then 1, or two total keys when i program the speed dials for the extensions.

The old siemens gigasets 2.4 phone systems had a barge in function so you could just pick up a cordless and go, but everything except base units were junk. There you have it. there is no holy grail, this is about as close as i could get. for somebody who needs a good impressive voicemail/mailbox system, this is probably the deal. its too much phone for me, and because it is, simple functions are sometimes a lot of work, so i'm still deciding whether to keep it for good. if you get this system with some dents on the cordless units, its the one i returned, cause i got tired of pressing 9 keys to hear my messages... ;-)

After our old Panasonic system cordless handsets were no longer available, I was searching for a similar system - the only other one was the RCA - cordless, auto attendant & voice mail were a must but we didn't want to spend thousands on a box system! I purchased the RCA before knowing that Panasonic was coming out with an updated verion. I wish I had known - I would have waited! Like the other reviewer, we have had problems not being able to get a line - the only remedy we have found is the disconnect the power and remove the battery from the base. Sometimes, you have to de-register each cordless then re-register them. I also don't like the fact that a caller is transferred right back to the "operator" if they choose not to leave a message for the extension they rung.

Our customers also have a problem knowing the operator is 00 and not just 0. We only have 3 cordless set up with out system and had to use ext#11, 12 and 13 because when trying to use the single digit extensions, for some reason, it would just ring the operator.

We also don't like not being able to pick up on a call from any extension. My office is right near the "operator" and sometimes when she is gone, the phone will ring and I have to get up and go to her desk to answer it, but with the panasonic, I could have just picked up on that line from my extension. I guess not being able to pick up on any line could be a good thing in some office situations, though.

I do have to say it has excellent range quality! We were surprised that the cordless worked inside a restaurant that is about 3/4 of a block (walking distance) behind our business. I also like the voicemail feature that is password protected - but don't like that any extension can check any other extensions voice mail if they know their password. Transferring from a cordless or putting someone on hold isn't a one button task as I think it should be.

All in all, as soon as I can find one of the new Panasonic KX-TG4500 in stock, I am switching once again! If both systems could combine their features, I think you'd have the perfect, no wiring/installation needed, phone system!

I ordered this phone because I had to drop my VoIP PBX system and move to a local telephone number. I wanted to keep my auto attendant, so I was excited to find a desktop phone with one built in.

The phone is definitely powerful. You can configure lots of things about it (auto attendant greetings, on-hold messages, ring tones, etc). Unfortunately, it had a few issues that were deal breakers for me. First of all, I was under the impression that the cordless handsets would share the same extension as the base unit and multiple extensions would mean multiple base units (or at least be configurable in this way). This turned out to be false. Each handset is a separate extension. I wanted this to replace every phone in the house, so I had the base unit in my office and the cordless handset in the living room. When a call comes in, sometimes it's for a family member and not my business, so I wanted all of the phones to ring. The only way I could get them all to ring at the same time was to assign them to an extension group, which starts numbering at 91. Unfortunately, I then discovered that extension groups do not have their own voicemail boxes. If no one answers after dialing an extension group, the phone will ask you to leave a message, but won't actually save it anywhere. The only way I could leave a voicemail was to dial 00 for the base unit or 01 for the cordless handset. This basically meant I couldn't use extension groups because voicemail is very important to me.

If none of that applies to you, then you should enjoy this phone. But, in my case, it was essentially unusable. On the plus side, the base unit uses the same kind of rechargeable battery pack as the cordless handset, so you don't have to worry about swapping out AAs or anything like that. The LCD is bright and uses a large font, so it's very readable. Overall, it's a very stylish phone. The base unit is well constructed and feels very sturdy, although the cordless handset feels a little cheap.

I would recommend setting aside and hour or two to get acquainted with all of the features, because there are A LOT, and some of them are kind of complex.

It was good enough. I will say that other more expensive models are available, and if you want better quality then get a more expensive one. You get what you pay for. This serves it's purpose and has some nice features. The sound quality on the handset isn't the best, but it'll do.

Similar to other negitive comments, this phone has many glitches. We use it for a small business and have recieved many complaints from clients and have found the system cumbersome and user-UNfriendly. Too many features that nobody would use and not enough efficiency in the ones everybody will. We're returning the system and getting a new one.