Siemens 4215 Gigaset 2.4 GHz DSS Expandable Cordless Phone (Silver and Black)

by Siemens

Product Details

Product Manual [741kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 5.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005MIU4
• Item model number: 4G4215SYSB
• Batteries: 2 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (130 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 6, 2001

Product Description

Color: Black

Amazon.com Product Description

Siemens's 4215 Gigaset covers a lot of ground. By using the walkie-talkie function, you can contact anyone who has a handset within 1,000 feet outdoors and 150 feet indoors. With long-ranging 2.4 GHz digital technology, the lightweight 4215 offers features like voice-announced caller ID/call waiting and headset compatibility and speakerphone in an expandable unit. Plus, enhancements like a buttonless base, six-day standby battery, clock and alarm, and appointment reminder combine to make this phone well suited for a small office or busy home. It's also easy to use, with voice-activated commands and dialing and a navigation key to help you move through menu options.

The built-in digital answering machine provides 33 minutes of recording time (and memo operation), with the support of four mailboxes to designate messages and full remote operation to collect messages while you're away. The date and time stamp records when the call came in. A 30-number caller ID memory and 200 speed-dial presets are both displayed on the large five-line backlit LED screen. The slim handset, weighing just 5.6 ounces and measuring 2-by-6.5-by-1.5 inches, has volume control, call waiting, flash, hold, and last number redial.

Expand your 4215 to four users with optional handsets (Siemens model 4200 or 4000). A long battery life provides 10 hours of talk and 6.25 days of standby with a low-battery indicator.

From the Manufacturer

The Gigaset 4215 cordless phone system will improve the way you communicate at home or in your small office. The revolutionary buttonless base design offers total mobility, allowing you to operate all features from the handset, including the digital answering machine with 33 minutes of recording time. Using 2.4 GHz Digital Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) technology, this phone system offers superior voice quality and security through advanced German engineering. The Gigaset 4215 provides GigaVoice voice-operated controls for easy operation, including voice-activated dialing (20 names/numbers), voice-announced caller ID and voice-assisted answering machine operation. Expand your Gigaset 4215 phone system up to four handsets with either the Gigaset 4200 or Gigaset 4000 cordless handset extensions; no extra phone jacks are required. Caller ID/call waiting display on the handset and full duplex handset speakerphone are standard features. Included are a base unit and cordless handset with integrated digital answering machine, two AA rechargeable ni-cad batteries, telephone cord, power supply unit, and a belt clip.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional phone with very minor flaws, January 30, 2002

By 

fugraw (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Siemens 4215 Gigaset 2.4 GHz DSS Expandable Cordless Phone (Silver and Black) (Office Product)

This phone does it all. Since there are too many functions to list. I will mention a few of my favorites.

1. Voice dialing (Works very well!)
2. Speaker phone on handset (Loud and clear)
3. Sleek, clean design (Internal antenna is nice)
4. Programming 200 names and numbers
5. Ring volume reduces at night. (You can program the timeframe and volume)
6. Digital Answering machine. (Replaces our voicemail service)
7. Rechargable double "A" batteries instead of the expensive brand name phone batteries. (nuff said)
8. Multiple handset add-on feature is great for expanding.

The few negative aspects of the siemens 4215 are:

1. Buttons could be a little more responsive. (Just press a little harder)
2. Room monitor is not sensitive enough. (But I did not purchase it for that extra feature)
3. The programming of all the features may be a little complex for your average user.

Keep in mind, the positives definitely surpass the negatives for this product. I highly recommend this phone system for any one looking for a phone that will do it all.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Rain Man of cordless phones..., February 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Siemens 4215 Gigaset 2.4 GHz DSS Expandable Cordless Phone (Silver and Black) (Office Product)

...as in Dustin Hoffman's famous portrayal of an idiot savant.

As others have pointed out, this phone is a puzzling mixture of the stupid and the brilliant. The reviews here are very helpful and largely accurate, but I was almost put off sufficiently by some to stop me from buying the phone. I would encourage you to at least give it a try and then return it if the negatives outweigh the positives. My family is extremely happy overall.

The major +'s & -'s have been well covered in other reviews, so let me just a list few things that do not appear to have been stressed:

NEGATIVES:
-1) The sound quality of the handset is merely OK (though in my house it does *not* suffer from significant background white noise, as others seemed to have complained). It just sounds a bit thin and tinny. [But see +1 below.]
-2) The default sound quality of the answering machine is *poor*, but if you set the user-configurable quality setting to high (which cuts recording time down from 30 minutes to 15) it becomes adequate.
-3) Sharing saved phone numbers with extension handsets is not difficult, but there is no setting for automatically doing this. Every time you add entries on one phone you must remember to manually send these entries to the extension phones, one phone at a time.
-4) It's been said by others, but the lack of a true MUTE function is bizarre.
-5) Never put someone on HOLD without trying it out on yourself first---the electronic Muzak that the phone inflicts on the caller is embarrassing!

POSITIVES:
+1) The speakerphone in the handset is nice and loud and, more importantly, to my ears is noticeably *clearer* than listening with the phone pressed to one's ear. I therefore use the speakerphone whenever possible.
+2) The sound quality is not symmetrical: if you call John, you may only hear what he says with adequate clarity, but John will hear what you say with crystal clarity.
+3) I thought the voice-activated dialing would simply be a gimmick that I would never even use. But in fact it works so flawlessly that now I dial *every* regular number with my voice!
+4) It feels solid and well made in the hand, and it looks elegant and high-tech, but not in that faddish way that can often end up looking silly in just a year or two.
+5) Contrary to what some people seem to have claimed, I do *not* notice an interference with my 802.11b (=WiFi) home computer network.
+6) The intercom feature works very well, and is a crucial plus in a big house where people usually have to yell down two flights of stairs in the hopes of being heard.
+7) Some have complained of useful features being buried too deep within the menus, but it's also true that some of my most commonly needed items have been very conveniently placed---holding down the # key locks the keys so that my small children can do no harm, and holding down the * key stops the phone from ringing.

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Take the negative reviews seriously before you buy, January 16, 2002

By 

JurgenKjurgen (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Siemens 4215 Gigaset 2.4 GHz DSS Expandable Cordless Phone (White and Silver) (Office Product)

Don't buy this phone until you understand the following.

I must second a number of the negative statements made by the other reviewers- There are some serious flaws here. If you're even considering this phone then you probably care about aesthetics and ergonomics (e.g., wanting to have multiple extensions that work together), a rich feature set, as well as sound quality, which this phone DOES have in varying degrees. The major difficulty is that the positives with respect to these qualities are really great, and the negatives are shockingly bad. The feature set is so good, for a technophile like me it's hard to diss this phone too much because you just can't get voice announce and voice dialing at this price level (Closest would be the Panasonic Gigarange Elite phone that sells for 225 to 250 internet). Some of the ideas are innovative and thoughtful, like the ability to have lower volume ringing at night according to your preset times. But there is a stunning lack of field testing evident in some of the basic functions that we take for granted by now, such as the inelegance of the call waiting (MEM key, something that took me 30 minutes and three lost call waiting calls to figure out before I found that package insert), the annoying electronic music for the ON-HOLD music (sounds like an early eighties electronic watch alarm, very unprofessional and embarrassing if you're intending to maintain dignity by placing someone on hold in the first place). The sluggishness of the menu scrolling and key presses is absolutely inexcusable. Reminds me of the first caller ID units which came out in the mid nineties with very slow LCD displays. Like others have stated some very frequent options are buried deep in submenus while some low-yield options are more prominent. You really need to spend some quality time with the manual.

Some of the operations could be a little more intuitive and less repetitive. I found myself (until I spent more time with it) entering names twice, once for the voice tag and once for the directory listing. Why not zero times, e.g., have the phone pull the information off the Caller I.D. with an editing option?
The Duplex speakerphone in the handset is awesome, one of the best handset speakerphones I've heard. The volume in the handset itself is on the quiet side, and the lack of headphone jack is very annoying. The range is not very good with this phone (consistent with other Siemens multiphones-That's why they sell REPEATERS for longer range use), and pales in comparison to older 900MHz analog or digital phones, not just in my experience but by other internet reviewers. (An old VTECH went down to the laundry room in the basement, and I live on the third floor. This Siemens phone gets to the entry of my apartment and chokes - No wireless network in use here either!). A Gigarange Panasonic phone I tested works down the block and then some (I had to get into my car) in the middle of San Francisco!

Despite being a nice looking handset and feeling comfortable in both large and small hands, it had a somewhat inexpensive and plastic feeling compared to the water resistant Panasonic Gigarange phones. They're clearly attempting to maintain elegance by avoiding visible buttons on the base, but how elegant is it to have to turn the base upside-down to find a recessed button to page the handset each time it (frequently) gets buried in the recesses of your couch/bed/etc?

I guess I care a little bit more about phones than most because of the time I spend on them. This is a highly engineered phone that has serious ergonomic and aesthetic flaws, the degree of which prevent me from happily continuing to use it or to invest any further money in proliferating this user-unfriendly technology around the house in the form of extra handsets. Siemens' next attempt at this product will be much better. Don't buy until they do more user and field testing.

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