Customer Reviews

Uniden DECT 6.0 Silver Cordless Digital Answering System with Caller ID and Two Handsets (DECT1580-2)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

It shows up CID right after the first ring, while the Panasonic does it after two rings. The Uniden 2080 does not show caller's name even if the CID is already in the phone book, while my Uniden 1560-2 does! Panasonic is the worst, it scrolls the name and then the phone #; plus, as I just said, it takes one more ring to get CID. When you finally see the caller's #, it is too late, the answering machine is activated.

Although I like the idea of normal AAA NiMH batteries, Panasonic stupidly force them to be charged in the stock charger only. If you put a pair of fully charged batteries into the Panasonic, it keeps saying (via voice) "charge it for 7 hours", until you put the handset into the charger for a while. This defeats quite the point, you still cannot charge the batteries and swap them.

This Uniden uses a battery pack, but the battery chamber is huge (designed for AA). I bought an AAA battery holder from RadioShack and, after some modifications, put it into the handset. Now I can swap NiMH batteries and never have to put the handset back into the charger. Love it. You cannot do this with Uniden 2080 that has a very small battery chamber.

Sound is loud and clear. The Panasonic has annoying background noise. Oh, you'll love the big transparent back-lit keys with superb tic arc feel and the letters are printed underneath - they won't wear out. The rubber key bars on 2080 are garbage.

Some other features worth of mentioning: you can copy phone book entries from one handset to other handsets. You can inte'com or page any or all other handsets and transfer or conference a call. You can make calls private to other handsets. You can assign 8 personal rings for different callers. Voicemail indicator and button, pause button, mute button, speakerphone button and redial 5 numbers.

If you don't need the answering machine, the Uniden 1560-2 sold for $29.99 from your local HomeDepot stores is a steal. If you need more than 2 handsets, you can buy two 1560-2. You can also use any DCX150, DCX200 and DCX300 handsets, but each cost $30. Although you can use 2080's handsets on 1560, they still won't show caller's name that's already in phone book. You can register a handset to multiple bases; so there is no problem to use two or more 1560-2 for a single line (i.e, extra bases are used as chargers only). If you like, you can use them like multi-line phones which are very expensive.

The only thing missing is headset jack, which I don't care but may turn down some people. One other concern is durability. My 900MHz Uniden just died after a year of light use. That's why I'm in this market and this time I looked at the Panasonic first.

I have owned 2 of these. One was a gift and started getting horrible static on 1 handset within 6 months. The company said that even though I had registered this phone tha without original receipt there was nothing they could do. Buy a new one. The second set is only 5 months old and I'm having the same problem with both handsets and it searches sometimes for 10 minutes before I can make a call. I won't be suckered into buying a third one.

Electronic items never cease to amaze me. Our widescreen TV is only four years old and a better model of the same size now lists for about half of our original cost. Likewise with phones. We bought a two-station Vtech cordless phone about 4 years ago for 80 bucks. When the batteries needed replacement after two years, they cost over a third of what the original phone (with batteries) had cost! Well, the batteries needed replacement again. This time we looked around and found this new Uniden Phone System (DECT1580-2) for only a little more than what new batteries for the old Vtech phone would cost. Simply amazing! Well, we tossed the old phone, of course, although it would probably still work well given new batteries. Now the next question might be whether this was the right thing to do.

This Uniden phone works fine. Everything about it seems better than our old Vtech wireless phone. Plus, it has an answering machine and the old one didn't. It clearly seems to be a superior phone in every way and the cost was markedly less. Now, the next test will be to see how it holds up on a long-term basis. So far, we're very pleased with our new wireless phone.

Gary Peterson

Compared to other phones with the same characteristics, these phones have a very good price, but they do have a couple of problems.
I do get a bit of interference depending on how "far" I am from the base, which should be normal if I lived in a big house, but not in my case which is a medium sized apartment.
Another bad thing, compared to Panasonic for example, is that each phone is independent with it's caller id and phonebook: if you add a phone number on one, you have to manually copy it to the other phone, or if you view missed calls on one phone's caller id, they will remain on the other phone and you'll have to erase them again.
The last problem worth mentioning is that the speakerphone sometimes dies. I haven't figured out what really happens, but the sound sometimes just mutes, and after you move the phone it'll sound again. I don't think it's a cable or something loose, because it happens with both phones.
Features are nice, answering device is nice.

after a mere 32 days the handset#2, remote unit quit.
It lost it ability to connect / recognise the base!

The retailer ( starts with the letters "ST.." ) refused to accept an exchange, stating their policy limits exchanges to 14 days. But If I'd bought the "extended warranty" ... Imagine? "extended" now means beyond 14 days. Their intransigence is astoundingly callus, stubborn, UNcustomer friendly.

A call to Uniden resulted in a dimwit reading me the same trouble shooting instructions I could read in the Instr. manual. After that formality I was told to fax my complaint along with the receipt and they might decide to fix or replace it for a $10 (shipping / handeling )fee. And this is after just 1 month's use. Add my shipping cost and I'm out $15-$20. The product cost just $60 minus a promo rebate of $25. So is a single unit worth the $35 net cost? No.

Keep your old hard wired AT&T phones folks.

I just got this phone to replace an aged Panasonic cordless that I loved. Was very frustrated that I could barely understand my first callers on the Uniden -- I actually had to put them on the speakerphone to be able to make out what they were saying. And I had to read almost the entire manual to find out how to fix the problem by changing the "Audio Tone," which is mentioned on page 15 (out of 20). The setting defaults to "Natural Tone," which is recommended for hearing aid users. Well, I'm not one of those. The worst part was that you can't even change the setting unless you are currently talking to someone. So I had to annoy a friend by explaining the problem and then fumbling around trying to change the setting and see if it helped. The "High Tone" setting at least made my callers understandable, although they are still not quite as clear as on my old Panasonic. I even had to annoy my caller a second time in order to change the setting on the second handset. Maybe this phone would be good in a household in which some people have hearing problems, but to me it was just extremely bothersome. I also hate only having the option to change features while you talking. There are several buttons that change functionality depending on what you are doing (checking messages, talking, in standby, texting, using the menu). I think these will take me some getting used to if I decide to keep the phone (it did not make a particularly good first impression).

The sound quality is exceptional. The phone and base construction is ok, not as substantial as older Uniden and Panasonic phones, but the sound quality and features more than make up for this deficit. In this price range, you are getting a very good phone.

This Uniden DECT 6.0 phone set works great with nice features and it is affordable. The ring tone of the phone is a little soft but the ring tone of the base is loud enough. I like the personal ring tones linking with caller ID. Connection between the handsets are very clear. I have one handset downstair and one upstair. I definitely would recommend this phone.

Phone have worked very well from day 1. Follow the instructions when setting them up and you shouldn't have a problem. Highly recommend them. Range and clarity are superb.

Just bought this phone yesterday to replace an ailing 8 year old Panasonic. After I charged the handsets for 15 hours ;as stated in the manual; both only showed a halve charge. Maybe 15 hours is not enough for the initial charge? I really liked the ease of use for this set, did not have to go back and forth between handset and manual in order to program it.
I frequently call abroad using the money saving "10-10" numbers, and found out that this phone can not save more than 20 digits in it's phone book. That is unfortunate, since I need 21. I did find a way to call these numbers from the phone book feature, by adding the last digit after initiating the call. This is just not going to work for me, and I will be looking for another phone.Other than the 20 digit and questionable battery life, this seems to be a nice, easy to use phone.