Customer Reviews

Uniden Tru9280-4 5.8 Ghz 4-Handset Cordless Phone System With Answering System & Call Waiting Caller Id

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

My Mom and I decided to get a new house phone, because our good old Trustworthy Panasonic 900Mhz phone finally gave up on us. This was a good phone range was about full house and little bit outside. We went to Target to look and saw several cordless phones, and decided to go with this one because it was on sale for 100 dollars. Also i have a Uniden that still works after 7 years and it had great range for being 2.4 ghz, so i told her to go with Uniden. We got home and plugged them in to charge for about 16 hours. Then we finally removed the good old Panasonic phone and plugged this one in. Pros, i LOVE the look of this phone, it looks nice. The menu is also easy to use, really easy to figure out. The Features on this phone is pretty good, call waiting (Don't really use), Caller ID, you can also put up to 80 people in the phone book. Which is nice so you know who is calling you. Now the Cons: The Ringer is really quiet and i think should be louder then it is, even on max volume. Its hard to hear when its dead quiet, and even harder when their are noises. (cleaning, TV, etc.) Ok no big deal, i can deal with a quiet ringer i couldn't get that picky, because other phone was dead and we need a house phone. The biggest problem with this phone is the RANGE SUCKS, i mean my old Panasonic, 900mhz Uniden, 2.4 ghz and every other phone i know can beat the range of this phone with no problems. Our house is only 1500 square feet, so its pretty small. Yet it only works good in about a 20-25 foot range from the home base. After that it drops calls, (Not even crackly, just drops) the phones in other rooms Never ring because their "To Far" from the base. I Have the main unit in Kitchen, second is in my Bedroom, and last is in the sewing room. I have had a Cordless Expandable before and they have no issues with my small house. This phone was a BIG Disappointment, the Range is so bad, it just kills it. I don't understand why a 900mhz phone can have better range then a 5.4ghz phone. I don't need a phone that will work all the way down the block just one just covers a small 1500 square foot house. I cannot Imagine trying to get this phone to work in a bigger house. This phone is going back.

Definitely not worth the money. I bought it for the list of features and the advertised benefits of 5.8 GHz over my older 2.4GHz system. What a disappointment!
This is the first phone system of this class that I see missing wall mounting options: the shape of the unit is ideal for wall mounting, but there are no connectors. The handsets are not eye-pleasing, to say the least. The handsets are too small and too crowded with buttons to be held between your head and your shoulder. There are also no headphone jacks and belt clips, so hands-free operation is not possible. I owned decent 2.4 GHz phones for many years and was anticipating the 5.8 GHz phone to surpass them in signal quality and range. It did not. In fact, the sound quality is mediocre to poor, and deteriorates to crackling when, for example, the basement unit is taken to the second floor. I did not see any improvements in the operation of my Wi-Fi network after switching from my old 2.4 GHz phone to this one. This, however, may indicate that the interference was negligible to start with.
I give it two stars rather than one because it does work somehow and was easy to setup.

I wish I had been able to read the other reviews for this product prior to purchase because believe me, they're true. Unfortunately I bought it late one Sunday evening after my home phone broke suddenly. It was a total disappointment and I ended up replacing it after two miserable months. I can't imagine how it rates it's 5.8 Ghz since everything seems to cause interference. The phonebook allows you to appoint ringer selections to each entry, yet there is no correlation between what is in the phonebook and what comes up on the Caller ID. And the range... well, let's just say it might as well have a cord. Actually, it would be better with one, that way you wouldn't find yourself losing a call because you "wandered" 12 feet away from the base! I purchased mine for about $85 and still feel completely ripped off. I can honestly say that I NEVER had a satisfactory call on this unit. Steer clear of this one!

I have the 3 handset version in an apartment and love it. I bought the 4 handset version for my home and discovered how bad the reception of this phone can be. I put the base unit in the livingroom and 2nd handset in my bedroom about 30 feet away through 1 wall-terrible reception. I can't leave the room without the phone starting to loose signal and start dropping out. I returned it after using it for 3 days. Learned after the fact that 5.8 Ghz phones have the lowest reception capability of all phone frequencies..Live and learn.

This phone sometimes drops out even if you are standing 2 feet from the base station. We had another cordless phone that never did this in the same place, same room, same house.
For what this system costs, it is an outrage. Luckily, this was borrowed from a relative. If I had bought this, it would go back to the store the very next day.

It will be working okay, say, in the next room, and then spontaneously break up, drop out for 10 seconds at a time and then come back. And forget using it 2 or 3 rooms away. It is unusable at that distance.
In fact, with all the chattery drop-out behavior, it's unusable, period.

Decided this Uniden cordless telephone/answering machine system is a keeper. I had a separate answering machine and two different brand cordless phones and replacing them with this Uniden system is a revelation. The integrated feature set will make things much easier and seamless.

The manual makes two suggestions that I endorse heartily:

1. Place the base unit up high. Placing it on the first floor of my house I found that clarity from a critical location on the 2nd floor was unacceptable. Reversing these locations, putting the base in that upstairs location and a handset at the downstairs location totally fixed the problem.

2. For best clarity, hold the handset at the bottom, not the top. My tests improved from marginal clarity in some locations to very good clarity when I paid attention to this detail.

I determined the best location for the base by doing some tests. Placing the base in 3 prospective acceptable locations, I made calls with a handset to my cell phone, letting my cell phone take messages. During these calls I walked around the house and yard talking and saying exactly where I was. Playing back my cell phone messages I could determine exactly what clarity I was getting from each combination of base placement and handset location. Ultimately, I have the base where I get very acceptable clarity all over the house and yard, as long as I hold the handset at the bottom.

This phone has a great volume whether it is a ring or speaker. It has also clear reception in any corner of my home. The system has easy to understand start up instructions. Excellent battery life. Works well with Vonage VOIP system. No interference with wireless computer network. Previous Panasonic 2.4 GHz phone did interfere with wireless.

This phone has a slick design and a lot of features. I do recommend that you put the main unit in the middle of your living space if possible to help the range of the phone. I would also go with 5.8 if you have a computer wireless network, 2.4 can be troublesome.

If the model number wasn't clearly indicated and pictures of the box weren't posted, I would have thought I had bought a different phone than the other reviewers since I've had a much better experience than they have apparently had.

I've had the phone system about a year and have had very few problems with it. I have not had the range issues other people have had (I can use any of the handsets anywhere in the house or in my backyard, and the base station at the opposite end of the house from the backyard.) I use the handset speakerphone constantly and have been impressed with the clarity. I've had no issues with the volume of the ringer and keep it on the lowest possible level for most of the handsets.

Pros:
Handset speaker phone (a huge plus for me and the main reason why I bought the phone)
Inexpensive (at least when I bought it - I paid a LOT less than the current price)
Reasonable standby times for the handsets - I have one handset in a rarely-used room and don't always leave that handset charger plugged in, and the battery will last at least 1-2 weeks without use
Reasonable talk time (at least 3 hours continuous)
Lots of conference/ transfer/ privacy features with the 4 handsets, although I don't really use any of them other than the paging feature when I mis-place a handset
All handsets indicate when there is an answering machine message, and you can check messages from any handset or remotely
Can individually adjust the ringer style and ringer volume for each handset
Doesn't lose your outgoing message if you briefly unplug the base station
DOesn't seem to make a difference which handset is in which charger

Cons: mostly minor
The keypads are not backlit (my biggest complaint)
Limited selection of cheesy ringtones
I agree that the handset is a bit hard to hold against your ear with your shoulder, but since I use it on speakerphone most of the time it's not a big deal for me.
answering machine lost the date and time I programmed in on a couple of occasions, so my messages didn't have a time stamp (It never lost my outgoing message, just the programmed date/ time, so there may have been a brief flicker in the power)
Can't program the phone to automatically dial the caller ID block code before each call (although to be honest, I've only had one phone system that ever did that)
No headset jack on the handsets (although not that big of an issue given that the handsets are speaker phones)