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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best choice for a low cost basic 5.8 GHz, November 20, 2003
By A Customer
After reading so many mixed reviews on this phone I was a little hesitant to go with it. I already have other wireless devices in my home operating at 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz, so that necessitated a 5.8 GHz model, yet there are few such reasonable looking models to choose from.My criteria was something under $100 with good clarity, DSS to prevent eavesdroppers, caller id, reliable brand, and good looks. The good looks criteria immediately rulled out 2/3 of the models on the market-- Vtech, GE, et al are atrociously gaudy looking and are not traditionally good quality brands in my mind. That narrowed it down to Uniden and Panasonic. While the Panasonic 5.8 GHz model is almost certainly an excellent phone, it is simply too expensive-- around double the price of the Uniden. (Panasonic doesn't currently offer a stripped down model and instead forces you to buy an answering machine and other goodies that I wasn't interested in.) Upon going to the store and looking at the phones in person, the Uniden was so much cooler looking than the Panasonic, and at half the price! So I brought it home. What I like about the Uniden: 1. Good clarity. I hear no static anywhere in my 2400 sqft house. And the first time my wife used it, she made no negative comments (always a good sign). Overall, the quality is very close to that of a corded phone. 2. Range is reasonable, however it is less than the old 49Hz Motorola analog phone it replaced. If you have a large yard (I don't) then this might be an issue for you. 3. Phone feels nice and solid in your hand-- no creaking plastic when you push hard on the battery cover or any other piece of the phone. Also, when I pressed the buttons on all the display phones at the store, only a couple of models from Panasonic and this one from Uniden felt like quality-- all the others felt really cheap, almost as if buttons would fall off. 4. Logical, easy to use button & menu layout. I was able to figure out most everything without having to read the manual. 5. NiMH battery instead of NiCad = no battery memory problems or fear of overcharing like I experienced with my previous cordless. 6. Uniden's battery estimate of 4 hours talk time is accurate and even a little conservative. I managed to get 4 hours & 20 minutes after a fresh charge. 7. No antenna sticking up to break off. 8. Great looking, easy to read backlit LCD screen and buttons. 9. Styling-- it is by far the best looking cordless phone I have seen. 10. The built-in cordless speakerphone is a wonderful feature that has worked well for me so far. I really like how you can walk around the house and hold the phone in front of you like a walky-talky or lay it on the coffee table in the living room while you talk. Yes, it does sound like you're on a speaker phone to the other party. But I don't fault the phone for that-- all speakerphones sound like that. I have asked the other party what they thought of the sound quality while on speakerphone. They have said it sounds about the same as my Nortel corded speakerphone. A few minor areas for improvement: 1. I can always hear a faint buzzing noise in the background. Changing the channel has no effect on it. However, it is so faint as to rarely be noticable during normal use. Only someone trying hard to be critical would notice it. 2. Some related buttons could be located a little closer together. For example, when going into the phone's configuration menu, you use the +/- keys at the top to move around, but the "select" key to enter into a menu is located at the bottom. These keys should be placed closer together. 3. There's no battery strength meter, only a warning when the battery gets low. Anyway, I am totally thrilled with this phone. It does all the basics perfectly and at an inexpensive price.
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