Team-BHP - Digital cordless phone for home use

Quote:

Originally Posted by sj_koova (Post 1082808)

To those who are using the phones bought in US,

Do you use a step down transformer or does the phone support 110-220V?

These phones run on DC.

AC to DC converter that comes with Panasonic did not work with 220v. Maybe newer ones will work with 220 v.

But its easy to replace that with converter for Indian market. Costs 200 odd Rs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay (Post 1082896)

Oh. Thats great.

This one seems to be good choice - Panasonic KX TG6700B

Panasonic KX TG6700B - cordless phone w/ call waiting caller ID & answering system specs and Combo specifications - CNET Reviews

It is 5.8Ghz and matches with most of my criteria

Costs around $120.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sj_koova (Post 1082808)

To those who are using the phones bought in US,

Do you use a step down transformer or does the phone support 110-220V?

I too can get it from from US, may be in Jan. Since many of you suggested to bring it from US, I need to figure out what our surprises are expected in terms to compatibility in India

What advanced features I should be looking for in addition to the expectations I already have?

Step Down Transformer I use, its cost was not much (125rs only).

I bought a Indian Beetel 2.4 ghz, with a battery in the base. The phone works pretty good, and never drops a call on power failure. The base battery is also rechargeable. However the build quality of the phone is atrocious, all the buttons have lost their colour and you have to gues what they're for, except the number pad ones which are still clear and visible. The antenna has broken off, but the signal works. The faceplate looks terribly scuffed. I use another Panasonic 5.8 Ghz from the US, works just as well, but sadly no battery backup on base.

Over the last many years, I have spent more than 10K on 5-6 cordless phones incl. the best of Panasonic (upto 2.4 GHz). Somehow the voice quality and clarity simply does not match the corded phones. Result: I have 2-3 unused cordless phones, and after 1-2 mths had to replace the cordless with corded.

If someone could suggest a good cordless phone, which would have near-corded voice quality. If not available in India, I could get that from UK/US.

Check out Philips cordless phones for home use. I am not sure they are available in India (I got mine from UK).

(+)
- good looks compared to competition
- smallest size/weight
- good sound clarity
- more variants with color screens, large displays (similar to mobiles)
- good battery behavior.
- lots of variants with 2 or 3 handsets

(-)
- could be sensitive on power fluctuations (I have had one issue already), so it would be advisable to use a spike buster available for a few hundred rupees. A low end (cheapest) UPS would be good to prevent call drops even if you have home backup as it takes a few seconds to kick in.
- some of these models have a problem dialing more than 10 digit numbers, especially some of these international numbers tend to have things like '001212.....' that can easily stretch beyond 10 digits, so watch out for this.

The rest of the phones I evaluated from Panasonic/Beetel were quite bulky and heavy in comparison.

Also after using 2 iterations of Panasonic phones, I have given up on them due to battery issues. As they have been leaders in the past, I found innovation missing with the same designs for many many years. I haven't found sleek cordless phones from Panasonic. I found Beetel a bit user un-friendly and bulky. Also, they do not have low weight, small dimension phones.

I found a brand called Vortel(or something similar sounding) at Spar in Bangalore, that looked sleek, maybe you could try that.

For office conference calls, I suggest you avoid cordless. This is because you are likely to be near a PC/laptop/blackberry/mobile/modem and this will create noise on the lines. A wired phone is better. Also, they will offer more features.

Hope this is useful.

Vasudeva, try Philips - get it from UK. Has good quality sound with volume/other options/small size and good batery. I have had a similar issue and have a junkyard of few unused phones. Though Philips phone has been excelelent for home use, I still use a corded phone for conference calls as the Philips cordless I have does not dial more than 10/12 digits - don't know the issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by msvg (Post 1081984)

Panasonic is the best in this segment.
I have seen alot of Sony phones not used after sometime due to various reason..

Sony sold unreliable cordless phones with pathetic battery for cordless. I've 2 Sony cordless gathering dust at home and Sony has already got out of cordless market few years back. I bought Uniden few years back and it fared far better than Sony.

my 2 cents.
Cordless - Have a Uniden, Except for the caller id issue its a great phone with excellent voice clarity both for speaker mode and non speaker mode.
When I tested it before buying, found that the voice clarity was much better than Panasonic ,also the size of the handset was much smaller than a Panasonic.

Corded - Alcatel. Caller ID works great out of the box, has good clarity for Speaker mode & non speaker mode. Has a mute button, useful during conference calls.

If you are looking for the following 3 features (which I wanted for sure due to the conf calls) , then there are not many choices which support all these, most will either have speaker or mute.

- Speaker
- Caller ID
- Mute button
- Voice clarity.