Panasonic DECT 6.0 3-Handset Expandable Digital Cordless Phone with Answering System and ChoiceMail (KX-TG7433B) (Black) by Panasonic
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Digital camera reviews of Panasonic DECT 6.0 3-Handset Expandable Digital Cordless Phone with Answering System and ChoiceMail (KX-TG7433B) (Black)
Digital camera Review: 5 stars
Summary: 5 Stars
did some research on the internet and decided to go with this set of Panasonic phones. Very satisfied, excellent product, fast shipment.Digital camera Review: A Solid Choice
Summary: 5 Stars
Packaging:
At first I thought newegg sent me the wrong phone system because the box was so small but everything fit inside pretty snuggly. Anything of importance, the handsets and bases, were all wrapped in foam rubber sleeves and all undamaged. The cords were wrapped in your typical clear plastic. There was very little if any movement in the components and newegg shipped them inside a larger box filled with foam peanuts.
First Impressions:
The handsets were a bit slimmer than I expected but not so much so that it was a problem. These are replacing a set of GE Digital 28223EE3, the worst set of phones I have ever owned. The Panasonics stand a little taller than these but the bottoms of the GEs do bulge out a little bit probably to make room for the battery packs they use but that made it a little easier to grasp. Speaking of batteries, the Panasonics use two AAA NiHM rechargeable batteries instead of your standard battery pack and the engineers obviously took their time designing how the batteries snap in. They only fit in one way and unlike cheaper solutions the springs are under the backplate instead of seen. It's many of these small things that make this phone much nicer and easier to deal with, such as the way the phones fit into the charging stations. I've seen other Panasonics which almost fell out of their stations but these will not unless at a pretty steep angle. The front of the phone will not tip back and while the back will a bit they'll stop before getting to a point where they'll fall out. One other nice feature is that a soft orange LED (?) lights up when the batteries are being charged so instead of relying on the typical three line battery icon you can tell when these are fully charged. The only bad thing I noticed setting these up was the wire management on the main base. Instead of curving the plastic bit that sticks out to keep the wire in place they used a square cut. This is a small thing but if you move your base or have to mess with the wires a lot this could cause some strain on the wire coating which isn't very thick to begin with. Another small con, the screen has room for eight digits across the top, I wouldn't have minded if they shrunk the digits down a little to make room for the full number but if you have poor eyesight I guess this would be a plus. One other small thing, the power brick is a bit bigger than the GE, like twice as big. It isn't huge but it is big enough that it will cover two spots on a standard wall socket if you have to plug it in to the top. Which for me means I had to plug it in to one of the few red sockets I have on my power saving surge protector (the red sockets stay on when my computer gets shut off) because the wire from the plug for the surge protector comes out at forty-five degrees instead of straight out the bottom, still trying to figure why they did that.
After Seven Days:
Lets get the cons out of the way first, there is no speed dial, which my girlfriend does like to use but I don't so again nothing terrible yet. The size of the Talk and Off buttons could be a bit bigger, I did occasionally hit Mute before I hung up on someone, but I'm probably just used to the huge toggle buttons on the GE. There are a total of seven ring tones (three tones and 4 melodies) and all of them are pretty annoying. I stuck with tone 1 as it's the closest you'll come to a standard ring tone. The talking Caller ID is nice but it takes two rings by the time it starts to talk and a good percentage of the time it pronounces names pretty oddly. For instance my Dad's girlfriend is Japanese and though her name is pretty easy to say the phone really has a tough time with it, but again a small thing. If you do use the same line to receive faxes though the talking caller ID gets pretty annoying, especially, if like my set up, the fax doesn't pick up until the sixth ring. There was one other item with the caller ID, for some reason my line is the only line we've been able to replicate this on. My doctor's office Caller ID comes up as one of the doctor's name, so I get a call from so-and-so Willi (the am runs off the screen so it says Willy) instead of so-and-so Clinic. This could be because I'm using a phone line from my cable company though too but it's the only number that has ever done this. One other small item, these phones and their bases will show every bit of grime that comes in contact with them. Usually this is limited to the screen on most phones but not here, again, a small issue as far as I'm concerned.
The pros so far really outweigh the few small cons though. Let's start with my girlfriend's favorite and requested feature, the Caller ID list will let you erase either one name at a time or all of them. Yeah I don't get it either but there you go. The number buttons are big and responsive and seem to be made pretty well. The menu stick in the middle of the phone works really well and it's used almost like a mouse instead of another ripped off round directional key, ala many MP3 players. As I said there is no speed dial but the phone book works pretty well, hit the phone book button then the key that begins a name, say 4 for G H or I and you'll get the first name in your book that starts with a G. Continue to hit it and you'll skip to the next name in line within that set of letters or number. The voice mail is very easy to access through the handsets. I've read some complaints about the lack of a display on the main base showing the number of messages you have but I'd rather have the smaller base than a display and the phone will tell you when you have a message or missed a call. I've also seen some complaints about the quality of the sound from the handsets, I've had no problem whatsoever in this department. The phone is comfortable on my ear and the sound is very clear and loud enough that my girlfriend turned them down. No problems with any calls being dropped or a bad signal which I had constantly with the set of GEs. I'm not taking them for a walk down the street either but neither of us have and any signal problems. The battery life seems to be fine, I really should have taken the time to let one wear all the way down but I forgot to. So the longest I can say they lasted without a recharge was maybe 24 hours, sorry I can't be more specific.
One odd note, probably to make the menu look a bit better Panasonic included a Customer Support icon in the main menu. My girlfriend thought this was a cool feature. She thought you could just hit that icon and the phone would call tech support, good idea, but it doesn't do that. Instead it tells you the Panasonic help web site, [...], not really very useful and in my opinion a missed opportunity to really cement your relationship with your customer. Granted her grandma would be calling this number given the slightest reason but it would have been a nice touch.
Bottom Line:
I'd buy these phones again. I'd recommend them to anyone as long as they don't have any joint problems as the small Talk and Off buttons could be a problem. If I could improve anything it would have to be the included ring tones, tone 1 is not bad enough that it bothers me but some more choices so we could tell when it's either of our families calling during dinner instead of a telemarketer without the Talking Caller ID on would be nice. I'm lobbying my girlfriend to get that turned off, I work online at home and constantly get calls and faxes coming in so the uniqueness of this feature is wearing thin. One thing I didn't touch on, the build quality is very good all around and the designers really seem to have taken their time here. I do occasionally miss the larger rear end of the GE phones but not so much that it bothers me. One last thing for anyone wondering if the NiMH AAA batteries you already have at home will work in these phones, the included batteries are HHR-65AAABU 1.2V Min. 630 mAh. Sets are included with each handset but I was wondering when I had to replace them if the ones I have will work so there you go.
EDIT: June 2010 and these are still probably the best and easiest to use set of phones I've ever owned. My one regret is not buying a set of four because my girlfriend likes to take the one off of my desk and leave it on hers or do the same with the one from the living room which pretty much means there is never a phone in a cradle in the room I'm in... but that's just our little problem, excellent product and I still highly recommend them.
Digital camera Review: A great phone at even twice the price.
Summary: 4 Stars
So easy to program. I shut off my Vonage voicemail. Much better than my Siemens. Glad I made the switch.Digital camera Review: Almost Perfect!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the first Panasonic cordless phone I have ever purchased and my wife and I love it.
Pros: Large clear display, loud ring tones, talking caller ID, long range and battery life, great sound quality
Cons: Volume loudness somewhat low (but tolerable)
All in all a great buy. Would have given it 5 stars if not for the volume loudness. I have always bought Uniden in the past and hope this unit is as reliable.
Digital camera Review: Almost perfect!
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best features of these handsets is the extremely large LCD display that is backlit in a bright white with LARGE black dot matrix lettering (great for my mom who has poor vision without her glasses).... this LCD is simply heaven! However, because the LCD is so large, the ear piece is just a single tiny hole at the very top of the phone instead of a large speaker with multiple holes, as is found on most traditional handsets. This forces you to position the phone against the ear in an awkward position, with the very top edge of the phone crossing the center of your ear. Otherwise, if you hold it comfortably on your ear as you would any other phone, the volume is lower because the single hole for the speaker would then be near the back/top of the ear. It takes about a week to adjust to this minor design inconvenience. That being said, the adjustable volume does need to be louder, and if it were louder you could probably position the phone normally at the top or back eadge of the ear.
One of my other favorite features of this handset trio is the talking caller ID. The phone can be across the room, out of sight, and you will always know who is calling. It doesn't speak perfect English all the time, but you can overcome this by saving your most frequent callers in the phone's "phonebook". Once saved in the phone book, you can title the caller's name however you'd like and the talking caller ID will read (and show) the saved version of the person's name. Then, if the talking caller ID can't perfectly pronounce your saved spelling of the caller's name, you can go into the phonebook and edit the name so that it will pronounce it correctly. For example, the talking caller ID says the name "Tracy" like "Tray-zee", but you can save the caller's phone number in the phonebook and edit their name to be "Traysee" and it will pronounce it correctly. "Associates" is another one that it really has problems pronouncing, but just save the caller's number in the phonebook and edit the name to be "Uh so she ettes" and it works great. 80% of the time, though, the talking caller ID gets it right.