- DECT 6.0 expandable digital cordless phone and answering system
- Talking caller ID; talking alarm clock; talking battery alert
- All-digital answering machine; night mode with light-up indicator
- 50-station shared phonebook; digital handset speakerphone
- Expandable up to six handsets for busy offices and homes
I really like the backlit keypad and the talking caller ID (a noticeable improvement over previous Panasonic phones). I notice that these were the biggest gripes on previous Amazon reviews, so Panasonic is obviously taking notice.
If you want to save about $20, you can buy the version without a phone keypad in the base unit (KX-TG9334T) but I like having the "extra phone" in the base unit (you have to use the speaker phone option with no headset plugged in). Works great at a workdesk or kitchen and almost makes this a 5 headset system.
Unlike the previous reviewer, who thought the headsets too small, for me they are slightly bigger than I like. I would prefer something slightly smaller that could fit inside a pants pocket while I'm working in the yard or in the garage. Not possible with these headsets--you need a belt clip--but not really a big deal.
The phone book is great--easy to add an incoming call--and MOST IMPORTANT it automatically updates the phone book in EVERY headset with that new name and number.
We plan to add another headset but there are three different options. A little disappointing that the Panasonic parts center could not tell us the differences (we eventually found out via the internet--the TGA 630 has no lit touchpad and is white/pearl color, the TGA 930 is pretty close to the supplied headset but the keypad is black, and the TGA 935 has drop and splash resistance (for a kitchen or bath?).
Bottom line: great product!I upgraded to the Panasonic KX-TG93xx series phone after our older KX-TG5771 model's caller ID stopped working. I have always been pleased with Panasonic quality, and this phone is no exception. Great sound and the talking caller ID is a must-have in our house. The old and new models are very similar in many respects. Here are some features that stood out in our use of the KX-TG9344:
PROS:
The talking caller ID will announce the names that you have stored in your phone book. So instead of hearing "Out of Area" as on the previous model, you hear "Uncle Bob's Cell Phone" if that is in your phone book.
Changes to the phone book on one extension are automatically updated on all phones. On the earlier model, you had to select a menu item to download the phone book to every other phone one by one.
CONS:
No display of number of new messages on the base phone. I knew this before buying the phone, but did not realize how much I would miss it. If a telemarketer calls, for instance, and you let the answer machine pick it up, all you have afterward is a blinking light on the phone. You assume it is the telemarketer's call, so you ignore it, not realizing that a few minutes ago when you stepped outside, a call came in from a family member that you want to return right away. But you have no indication that you have received an additional call on the answering machine until you decide to play back the messages.
When screening calls that the answering machine is recording, you can only hear the caller on the base phone, not on the extensions. So when you are in a room with only an extension and an unfamiliar number calls you, you cannot tell if it is really someone you wish to speak to, until after the call and you listen to the recording.
When playing back your recordings, the answering machine does not announce the date and time that the call was received. So you cannot be sure if the message is an old one that everyone has heard before and can be erased or if it is a new one that you need to keep until another family member has a chance to hear it. The caller should not be required to say "It's Monday at 3:30 pm" -that's what the phone should be able to do!
Extension handsets are identified by number instead of by name. So when you need to find out which room an extension belongs to or you want to connect via intercom to another room, you have to remember that #2 is the kitchen phone instead of just seeing "Kitchen" on the display.
SUMMARY:
All of the cons listed above are features that were on the older model KX-TG5771, but are missing from the newer KX-TG93xx series phones. Most of them would seem to be a simple matter of programming. Why can't phone manufacturers keep all the good features of an old phone when they add new ones to an upgraded phone?I was pleasantly surprised at both the sound quality and the range of this phone system. My driveway is 200 + feet long and I was able to walk all the way down to the mailbox without losing reception or crispness in my conversation. Will I ever need to be 200+ feet away from the base on a call? Probably not, but the option is there.
The talking caller ID is a great feature, but you have to program names so that the lame caller ID labels arent called out (for example, I tried calling the house with my cell phone and the caller ID said "PA Cell Phone" and that's exactly what the talking ID said how am I supposed to know who the heck that is!).
The phonebook is slightly tedious, but it's easy enough to program a phone number once a phone call comes in.
The keypad is easy to read. Even my mother said right away that she could read the numbers without glasses.
The ringers are another shortfall to this phone, but again, that's not a big deal. There are about 6 options 3 rings and 3 songs. Nothing really great. One day, they'll make a phone you can program MP3s to (like a cell phone) but for now, it is what it is.
The four handsets are a Godsend. No more running to get the phone. They're in every room that my wife and I spend the most time in. They each have an "extension" and you can easily transfer calls.
The only other downside is the hanset size. They are a bit small. But so are all cordless housephones these days. I personally prefer something a little bigger.
Anyway, overall a great purchase and I am extremely happy. Nice job, Panasonic![updated 6/17/2012. Amazon is still selling these phones, so I'm updating my rating yet again. Over the past year multiple handsets have started randomly turning off, at the most inopportune times. The phone will ring, I'll pick up the handset, press TALK, and then the phone blanks out. These devices should not be breaking after only 4-5 years. I work with computers for a living, and although they are a hundred times as complex, they last at least 10 years without a hiccup. The lack of reliability, on top of all the constantly annoying firmware deficiencies that I originally described have convinced me to get a new phone system.]
[updated 10/2/10. It's now been two years, but I see Amazon is still selling the phone. It's getting more annoying with time. The phone is still the same, but I'm less patient with it. The most common issue I have is that the phones will ring, and as soon as one is picked up, the Caller ID on all the other phones becomes inaccessible. Maybe they've changed the firmware by now, but mine still ticks me off.]
[updated 2/19/09. See notes below summary at bottom. It's been many months and I still can't get used to this phone]
The machine is well-made, and will do the job for us. It does the basics reasonably well: answering machine, talking Caller ID. Voice quality is okay through the earpiece and via speakerphone. So don't ignore all the good things mentioned in other reviews. However, there are some serious limitations that I find maddening, especially considering the price.
The answering machine is limited to about 18 minutes of recording time. In this day and age, that's pitifully low. Fine for daily use, but not for a 2-week vacation. My previous answering machine, from almost 10 years ago, has more internal memory. On top of that, when the memory runs out, it doesn't necessarily tell the caller that their message will not be recorded!
The worst, most maddening annoyance: Suppose someone calls, and another family member answers the phone. You, in the other room, pick up the handset to see who called. When you press the Caller ID button, it says "System is busy...please try again later." So until your housemate hangs up, there's no way to tell who called.
In fact, when someone's using the phone, you're pretty much locked out of doing anything else with the system. You can't access caller ID. You can't access the phonebook. You can't play any messages on the answering machine. If I'm on a phone call and my wife comes home, and I tell her there's a message on the machine for her, she cannot listen to it until I hang up. In only a few weeks, this one limitation has already caused annoyance and frustration.
Other problems...
In some circumstances, the phone displays "Missed Call" when no call has been missed. I'm not sure what causes this to happen, but all I know is that someone will call, and afterward I'll notice a "Missed call" message. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that our phones perpetually display "Missed call." There are so many false alarms that unless I've been out of the house, I find I no longer bother checking to see if, in fact, anyone's called.
You can't tell from looking at the phones or base unit how many messages have been left.
There is no speed dial! You can use a built-in phonebook, but it can take many keypresses to find the entry that you want to dial.
The Caller ID is annoyingly slow. You don't get to see the whole Caller ID message at once. It shows the text part of the caller ID, waits a second or two, then shows the phone number. I did a test, and it takes approximately 5 seconds per entry to scroll through the Caller-ID list, if you want to see both names and numbers.
The Talking Caller ID is a nice feature, but could be implemented better. Many of our calls are tagged as "Unavailable." My guess is that's pretty commonplace. Unfortunately the Talking Caller ID apparently doesn't have the word "Unavailable" pre-digitized, so it has to synthesize it in that awkward hard-to-understand computer-like voice. We're already making a joke out of it.
There are a bunch of other ease-of-use issues. I won't go into all of them. A few are:
* The main base unit doesn't have an LCD, which means that you can't use the phonebook from the base. Since there's no speed dial, you can only make a call from the main base unit if you know the number.
* If you're on a handset and another call comes in, you can see the Caller ID very nice. But, if you're on the speakerphone and a call comes in, the Caller ID does not display on the handsets. So you're in the dark.
* The tone duration/spacing is long, and you can't adjust it. So when the phone dials a phonebook number or Caller ID number for you, it takes awhile for the number to be dialed. It's only a few seconds longer, but my previous phones never had this problem.
* I was on the phone the other night, when another call came in via Call Waiting. The display lit up for only 10 seconds. By the time I had put on my glasses, it had gone black. Even though I still had time to pick up the new call, I couldn't see the display to find out who was calling.
Summary: It gets the basic job done, but I'm constantly reminded of its limitations and quirks. And I need to have my old answering machine on standby for when we go on vacation. And my wife has been looking at the handsets with skepticism and trepidation, and then she looks at me. I know what she's thinking, and it's not good.
Update: User 'Ricky' left some comments to my review, so here are my replies to him. My overall rating has not changed.
1) I had earlier written that when one handset answers a call, the other three handsets would display "Missed Call." Ricky said that this is wrong. At first, after I tested this feature, I thought he was correct. However, I've continued to have problems with incorrect "Missed Call" displays.
2) Ricky suggests that I can check my messages while on vacation to keep them from overrunning the 18-minute time aggregate time limit. This is certainly true. However, I marked this down against Panasonic because I shouldn't need to worry about such things while on vacation. It's a vacation. I can buy a 1GB MP3 player for $25 that holds many hours of CD-quality audio. So I don't understand why this phone can't hold even an hour of phone-quality audio, or at least as much as my digital answering machine from several generations ago.
3) Ricky commented that my comment about Talking Caller ID is misleading. I don't see how. All I meant was that they didn't bother to pre-digitize some common words (which they could have known about in advance), so the computer-generated voice is unnecessarily awkward.
It utilizes DECT 6.0, which is the latest technology for cordless phones and is supposed to have greater clarity and privacy without having interference issues like the older 2.4 GHz phones. Not sure if this is primarily a marketing gimmick or not, but the Panasonic sounds clear and has good range. The screen is nice, and the handsets are smaller than previous generations of cordless phones (which is a pro or a con, depending on your personal preference).
Regarding the talking caller ID, it's a godsend not to have to get up to pick up the phone only to find out you have a telemarketer on the line. You have to subscribe to caller ID with your phone company, and not all the caller labels are always understandable, but the nice thing is that you have the option of putting in your own labels for folks in your address book. It usually takes a couple of rings for the talking caller ID to kick in, which is a bit of a drag.
The only things I wish the Panasonic had are a speed dial feature and larger "talk" and "end" buttons. I'm so used to hitting one key to call frequently-dialed numbers in my cell phone, that not having this feature seems strange on a cordless phone. Regarding the buttons, the two most frequently used buttons are "talk" and "end". Is there a reason why these aren't any bigger than the other buttons on the keypad? May be a case of form over function.
Minor gripes aside, the Panasonic stands out among the current generation of cordless phones. Having three extra handsets is also a major plus means a lot less running between rooms to pick up the phone.
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