OK Phone, but Plenty of Room for Improvement

This phone was purchased for my aunt & uncle, both in their 90's and living in a two-story house. Some of this phone's features are well thought-out and work perfectly, such as the one-touch speed dial buttons and paging from the corded base unit. This phone has several shortcomings, however, that would prevent me from choosing it again (except that one one else seems to offer a better alternative):

* No battery backup--after every power failure, I have to go over and reset the answering machine clock
* Emergency call button poorly located on the cordless handset--easy to press by mistake
* Pager button is also hard to find on the cordless and it doesn't have any one-touch speed dial buttons
* Answering machine buttons are small and difficult to read with poor eyesight--especially for elderly users who aren't familiar with the symbols used on button labels
* Handset audio is mediocre, although speakerphone clarity & mic sensitivity are very good (no speakerphone on cordless handset)

My  more

Check features before you buy!

This is definitely a nice device for the money. It has nice features and the documentation is easy to understand.

HOWEVER - there's no MUTE button on either the corded phone or the cordless handset. I purchased this phone for my home office, and I spend a lot of time on conference calls. I was simply horrified to find out that there was no way to mute the speaker - that's such a standard feature it really doesn't make sense. But I contacted the vendor and they confirmed the lack of feature. So, if you do a lot of conference calling or have noisy kids or animals at your house, make sure the conference facility you use allows muting via a keyboard entry because otherwise you'll have to put a pillow over the phone to keep out the background noise. I'd give this a "5" if not for this feature, but it's a BIG miss.

disappointed with performance

The phone was disappointing. It is very difficult for people to hear me and it sounds like I'm talking into a dead phone. I find that I'm yelling to have a normal conversation which is aggrevating. Positive points are that the numbers are large and it is easy to get up and running. I need another phone for my house and I would not purchase another and I would not recommend this model to friends.