Ascom Avena S

Advantages: Best DECT phone on the market
Disadvantages: The navigation on the menu

...I recently purchased the Ascom Avena 233 Plus phone from the TIME (think computer) Telecommunications shop. It is bay far the best DECT phone with digital answer machine you can buy. It was rated so by Which? magazine in their January 2001 edition. It is one of the only dect phones with a backlit screen, pre-recorded messages and it has a massive 22 minute answer machine, 50% more than most of the competition. It is also voice activated and you can record you own personalised ring - just like all good mobiles. The handset is light and easy to use, although the navigation on the menu is not as good as it could have been. It looks stylish with a silver of blue upstand supplied to hold the phone in position. The handbook is a bit daunting but once you have read the first few pages you can use all the basic functions on the phone... Read review

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Advantages: too many to list - but we just love it
Disadvantages: waiting to use it first time while batteries charged

...of the battery if you do this. Summing up, therefore, I can't fault the phone system and have no regrets. I must thank fellow ciao writers for their words too - as without them, I'd never have discovered the world of ascom and Avena233plus. Enjoy!... Read review

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Advantages: Directory sharing, leats cost routing, hands-free on handset
Disadvantages: Editing names/numbers tedious, cannot make calls from base station

...A big problem with most DECT phones is that you have to program numbers into each handset individually. The exceptions I found were the Philips Zenia and Ascom Avena 233. The Zenia allows you to store 100 numbers in the base station and share them. The Avena lets you program up to 150 numbers into a handset and then transmit them to other handsets. I chose the Avena. Why? Well, it's cheaper and, although a little larger, easier to hold. But the main reason was another feature that was important to me and absent from the Zenia - "least cost routing". If you use a prefix when dialling numbers, to route your calls over a particular provider's network, and especially if you use multiple providers, you want this feature (a) for convenience and (b) so that CLI will work properly and associate incoming calls with names in your directory... Read review

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