I bought the Bt cordless Aqua phone a few Months ago.
At first I was very sceptical, I had owned a Bt phone in the past & it lasted less than 12 Months. I hadnt had another BT since. But I plumped for it. I liked the look & it had the kind of features I needed.
On the whole I am very pleasently surprised.
It has a seperate base unit, which plugs into your phone line. Although this is quite large for what youd expect it to be, its about 15 cm high. But the main benefit of it is you can put it next to the phone line, then you can put the handsets anywhere in your house there is a power supply. It means theres no main phone handset, they are all the same phones, with small bases. So if you want the main phone on the other side of the room to your phone socket, bingo, you can. No being
tied to your phone socket or trailing wires accross the room.
The next great thing about the base unit is it has a slot to take your sim card from your phone. You can then download the contents of your address book to the base & then you can transfer this to each of your phones. The only down side is you have to transfer the info to each of the phones in turn, you cannot do it once for all handsets.
On to the handsets. They are a nice size & quality & have a good feel to them. you can send texts from these too. The answerphone can be accessed from any of the phones & the messages play through the phone, like a call, so you dont have to have them on the base for all to hear & stand by the base to delete, etc. It is a good quality answerphone, with a massive memory.
The phone has a volume button, but even me, im not the best hearing on the phone if the Tv is on, can hear it very well, without it being on full. If its on full I can hear it away from my face, without the speaker phone being on. Yep it has a very good speaker phone too. The reception I would say is good, I havent taken it outside, but there isnt a place in my house I lose clarity or the signal, I have done before with other makes & models of phone
You can answer the phone without sliding the front of the phone up, although to me this feels very small next to my face. Although it is still as long as a mobile phone if not longer.
You have all the usual things you would expect from a phone, call lists, settings to change the phone or base. The ring tones are pretty simple, but hey its a home phone. Im sure theres one that you'll find bearable, even if its just a phone ringing. You can get caller display, which is very usefull. It even has a coloured screen.
If like me you dont always notice you have a message on your answerphone you can set the base to bleep. My goodness you can miss it, it bleeps louder than an alarm clock & does it every few seconds, theres not much chance of ignoring it, I can tell you. If you dont want the sonic boom beep, you dont have to, it is an extra, the handset will tell you that theres a message on your answerphone, it gives you a symbol like a tape & the number of messages you have waiting, with the play highlighted for you to select.
You can add loads of handsets to the base, and its very easy to register the handset, you hold down a button on the main base for a few seconds & it does it all its self. You can add extra bases too & register them together. So it would even be a great set for a small office.
On the whole it is a very good phone. The only problem ive had, which only happened a couple of times is if I put the phone down too quick it rings out on every phone, but theres noone there, unfortunately I have to cancel the call on each phone. Which means going all round the house, as one phone is upstairs! But as I say it has only happened a couple of times.
I have 1 gripe with it, but thats me, it might not bother you, as its only minor, but I find it a bit annoying. When you get a call & answer it on one phone, it shows as a missed call on the other 2 phones & you have to view your missed calls on each phone to remove it from the phones message screen. If you miss a call, the same happens, you have it memorised on each phone. You cannot press to see who youve missed & it knows automatically youve viewed your call history. As I say to most its such a minor thing, it just bugs me!
In general I would say this is a very good phone, although at present quite expensive compared to others, the mandarin for example.
The technical bit. These are the main features of the phone.
Key Features: Large 1.4" 4096 colour display with backlight 250 Name and number phonebook Mobile phone SIM card reader/writer Text messaging with 50 text memory storage Caller Display with up to 30 number calls list Call Waiting 20 Last number redial Earpiece volume control Base station and handset ringer volume control Choice of 10 handset ringer melodies Choice of 5 base ringer melodies Handset power on/off Handset naming feature Keypad lock Paging Range of up to 300 metres outdoors/50 metres indoors Talktime up to 10 hours/ standby time up to 100 hours Battery low warning Out of range warning Switchboard compatible Tone and pulse dialling
Answering machine features: Up to 11 minutes digital recording time Pre-recorded outgoing messages - answer & record and answer only Answer delay setting Voice prompts Time/day stamp Call screening/call intercept Message counter Memo facility Audible message alert Base unit loudspeaker Remote access
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Dec 18th, 2007
(Dec 21st, 2007)
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