Customer Reviews
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74 of 79 people found the following review helpful.
Typical product marketing - leave you wanting for the sequel
By S. Ruffner
I purchased this phone for my home office. I liked the ability to have access to all the lines (including my fax line) on one system. This system has excellent functionality based upon the attendant and call routing. It also has better range in our 4,500 sf house than the Siemens 2420 system, which only is only a two line phone (more later). This system has large programmable memory locations, intuitive interfaces on the extensions as well as the base station.
HOWEVER, the primary purpose for acquiring this phone was to use the base station as my primary office phone with the capability to roam throughout our three story house. As a base station, this system is severely lacking. Although the speaker phone is great, it has NO MUTE! If you participate in conference calls, you need a headset with a mute switch to have an offline discussion or even sneeze. Also, using two friends as guinea pigs, the sound quality was pitiful on two different units of this same model thinking it was a fluke. According to my unscientific testing, the sound quality of the cordless handsets was poor as well. Finally, the handsets are huge. While the antenna makes the range a little better, it is a large unit that makes me feel like I have a Motorola Brick phone next to my head. Ergonomics are not Panasonic's strong suit, but the lit keypad is nice for using in the dark (although I prefer doing other things than dialing someone while in the dark).
I tried these units in direct comparison to the Siemens 2420. I've never been a VTech fan and didn't even consider them. The Brother was too cumbersome so I excluded it too. So, based upon my personal, and time consuming, experiences, I chose the Siemens because it had better sound and, of all things, a mute button for the base. The range of the Siemens compared to the Panasonic may not be great and I had to replace the NiMH with Li batteries, but taken as a whole I liked the Siemens better.
If Panasonic had put a mute button on the base of this system, I would have kept it in spite of the sound differences. Funny how one litte feature made my decision.
33 of 34 people found the following review helpful.
Battery life weak and important feature missing...
By A Customer
Battery life rated at 8 hours talk time on Panasonic web site but believe me, it's closer to 2 hours. We've had to switch handsets in mid conversation more times than we should. Also, when talking on the phone, incoming calls are not put into voice mail automatically, they are ignored. Such an obvious feature overlooked (if it is possible, we can't find it explained anywhere in the manual). Also, when listening to messages, you can not save the message on the base unit, you have to transfer it to a handset/mailbox or lose it. Best feature is that you only need one phone jack for 8 handsets, you can put the handsets anywhere you want (near an electrical outlet). Handsets not very comfortable for long conversations. Overall, we wished we'd waited for shortcomings to be worked out. Lots of reasons to buy, these are some reasons to wait or look elsewhere.
63 of 70 people found the following review helpful.
critical flaws - no mute, only 1 handset / line, poor sound.
By Mark in Hoboken
I purchased the Panasonic KX-TG4000B as a replacement for my old Siemens Gigaset 2420. I'm really disappointed with the Panasonic KX-TG4000B, and I'm considering trashing it and returning to my old Siemens Gigaset 2420.
The Panasonic KX-TG4000B has some critical flaws:(1.) the sound quality is not great - just as BAD as the Siemens;(2.) there is NO mute - no mute on the speakerphone - and no mute on the cordless handsets;(3.) only one handset per line (I'll explain details later); and(4.) cordless handsets cannot be assigned "names" (like "kitchen" or "master bathroom") -- the handsets only have pre-assigned numbers.
The problem with the "one handset per line" is basically that you CANNOT join a conversation ... you get "line busy". For example, if the base unit has a call going on line #1, and you try to join that call from one of the cordless handsets, then you get a "line busy" error message and a busy signal. So, if someone else in the house in on the phone with Gramma, and asks you to "pick-up the phone", ... basically, ... YOU CAN'T. You try to join Line #1, and you get a busy signal. The only way to get another cordless handset to join the call is for the current caller to "conference" the an additional handset onto the call. And, that's difficult because you cannot assign a "name" to the handsets (like "kitchen" or "master bathroom") -- the handsets only have NUMBERS!
If preventing you from joining a call in progress is some kind of "security" feature (e.g., might be appropriate for an office setting), then they ought to have some kind of configuration option that will let you turn it OFF (especially in a home setting).
A minor annoying aesthetic is the base station number keypad that you use to dial the phone -- the number buttons are BIG and GOOFY looking, not professional, not backlit. The cordless handsets have nice transparent number buttons with a backlight. Panasonic should have used the same number keypad on the base unit.
The inability to join a conversation (because you get a busy signal when trying to join a line with a call in progress), combined with the lack of a MUTE capability (neither on the base unit nor the cordless handsets), the inability to assign names to handsets, and the poor sound quality make this a disappointing phone with a very large price tag.
So, my question for other shoppers is: If the Siemens Gigaset and Panasonic KX-TG4000B both have problems / drawbacks / feature flaws, ... then, ... what's the answer --> What is the best cordless, multi-line, multi-handset telephone system? Which frequency gives better voice sound quality: 900MHz or 2.4GHz? Or, are they the same? Does FHSS (Frequency-Hopping Digital Spread Spectrum) provide better voice sound quality? What's the best?
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