Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: carlson@gateway.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: My Wife & a cordless phone Message-ID: Date: 1 Jun 89 19:32:19 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: carlson@gateway.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson) Lines: 41 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 186, message 6 of 10 In article blake@pro-party.cts.com writes: >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 170, message 6 of 9 >With all the PhoneMate blasting going on I guess asking for digest readers >help in selecting a cordless phone is appropriate. >My wife has wanted a cordless phone for months now and I keep putting it off >because I never met a cordless phone I liked. I have "sorta" been looking for >one but havn't found one I loved. >The newer AT&T phones seem to sound the best assuming you pick a channel that >one of your neighbors is not using. There is a Sony that looks nice too (it >automaticly scans for the cleanest channel). >Any tips on what to look for? What to stay away from? Basicaly I'm not >overly worried about price, I just want one that sounds good. I bought an AT&T 5300 about 3 months ago and have been very pleased with it. The 5200 is very similar, but doesn't have the intercom feature and the 5310 adds a memory dialer and extra phone cradle to the 5300 features. At the local phone center I also saw a new 40xx series phone that has the looks (and supposedly the voice quality) of the 5xxx, but its cheaper. However, I can find the 5xxx models at a lot of stores and the new 40xx was only in the phone center, at straight list price. They also had the 5200 at a lease to buy price of about $20 a month for 6 months, but didn't offer several of the better models under the lease to buy program. My 5300 has very good voice quality and so far has been very durable. I dropped it twice on a ceramic tile floor and managed to break the antenna, but the shell and the electronics survived without any problems. The 5300 has a poor design for wall mounting because the line cord and AC cord end up on top and you have to route them down and around the phone base. The phone base needs its own wall mount (included) because it won't fit on a standard Bell wall mount (is this too much to expect?). The handset also doesn't catch very well in the cradle when wall mounted, which is why I have dropped mine twice while hanging it up. Based on quality I would buy another AT&T phone, but they could use a little more work on ergonomics and general design features. Bruce Carlson