..in his left ear.
I didn't mention anything about the audio qualities of this phone-a serious omission. I can say with assurance that the sound quality of the phone base as well as the cordless handset is very good. I torture-tested the handset (see the following paragraph) and I never heard any extraneous noise nor did it drop out. The volume boost and equalizer options are two very welcome features-background noise aggravates my occasional inability to distinguish one consonant sound from another.
Pros: Intuitive, easily navigable design. This is a phone you can find your way around on without spending hours with the manual before you can even so much as make a phone call. The display on the base unit as well as the handset is very clear & adequately illuminated. The base unit works without power from your local grid, an advantage here where it comes in on ancient, frail overhead lines that fail often in bad weather. Base handset is comfortable and well-balanced..like a good desktop phone should have. The talking Caller ID is surpisingly good-but it's far more useful for navigating the base and cordless handset's phone book-it "speaks" the name of the listings as you scroll through them. The range of the cordless handset is excellent-I've taken it to my neighbors and used it there when I watch their house..at that point the signal is traveling across 50ft of open space-and going through a fence, two stucco walls and three conventional gypsum board walls. Pretty impressive. The handset is slim & light but its other dimensions are larger than most cordless handsets you find today, which I appreciate. It's of a good size so you can tuck it between your head and shoulder without it falling out-those of you who are reluctant to give up your older phones because you don't want a cell phone-sized handset would do well to consider this model (or it's siblings) for that reason alone. Wall-mounting is built-in and it went up without a hitch.
Cons: Not too many. The amber backlighting is an easy-on-the-eyes amber color-much like Panasonic's keypads. It's not the usual "in your face" Uniden Orange :-)It's quite bright on the base unit but a bit dim on the handset-it's a small thing but it's worth mentioning. Some of the ring tones are terrifically loud-but then that's expected with the Loud and Clear line. I chose one of the lower frequencies and turned the ringer volume all the way down-it's quite easy to live with now. I also don't care much for using the side-mounted volume control to navigate the cordless handset menus-it works with small hands I'm sure but mine are large and when I attempt to make my way through the phonebook and such one-handed..the receiver drops into my palm and away from my fingers. Face-plate mounted buttons would be preferable, in my opinion. Another potential sore point is the use of a nickel-cadmium battery in the handset. I owned two of the Panasonic models that had major problems because of Ni-Cads. We'll see how it goes and I'll update this review if the battery gives trouble.
Back to the good points..the answering machine isn't remarkable, and by that I mean that it works as well as any I've used. Two nice features are the option to slow down playback of messages and also the automatic rejection of "empty" messages. The displays on both the handset and the base are very large and make use of good-sized (if slightly disproportionate) fonts. The styling is "out there", so to speak, but the boldness adds to the ease-of-use and so far it's received nothing but compliments from my friends and family. Everyone wants one <g>.
If you're looking for a combo phone you be hard-pressed to find a better unit than this Uniden. It has nearly every feature imaginable, and it's now available on Amazon at a competitive price, plus the usual Amazon amenities. You need this phone. Uniden Corded/Cordless Digital Answering System with Cordless Handset (CEZAi2998)
I agree with most of what "DTFFX" wrote in his 10/27/09 review, he was very thorough, and I can't comment on things like his distance claim or his battery concern for which I don't have any experience. This is a nice phone that has a lot of features, many features that can be turned on or off for that custom set-up. I turned off the speaking feature which I didn't care for.
One Con for me is the Talk Button. On the base unit, it turns the speakerphone on and off. On the handset it connects and disconnects the phone, but has a speaker button for the speakerphone on the handset. This is a little confusing for my 85 year old mother who uses the phone. I think the talk button on the base unit should simply be labeled speaker like the cordless handset. The base connects and disconnects by just picking up or hanging up the corded handset.
I am very pleased with this phone and would recommend it to anybody. I was looking for a corded base that operates during power failures, and this phone looked like the best in this price range. - Big Button Phone - Seniors - Hearing-impaire - Cordless Phone'
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