I've been in the market for a Bluetooth-enabled home phone for the past 10 months, but every review of such products has been more or less negative. I first caught a glimpse of this new phone at the the Engadget website [...] earlier in the year. After finding it at a local Fry's I purchased one with 3 extra handsets from Amazon. Here are my impressions after 3 days of use:
Things I Like:
1. Full soft-touch surface. No buttons, very nice styling. A key-lock activates after 10 seconds.
2. Speaker phone is loud and clear. Call quality is likewise loud and clear, but have to turn up the volume for cellular calls.
3. Separate buttons to make home and cellular phone calls.
4. Ability to join home and cellular calls into a 3-way conference.
5. Ability to make one home and one cellular call at the same time.
6. Different ringtones for incoming home and cellular calls allows you to differentiate between them immediately.
7. Automatic synchronization of the address book. You can add/edit the phone book entries on any handset (or base) and all handsets are synchronized immediately.
8. DECT 6.0 for minimal interference and good privacy.
9. Digital answering machine with all the requisite features (including access from another phone).
10. Price. I was expecting the base unit to cost at least $100. Extra handsets are only $39.95 at Amazon.
Features I Wish For:
1. Automatic download of phone book from cellular phones.
2. USB interface to synchronize phone book with PC/Mac.
3. Wall mount for the handset.
4. Ability to name each handset like "Kitchen", "Master Bedroom", "Garage", "Kid's Room", etc. Handsets are automatically named "Handset 1", "Handset 2", etc.
5. Night mode with ability to silence a subset of the handsets and lower the volume on others.
I still gave it 5 stars because of auto-synchronization and a feature set that is practical without being saddled by too many features (and complexity). V-Tech LS6245 DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Phone with Caller ID, Answering Device, and Bluetooth Capability (Black with Silver Trim)
This is the best Vtech made so far. I have owned other Vtech phones but this one performs better then any other cordless phone I have owned. Far superior to Panasonic and other brands. Sound quality is very good, style is great and the features are very easy to use and technically advanced. I like the fact that I can program one handset with all my phone numbers in the directory and it automatically transfers the directory to all my other handsets. The blue tooth feature works! Now I can answer my cell phone thru this phone system. My house is 2 stories and the range of the handsets reaches every room with no static or interference. Only feature I wish Vtech had on this phone is the warning light they had on some of their earlier models that lets you know when you have a voice mail message waiting. Voice mail messages show up in the lcd display. I just ordered additional handsets for my house since we like this system so much
Feature wise, this is a nice phone. As a phone, it seems to work well. The bluetooth paring with my iPhone also worked well. It would occasionally not reconnect on its own, but it usually did and the range for bluetooth was quite good.
A few days in though, the handset that came with the base died. Well, this happens sometimes. I replaced the base and the handset it came with. That part was fairly easy. Now, I suspect most folks looking at this are like me and won't be using this with just the one handset it comes with. That's where the fun really comes in. Once a handset is paired to the base, the id of the base is flashed into the handset and can not be changed unless you are using the original base. So, you can't replace the base and expect your additional handsets to keep working. Per Vtech, this is the way it was designed and they don't see an issue with it. If the base is in warranty, they will supposedly replace the handsets along with the base. That's a bit of a hassle. Of course, if it's out of warranty, you can't just go grab a new one and expect it to work with your up to $550 in accessory handsets (11 additional are supported).
So the net for me was that the 6245 and all of the 6204 handsets go back. This isn't really ready for consumers to use.
I purchased the Vtech base station and two remote phones for a family Christmas gift 2009. The features are outstanding. Programming is very intuitive once you actually read the quick start information and the "cool" factor is very high. The touch sensitive panel takes a bit of getting used to, but, having come from mechanical buttons, it was not that difficult. Battery life is also excellent under normal usage (including some speakerphone use) at about 2.5 days.
Now the fun stuff; I really enjoy putting my cell phone away when I get home and having the ability to make cell or land line calls from any Vtech phone (or base station) in the house. Same goes for answering incoming cell or landline calls. The caller ID distiguishes between incoming cell phone or land line calls which is nice if you want to screen unwanted calls. Additionally, we paired 2 cell phones (you can do up to four) to the system so it is just that much better than the closest competitors who can only program two Bluetooth devices (at least from those that I could find and research). The pairing is also quite easy and the range is good.
The speaker phone feature and overall sound quality is the best I've had in a wireless phone so far. The lock feature is handy in preventing erroneous entries. Essentially, the keyboard is locked until you hit the unlock key (very simple and easy one touch) which prevents you from mistakenly activating any button on the phone just by picking it up. Programming new contacts is easy. Capturing them from incoming calls is even easier.
I don't use the answering device in the base because I have Vonage voice mail, but the programming, again, looks very simple.
Probably the only criticism I would offer is that there is not a headset jack on the phone itself. You can pair Bluetooth headsets to the system (which work with all phones and the base station), but if you do that you occupy one of the four Bluetooth pairing slots. This is not a huge issue for me as I can use a headset on my cell phone or another one of my landline phones if necessary for that occaisional long duration call. - Bluetooth Phone - Bluetooth - Dect Cordless Phone - Cordless Phones'
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