This review is from: Panasonic KX-TG8564EB DECT Phone (Electronics)
I only received the phone yesterday, but my first impressions are good. Compared to earlier Panasonic DECT phones, these handsets are surprisingly light and they are very comfortable to hold. The sound quality and the general build quality are also good.
Unlike many phones of this type, if you change something on one handset (such as the date/time), it is changed on all handsets. However, if you make a call from one handset, there is no record of the dialed number on other handsets, which is a bit frustrating if you want to redial but are using a different handset.
I have tried the caller blocking to reduce the PPI calls I have been receiving and the phone successfully blocked its first call today (you can see blocked calls in the caller list). It seems that you can only block 30 numbers, and you cannot block withheld numbers, but I think that the functionality will be sufficient for me.
I have also used the intercom feature, which allows you to talk to someone on another handset, and that seems to work fine too.
Still early days, and there are a lot of features that I haven’t used yet, but I am happy so far.
UPDATE: It is now September 6th and I have had the phone for a couple of months. I am still pleased with the phone although I have realised that the call blocking function is actually severely hampered by the fact that you can only block 30 numbers.
I managed to fill the block list up within a month, just with the PPI call numbers, so I now regularly get calls that I can’t block.
The blocking functionality works well, but the 30 number limit means that the implementation is quite severely flawed.
Still a good phone, but the call blocking feature was key for me, and now it is useless, so I am reducing my original 5 star rating down to 4 stars.
The only other niggle is that when calling a number for the phone book you have to, for no good reason, press the call button twice. Not a big deal, but a little frustrating.
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This review is from: Panasonic KX-TG8564EB DECT Phone (Electronics)
Very pleased with the purchase of these Panasonic phones. The sound quality is far superior to the BT phones they replace. They are light and not too big which makes holding then easy enough and have hands free speaker functionality if you don’t want to hold them!! The address book updating is easy and all handsets are synced to keep them up to date. A couple of features that I found useful which I did not realise they had was the speaking of the callers name if you have caller id on your line and the night time feature which you can set any of the hand sets not to ring at certain times during the night. Overall very happy, they look good, easy to use and sound great.
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This review is from: Panasonic KX-TG8564EB DECT Phone (Electronics)
These Panasonic KX-TG8564EB wireless domestic phones are presented in the style of a mobile, but being bigger are easier to hold more comfortably, and the display and the buttons are big enough to see and use easily. They are not too heavy, the sound is good, the range is excellent, and you can put in higher capacity AAA cells for even longer talk time.
This set of four was bought to replace our three ageing Binatone Big Buttons, and, apart from the buttons being smaller and more closely grouped than on the Binatones, in all other respects these Panasonics are a great improvement.
To get started. Just put in the batteries, drop the handset into the charger cradle, plug it into a mains socket, and after about seven hours it tells us that the phone is fully charged and stops charging. The base station also needs to be plugged into a standard BT style phone socket. While all four were docked and charging, on one I set the time and date, and entered a few useful numbers. All four then had these items.
The phones. The menu systems are enough like a standard mobile that most of the common features can be found without resorting to the manual. However, to find all the most useful tricks, and there are a surprisingly large number of them, it is essential to study the manual.
Calling data is stored in the base station, so for example one can enter a new number and its owner into the 250 slot database from one handset, and then all the handsets will have access to it. This also applies to most of the settings that might be shared across the quartet, so convenient. Some individual settings for specific handsets can still be differentiated if needed, such as a personalised phone list of 100 slots per handset. There are also many control options that can be applied to the entries as well.
The sound quality on these Panasonic is excellent when using the handset. But the speaker-phone is slightly less good, on a par with the Binatones, and not quite as good as my old PAYG mobile. However I’ve noticed we are both using the speaker-phone facility a lot, so it must be OK in practice!
Range is good, allowing us to use them in the garden or upstairs with most of the house between phone and the base station.
Batteries used are two each of the standard 500mAh NiMH AAA rechargeable cells, typically lasting for a day of talk or well over a week on standby. Only a couple of months earlier I had replaced the cells in one of the Binatones with 1000mAh NiMH AAA Energiser types, so these came out and went into the two new phones we use the most, giving us double the talk time from a charge.
The charging system is very good indeed; being intelligent it stops charging when the battery is full, yet will rapidly top up again after some use. This is important because it means the batteries are not being stressed by being cooked on overcharge – as the Binatones tended to do. With any luck, and being so well treated, the batteries should last almost as long as the phones.
The colour display is very good, with big letters and numbers making it very easy to read, and plenty of useful info shown. There are various options for customising it, but so far we have not felt any urgency in changing them from the default settings other than changing the wallpaper to try and help identify the different phones. We needed to search the manual to discover the custom codes to to make each handset display the ID 1,2,3 or 4, and a distinctive name, eg Kitchen.
The Intercom works well, and is easy to set up. We have chosen different ring-tones on each handset to help identify them to make better use of this facility.
Ring tones. These are definitely not my first choice! When I have some free time I will be investigating to see if it possible to put my own custom sounds into the phones – more on this later if I ever manage it, maybe at the same time as when I attempt to similarly customise the `wallpaper’ behind the displays.
One other less good point is that the docking cradles cannot be wall mounted or secured to a surface. They are far too easy to knock off a table or shelf. I think this is daft when considering that all they are is an adaptor to connect to the charger lead.
Summary There are a host of extra features in the phones and answer machine base, but fortunately one doesn’t need to even think about them to get started with using the system. You might never need them and could just use the handsets as simple basic phones. We’ve not made any big changes from the defaults.
Over the last few months these have proved to be very nice phones. They made me realise that I should have changed away from the old phones ages…
First impressions,
I only received the phone yesterday, but my first impressions are good. Compared to earlier Panasonic DECT phones, these handsets are surprisingly light and they are very comfortable to hold. The sound quality and the general build quality are also good.
Unlike many phones of this type, if you change something on one handset (such as the date/time), it is changed on all handsets. However, if you make a call from one handset, there is no record of the dialed number on other handsets, which is a bit frustrating if you want to redial but are using a different handset.
I have tried the caller blocking to reduce the PPI calls I have been receiving and the phone successfully blocked its first call today (you can see blocked calls in the caller list). It seems that you can only block 30 numbers, and you cannot block withheld numbers, but I think that the functionality will be sufficient for me.
I have also used the intercom feature, which allows you to talk to someone on another handset, and that seems to work fine too.
Still early days, and there are a lot of features that I haven’t used yet, but I am happy so far.
UPDATE: It is now September 6th and I have had the phone for a couple of months. I am still pleased with the phone although I have realised that the call blocking function is actually severely hampered by the fact that you can only block 30 numbers.
I managed to fill the block list up within a month, just with the PPI call numbers, so I now regularly get calls that I can’t block.
The blocking functionality works well, but the 30 number limit means that the implementation is quite severely flawed.
Still a good phone, but the call blocking feature was key for me, and now it is useless, so I am reducing my original 5 star rating down to 4 stars.
The only other niggle is that when calling a number for the phone book you have to, for no good reason, press the call button twice. Not a big deal, but a little frustrating.
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|Good quality phones with great features,
Very pleased with the purchase of these Panasonic phones. The sound quality is far superior to the BT phones they replace. They are light and not too big which makes holding then easy enough and have hands free speaker functionality if you don’t want to hold them!! The address book updating is easy and all handsets are synced to keep them up to date. A couple of features that I found useful which I did not realise they had was the speaking of the callers name if you have caller id on your line and the night time feature which you can set any of the hand sets not to ring at certain times during the night. Overall very happy, they look good, easy to use and sound great.
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|Excellent sound quality, good range, reasonably ergonomic.,
These Panasonic KX-TG8564EB wireless domestic phones are presented in the style of a mobile, but being bigger are easier to hold more comfortably, and the display and the buttons are big enough to see and use easily. They are not too heavy, the sound is good, the range is excellent, and you can put in higher capacity AAA cells for even longer talk time.
This set of four was bought to replace our three ageing Binatone Big Buttons, and, apart from the buttons being smaller and more closely grouped than on the Binatones, in all other respects these Panasonics are a great improvement.
To get started.
Just put in the batteries, drop the handset into the charger cradle, plug it into a mains socket, and after about seven hours it tells us that the phone is fully charged and stops charging. The base station also needs to be plugged into a standard BT style phone socket. While all four were docked and charging, on one I set the time and date, and entered a few useful numbers. All four then had these items.
The phones.
The menu systems are enough like a standard mobile that most of the common features can be found without resorting to the manual. However, to find all the most useful tricks, and there are a surprisingly large number of them, it is essential to study the manual.
Calling data is stored in the base station, so for example one can enter a new number and its owner into the 250 slot database from one handset, and then all the handsets will have access to it. This also applies to most of the settings that might be shared across the quartet, so convenient. Some individual settings for specific handsets can still be differentiated if needed, such as a personalised phone list of 100 slots per handset. There are also many control options that can be applied to the entries as well.
The sound quality on these Panasonic is excellent when using the handset. But the speaker-phone is slightly less good, on a par with the Binatones, and not quite as good as my old PAYG mobile. However I’ve noticed we are both using the speaker-phone facility a lot, so it must be OK in practice!
Range is good, allowing us to use them in the garden or upstairs with most of the house between phone and the base station.
Batteries used are two each of the standard 500mAh NiMH AAA rechargeable cells, typically lasting for a day of talk or well over a week on standby. Only a couple of months earlier I had replaced the cells in one of the Binatones with 1000mAh NiMH AAA Energiser types, so these came out and went into the two new phones we use the most, giving us double the talk time from a charge.
The charging system is very good indeed; being intelligent it stops charging when the battery is full, yet will rapidly top up again after some use. This is important because it means the batteries are not being stressed by being cooked on overcharge – as the Binatones tended to do. With any luck, and being so well treated, the batteries should last almost as long as the phones.
The colour display is very good, with big letters and numbers making it very easy to read, and plenty of useful info shown. There are various options for customising it, but so far we have not felt any urgency in changing them from the default settings other than changing the wallpaper to try and help identify the different phones. We needed to search the manual to discover the custom codes to to make each handset display the ID 1,2,3 or 4, and a distinctive name, eg Kitchen.
The Intercom works well, and is easy to set up. We have chosen different ring-tones on each handset to help identify them to make better use of this facility.
Ring tones. These are definitely not my first choice! When I have some free time I will be investigating to see if it possible to put my own custom sounds into the phones – more on this later if I ever manage it, maybe at the same time as when I attempt to similarly customise the `wallpaper’ behind the displays.
One other less good point is that the docking cradles cannot be wall mounted or secured to a surface. They are far too easy to knock off a table or shelf. I think this is daft when considering that all they are is an adaptor to connect to the charger lead.
Summary
There are a host of extra features in the phones and answer machine base, but fortunately one doesn’t need to even think about them to get started with using the system. You might never need them and could just use the handsets as simple basic phones. We’ve not made any big changes from the defaults.
Over the last few months these have proved to be very nice phones. They made me realise that I should have changed away from the old phones ages…
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