Sitting on my Desk at work is my old
900 MHz phones. I replaced it at home with a brand new 2.4 GHz phone, when the battery was starting to go on the old phone. After rebate a new phone was only a few bucks more than a new battery.
This was a bad purchase. 2.4 GHz phones are bad technology. They don't work when microwaves are running, and who doesn't want to talk on the phone when waiting for meat to defrost?
It also didn't travel as far as my old 900 MHz phone did. See the higher frequency traveler further in open fields, but I live in an apartment so the open field test doesn't work so well. My walls are solid brick, and I need a drill to put up paintings, and sadly the 2.4 GHz wasn't able to penetrate my very sound proof walls.
So it was time to upgrade again, 900 MHz was out of the question no one sell them anymore, plus I live in the ghetto and there is lots of interference on that frequency.
5.8 GHz looked promising, no interference with household products, better distance (still doesn't like solid walls), but lets give it a try.
SHOPPING I went to Best Buy first, spent an hour looking at phones and decided on the Panasonic, it had
Digital Spread Spectrum technology . This means it doesn't stay on one "channel" but moves up and down randomly giving you the best at all times and making people listen in on your calls very difficult. I thought this would help with my WALLS. I was about to purchase the phone, when I decided the line was too long and I was upset about spending an hour and never having a single sales person offer to help me make my decision.
So I walked to Circuit City. At Circuit city I would a very helpful sales person that explained to me, I almost purchased an Expansion handset. It was so cheap because it wasn't complete unit but just an expansion unit. In a single bedroom apartment expansion handsets are not very practical.
Well, since I didn't want to spend $100 buck on a phone, Digital Spread Spectrum was out of the queens.
Then she told me about some open stock items, and I fell in love with the NWB phone, reason simple it had a LIGHT!
Black phones are STUPID! Lets be honest your apartment or house is dark, the phone is laying face down somewhere and it starts to ring. You start flailing your hands over the desk and only find the phone after you push it and yesterdays mail onto the floor. BLACK is a REALLY stupid color to make a phone.
The North West Bell phone is silver on the front and black on the back, but its' Antenna lights up RED when it rings or is in use!
That is correct this phone shows you where it is, it just doesn't BLEEP, it BLEEPS and BLINKS! What a country!
Distance Distance will vary based on topography, amount of interference, and strength of batteries but the distance is expectable it doesn't go as far as my old 900 MHz phone but it makes it to all my rooms in my one bedroom apartment and improvement over the 2.4 GHz phone that didn't work very well in my bathroom.
It also makes it to my mailbox and my backdoor and front door, important for letting in Pizza guys and UPS deliveries.
Features I do not have caller ID, so I was very happy not to pay for a phone that had caller ID built in. My last phone did have caller ID, but only allowed you to set SPEED DIAL based on CALL ID received numbers. STUPID design if you don't own caller ID you can use the speed dial.
This phone has a whopping 10 speed dial numbers.
It also had a headphone jack, I own a headphone for a phone but I can't find it, so I will not be able to talk much about this, except to say, its ROUND and you plug a headphone into it.
The base unit has a phone/modem jack, or my guess is most people will use it for answering machines.
Another nifty feature is an orange light on the unit that glows when it is in use. Red on the handset orange on the base, Pretty
MUTE, I like this button, in the past the phones required you to hold the mute button down, this unit you press once for on once again for off.
I live near railroad tracks so 10 times an evening my friends appreciate this feature.
OVERALL While this is not the best phone in the world, its also not $100 like some of the rival 5.8 GHz phones, so if the sound is less that Bose quality, I think I can live with it. And since most of my friends make me listen to them on their cell phones that worry more about adding features like ring tones and computer games and cheap a%s cameras then voice quality, well that can listen to me on my cheap phone also.
USER UPDATE Well, it came as a surprise, but when using my 5.8 GHz cordless phone and my 2.4 GHz wireless network, my wireless network cut out.
I found out that by putting my hand over the attena my network came back. Also putting the phone on the other side of my head saved my network. Honestly I did not expect my cordless phone to have any impact on my network and assumed for the longest time, my laptop was on the fritz.
