General Electric 28112 1.8 GHz Twin 1-Line Cordless Phone

Yesterday I bought this (brand new, latest-and-greatest design!) to replace an aging, bordering-on-ancient (but still very usable) 2.4 ghz Siemens Gigaset, mainly because the Siemens doesn't have a headphone jack which my wife has decided she needs. And I'm returning the GE/Thomson ASAP - what a disappointment. Silly me; I didn't read the other Epinions reviews before I bought! Lesson learned.

Capabilities I was looking for/needed (note: this is not a complete list of the GE's features):
1. Headphone jack
2. Base 2 remote handsets minimum.
3. Intercom.
4. No interference from microwave or wireless network.
5. Phonebook.
6. Answering machine.

Strikes against the New Super Deluxe Wowie GE (as compared to our stone-knives-and-bearskins Siemens):
1. 15 char limit on phone book entries.
2. No lowercase chars, only a couple punctuation chars on phonebook names.
3. Can't transfer/copy phonebook entries between units (turns out this is a REALLY BIG DEAL!)
4. Can't search phonebook by letter.
5. Limited ringer volume control (Hi, Lo, Off. Siemens has 6 levels).
7. Can't program handset ringer volume based on time of day (low volume at night).
8. Display is not very readable.
9. No voice dial or annunciate.
10. Ring tones (even the "musical" ones) are obnoxious and irritating. The first comment my wife made as I cycled through the tones was "That's terrible! Can you turn it down?".
11. Background noise during calls?

The absolutely vital missing feature on the GE/Thomson is the ability to xfer phonebook entries between handsets. It wasn't on the box at the store, but I figured that it was so obvious and common there was no need to list it. Ha! Can you imagine programming 25 or 30 entries into a handset, then having to repeat all that work for the next handset, and the next, and the next... No way. For Thomson to leave out this feature is a real "you've got to be kidding me!".

The lack of lowercase and punctuation chars is disappointing, but YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED HOW MUCH LESS READABLE THE GE IS WITH ALL UPPERCASE. The fact that the display (when lit) is dark blue on light blue just contributes to the inferior readability.

The lack of control over the ringer volume, combined with the penetrating, headache-inducing tones is just another nail in the coffin.

For the GE, the term "memo" used to designate both "voice memos" and "phonebook memory" - very confusing.

There was some background noise during our test calls, but since we were calling to/from a Cingular cell phone, it could have been Cingular, but it's something we never noticed with the Siemens.