Not quite perfect, but it's the best cordless I've owned!

After reading all of the other reviews, it's hard to understand why this phone got such poor ratings. I can't be the only one out there who thinks highly of this phone. Maybe only the owners of defective units wrote in. Maybe signal quality varies depending on other RF interference in your specific house/area.

My other guess as to why people are saying that the audio is bad, sounds tinny etc. is that they must have the (VE)Voice Enhancer feature turned on. It is easy to accidentally have this feature turned on. The button that activates it is on one of the "soft keys" assigned by the display. The same button you use to select line 2. It only appears as a feature button once you are talking. If you activate it, it will remain activated on future calls unless you turn it off. VE is essentially a type of audio signal filter/processor.

I used to use a similar type of filtering on my ham radio receiver. It is called a "notch filter". It gave me the ability to hear or pick out a single voice from what initially seemed like static. It "notches out" all but a few audible frequencies. I think the VE feature on this phone works similarly.

Again, every filter has it's purpose. So use VE as needed only.

Then why have this feature on the phone?

The "Voice Enhancer feature" (VE) enhances the voice but is only best for someone who is literally hard of hearing. It makes the receive sound tinny and to the normal hearing person, not quite clear. But for someone who is hard of hearing or the connection is not quite right, it makes the call intelligable. I never use it, but it does have it's purpose. 1st,Panasonic shouldn't have called it the "Voice Enhancer" feature. It "enhances" the voice only in certain conditions or for certain people with certain hearing problems. The term "enhancer" makes most people think that "enhanced" must be better than the default. Far from the truth, unless you truly need the "enhanced" sound for specific purposes.

For the majority, it makes things sound bad. Just make sure this feature is OFF!! Otherwise, you are not using the phone in "normal mode". This feature should have been buried in the menu for feature programming or on another button.

With that said, I'm 3 for 3 with this phone. One at my house and one I set up at a friends house and the 3rd in a small business.

I have owned many cordless phones ever since the 1st 46/49 Mhz phones came to market. I've owned Vtec's, Uniden's etc.
After hours of research, I bought this 2 line Panasonic. I've had it for about one year now, so I can give you a review based upon a good period of time owning it.

Here's the very basic reason why I selected this model:

1- Two lines

2- Expandable

3- 5.8 gig frequency so it doesn't interfere with 2.4 gig device in my home.


Here's why it's the best cordless I've ever owned.


1- I could test it out for awhile before adding/investing in additional handsets.

2- It fits in your hand like a normal phone. Many of the new cordless phones are getting so high tech looking and sleek that they are either hard or uncomfortable to hold. The Panasonic handset is the most comfortable on the market. Ever try cradling a cell phone or too small cordless between you neck and shoulder for a moment while you pick something up from the floor? Not easy, unless of course it's this phone.

3- The part of the phone that touches your ear is designed properly. Many of they newer competitors phones are convex(i.e Motorola) at the earpiece instead of concave. Convex design can make the phone uncomfortable on your ear. Panasonic...Perfect!!

4- Big LCD display. No need to squint to see this one.

5- Normal sized and properly spaced keypad buttons that are raised. You won't make an accidental dialing mistake with this phone and you won't feel like you need a pen to dial it.

6- You can set the volume of the phone to retain the setting you like. On many of the competitions phones, you may have to adjust the vol. to where you like it, every time you pick it up.

7- Great, very CLEAR sounding speakerphone built into each handset. Very useful when holding for i.e. a customer service dept.

8- Natural sounding on receive side. Good volume and sound reported by people I'm talking to. (Many competitors phones I've tried have low receive and/or transmit volume). On this one, no one has ever asked me, "Are you on the cordless"?

9- Very rare that I ever get a broken or choppy signal. It's solid. It even works 100% around my yard/outside.

10 -Good battery life/runtime.

11- Loaded with features. Like the fact that if something went wrong or one phone broke, my directory is still in other handset I have if I selected to download them initially to other phones.

12- Durable!! We have dropped this phone from about 3 feet a couple of times and it has not broken.


What needs improvement:

1- Missed call indication is almost useless. To clear it you MUST scroll through Caller ID past the missed call to clear it. Not a big deal...just useless.

2- (On the built in Voicemail)I can't save messages "as new" once I've listened to them. Problem if my wife is not home; then I see the message light blinking, I press it to listen to message. Of course the message turns out to be for my wife. But, now that I've listened to it, the message lamp is extinguished... Wife returns and has no idea there is a message for her. I have to leave her a note telling her to manually listen to "saved messages".

The other flaw is the quality of the playback of messages.
Not as good as it should be. Slightly muffled sounding.
This flaw has nothing to do with the quality of the conversation, my end or called parties end. I find that 99% of the callers I am speaking to are 100% clear and that's the BEST thing about this phone.

3- No built in battery backup. This was one feature I liked in some of the older VTEC phones. In a power failure, the battery backup let you continue to use your cordless phones. I don't think Panasonic or any other manufac. has a cordless 2 line with Battery backup (Built-in). Update: I did just find out that Panasonic sells an external Battery backup unit if you require it (optional).

So if you are looking for a great cordless 2 line... This is the one!! Almost perfect, but a definite against the competition. If the not so perfect sound of the answering machine bothers you, then you may need to look further.

I gave it a four star rating based upon comparison to other 2 line phones available. If I was to rate it based upon everything I believe should be in a cordless, I would have given it a 3 star rating. For me, it's the best I could find in the current market.

So, if you need a 2 line cordless now, this is about as good as it gets (today).

Update 2/2/2007 One feature I neglected to mention in my review previously is that you can listen/playback your messages right through any handset. Very convenient and sounds much better than when you playback messages at the base. I have really grown to like this feature since I don't have to run downstairs to listen to messages. I hope they retain this feature in any new models they develop!

3/24/2007 Had a friend buy this unit and he was complaining about choppy audio. I have never experienced it with my units. Was just over his house and I see he has the antennas on the base tilted to almost a horizontal position. I put them vertical and ask him to test the phone. Immediately, he wants to know what I did because he says it now sounds great. Just another good piece of advice for everyone out there.

10/12/07 Still can't understand all of those bad reviews. I now have 4 handsets on my unit and everything is working perfect. The only thing I've done is change the batteries after a couple of years. So, I can now say that not only is this Panasonic good, but it has also held up over the long run.

10/26/2008 All of the phones still work perfectly except for one of them. On that phone, the button for line 2 no longer worked. I was able to fix it myself. I opened the phone, and cleaned the contact on the circuit board with a q-tip and alcohol. Now that phone works and I continue to use all 4 since 2006. (note: I have purchaed new batteries after a couple of years for all of the phones).