Plantronics CT12 Wireless Phone Durable and Perfect for Telecommuting

I have had my Plantronics CT12 wireless headset phone in service for nearly 5 years of frequent use with no significant problems. This is a durable and very comfortable headset phone that cuts out background noise as well as any headset I have ever used. While this is not a wireless phone in the sense that there are no wires at all, you are wireless from the base charger unit but there is a wire that runs from the small portable battery powered dialing pack to your headset.

The firefly headset is the best feature of this phone; it is a unique and excellent design, with a flashing red light at the end of the microphone boom to let people know when you are on a live call. Best of all, this phone is still available on the market at a reasonable price. Back in 2003, I paid $109 (list $129) but now it is regularly found for $90 to $99. The design is unchanged, which I believe reflects how great a design it is.

The Plantronics CT12 frees your hands while you carry on clearly audible conversation for hours at a time. A convertible headset provides options for over-the-ear or over-the-head styling; either way, the firefly light at the end of the microphone signals that you're in conversation. The charging base is about the size of a computer speaker. The portable keypad is just shy of one-inch think and about the size of a credit card. This makes dialing and programming the phone particularly convenient since the entire unit cradles nicely in the palm of the hand. The small portable keypad unit clips to your belt or waist of your pants, allowing you to move around with total freedom. Shirt and jacket pockets also work very well for carrying the portable pack. The button design on the portable pack is such that you will rarely or even never worry about buttons being pushed as you walk around; buttons are designed to be rather flush, and require a direct push to be triggered; that is a great feature, it would be very frustrating if buttons went off with little pressure.

We live in 2-story home with basement. I have never had even the slightest loss of signal on any floor, and I have walked at least 50-feet from the home without a loss of signal which leads me to give the phone a 75-foot range with no risk of signal loss. The phone manufacturer claims a range over 100-feet, but I’ve just never have had a need to go that far. There is no warning of signal loss feature, so if you test the phone to its limits, you will eventually gage the range for your environment. There is a battery low warning beep, but that is only a few minutes of warning.

The five years of service have been excellent. I have had the phone in use for nearly constant use at times; there were periods of about six months where I was putting in 10 hours a day on this phone, letting it charge at mid-day, and never had a complaint from the other end about hearing me, and I could always hear the conference calls and callers very well. Call quality has always been very pleasing and accurate. Simply no static what-so-ever. The only interference I have ever had is if I put my cell phone near the portable dialing unit.

I am still on the original battery, which is outstanding battery life. Originally battery life ran about 4 hours, now it’s down to about 2, but still excellent for a 5 year old battery. While there is no battery level meter, it seems to fully charge in about one hour.

There are few drawbacks to this phone, but they are important to mention early on – watching for snags and headset wire life. While the portable pack has a very good clip on it that holds onto belts and waist lines very well, you need to be sure you have secured the phone to your clothes and do not snag the wire as you walk around. The portable pack can be bumped off, or the cord can snag; both cause the headset wire to pull out from the pack (which is better than tearing the wire) but you lose you audio.

The second drawback is related to the first – the wire from the portable pack to the headset is very fine and thus it can wear out. I began getting audio crackles and a loss of audio after 4 years and replaced the headset with a new Plantronics of a similar design. This cost me $20 on sale, but has been well worth it, returning the unit to full performance; unfortunately, I have not found the firefly headset for sale on the shelf, but probably it can be obtained directly from Plantronics.

The dialing unit includes a back-lit LCD screen, 100-station caller ID memory, and 10-number speed dial. The phone uses a single-line 2.4GHz Digital Spread Spectrum specification. The dialing unit has volume along the top, right where it should be, and mute along the right side, also easy to find. There is a 22-button handset, including nine alphanumeric keys, talk/flash button, end four directional buttons for speed dialing and phone book entry, four menu and function control buttons including the redial key, and the star (*) and pound (#) keys. Buttons are a bit small, but I have large hands and have never had a problem because the keys have a solid touch feel; you can feel your finger over them and they give a slight click when pushed correctly. The Plantronics CT12 is really easy to use straight out of the box. Functions are easy to understand, and I’ve actually never had to use the detailed owners manual provided. Even the slim, unobtrusive base is appealing. As for features, the CT12's are fairly standard. You get 10-number speed dialing, a 100-name phone book, support for caller ID and call waiting, and 10 ring tones. There's no answering machine, which could be a deal breaker for some but of course, this is a compact phone; adding other features would be counter-intuitive. Since the CT12 is designed for hands-free convenience via the included headset, there's no speakerphone, either.