Interesting Features... but it falls short

On the surface, this phone has more features than anything on the market. I purchased the system and an extra handset and kept it for a week before returning them to Radio Shack. I took proper care in initial charging of the batteries and was shocked to see how short the life was before needing to be charged again. Even with moderate use, the handsets needed to be returned to the cradle to be recharged in a day or less! The screens that allow for display of custom images are a nice idea, but the color pallet they use, which claims to be 256 colors, looks more like 16 colors on most images and the quality is poor.
Having said these two things that were disappointing, let me say that there were also things that I did like. The base speakerphone was very nice. The fact and extra set of NiMH batteries could be purchased to put in the base to charge (which never ever seemed to stop showing the animation for charging) is nice in not only you have another set ready to go when the short battery life of the phone is up, but remarkably, the base is said to function in a power failure so that you may still be able to make a call. Well done! I also like the fact that you can record your own ringers and the default ringers the phone comes with has a Jazz clip and others that do not sound like cheesy Casio tones. Nicely done. Radio Shack had also not advertised this, but when I took the phone base kit and an additional headset to the register, there was a $50 instant rebate on them that came up on the register. I guess that I have to say that even though the price was a bargain, I still could not get past the poor battery life. My 8 year old Uniden 900 Mhz phone would run for a week off the base. I already charge my cell phone and PDA every night. I do not need one more thing to charge (times whatever number of handsets you get for it) to also charge each night. Beyond that, the handset itself was bulky to hold. Not terrible, and I certainly was able to hold the demo model before going with it. Bottom line, If they can make the battery life last MUCH longer, improve the quality of the display screen, and perhaps make it smaller, I would consider revisiting this after a couple more product generations. A lot of cool modern cell phone like features and just a poor implementation. I ended up going to Office Max and buying a Uniden 5.8 Ghz multi-handset setup. This is model TRU8885 base and extra handsets. Integrated answering system you can check from the handsets and the battery life so far has been 2 days and is still showing all the possible bars on the display. Sound quality is GREAT! No recordable ringers, or custom pictures on screen, just a great system with many nice features. Check it out! Thanks