Table of Content
- The Best Home-Office Setup Under $1,000
- BT Everyday Cordless Home Phone: The best cordless phone under £20
- New!Panasonic - KX-TGD890S DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Phone System with Bluetooth Pairing for Wireless Headphones - Silver
- VTech IS8151-5 Super Long Range Cordless Phone
- Best All-in-One Desktop Computers for Every Budget
(Pocket-lint) - As smartphones have become more and more ubiquitous, younger generations have increasingly seen no reason to still use landline phones in their own homes. Call quality is excellent, the 1.5in colour LCD screen looks good and even the speakerphone doesn’t sound bad. This is a superb phone for anyone who values their privacy – or who just likes having access to the latest features. Its trueCall virtual assistant asks unknown callers for their name before it puts them through, leaving you to decide whether to accept the call, block it or send it to the answering machine. Specific numbers can be blocked permanently, and you can set the phone to ignore anonymous or international calls. Meanwhile, built-in parental controls let you block outgoing calls to mobile, international and premium-rate numbers.
This means you’ll never forget whose number is whose, and you’ll be able to dial your closest friends and family with ease. The VTech VS112, the Panasonic KX-TGF382M, and the AT&T EL51203 all received above-average results in our range test. These three all reached the maximum distance in the unobstructed test, but their effective range dropped quite a bit in the obstructed test, with the audio cutting out feet closer to the base than the top products.
The Best Home-Office Setup Under $1,000
UNSURPASSED RANGE & ANSWERING SYSTEM Experience the best in long-range coverage and clarity, provided by a unique antenna design and advances in noise-filtering technology. BT’s Everyday Cordless is priced like a basic home phone but manages to pack in some extra features. It’s easy to use, with good-sized buttons and simple menus, including a multi-function rocker that scrolls through lists and options and controls the volume. Call quality is good, although the default ring volume will be too quiet for some, and the only real issue is the lack of speakerphone.
That’s why we’ve put together this ultimate guide to help you make a decision. We’ll go over the different features and what to look for when you’re shopping. Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with over-the-top testing to save people time, energy and money when making buying decisions. Whether it's finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we'll help you get it right . Panasonic says that the KX-TGM420W can reach up to 40 dB and that the ringer can go up to 100 dB.
BT Everyday Cordless Home Phone: The best cordless phone under £20
It has decent volume and is fairly easy to answer calls or call back a missed one, about the same as the AT&T CL82207. Unfortunately, it can be a little more challenging to navigate the menus on the Panasonic KX-TGE432 since it has so many features to sort through, and it lacks a quiet or Do Not Disturb mode like the CL82207. The AT&T CL82207, the VTech VS112, and the Panasonic KX-TGE432 all followed.
However, one interesting thing that we noticed about this phone is that it only seems to do well at the furthest extents of its range if you were standing still. The call quality would plummet the moment we started moving but then resume whenever we stopped. We performed specific tests with each phone, while also using each model daily around the office for real-world comparisons.
New!Panasonic - KX-TGD890S DECT 6.0 Expandable Cordless Phone System with Bluetooth Pairing for Wireless Headphones - Silver
Even if you don't plan on using that feature, it still is a great option based solely on its performance in other areas. After carefully considering over 70 models, we bought the 13 best cordless phones available today and comprehensively tested them side-by-side in our quest to find the best phone of them all. Hours are spent evaluating each model, and we use a rigorous set of performance metrics to ensure we provide you with an accurate look at each of their performances.
You can make sure no one runs up the bills by putting a blanket ban on certain types of calls. You could block all 0800 numbers from being sent and received, for example, or block all international numbers. Those looking for a solid phone to sit in their kitchen will find it simple enough, and those who want something a little more elaborate will find plenty to dig into. Nobody likes nuisance calls, and often there's nothing you can do about them.
VTech IS8151-5 Super Long Range Cordless Phone
In the end, she found it was more effective to just ask the person she was conversing with to step out of the noisy environment. The “boost” button was also something of a bust, but that was true for all three phones we tested. “It successfully achieved a loudness boost,” Devlin said, “but it altered the tone and was awkward to readjust while on a call.” Instead, she recommends manually adjusting the volume and tone to suit your needs. Once we had the phones in hand, we installed an Ooma Telo VoIP system—one of the more popular brands of boxes that turn your internet connection into a phone line—and began testing.
“It is a narrow, reedy sound, but it’s easy to understand the words.” In evaluating the four phone messages she listened to, Lauren still ranked this phone’s voice quality the lowest. But again, it’s not shocking that a $15 phone performed worse than handsets that cost several times more. Having verified that all three phones had good-enough voice quality, we simply navigated around each phone and played with its respective features to see how well they were implemented.
Robocalls on your landline are automatically blocked from ever ringing through - even the first time. You can also permanently blacklist any number you want with one touch on the delicated key on the handset. The call block directory can store up to 1,000 name and number entries.
Plus, landlines and their handsets cost significantly less than their cell phone equivalents. While smartphone plans can cost up to $50 or more per month, landlines typically cost a fraction of that. Cordless phones are great for use around the house without being tied to a single place. If you have a landline, a cordless phone is a real convenience that is easily taken for granted. You can leave your smartphone in a place that gets a good signal and still take calls. On top of that there’s a useful Do Not Disturb mode that only allows calls from your nearest and dearest – or maybe crucial work calls – through.
The CL82207 is very easy to read, but the speed dial function is harder to use, and calling back a missed number is less intuitive than it is on some of its rivals. The ringer is also a bit quiet on the AT&T CL82207, but it has a very bright display, making it easy to use in a dark room. The AT&T TL96273 received top marks in this metric for its stellar performance. This cordless phone maxed out in the unobstructed test, delivering clear sound with well over 840 feet separating the base from the phone. It also was able to transmit understandable conversation from 300 feet with multiple walls between the phone and main station.
This phone has every feature you could want, as well as the longest range of any model we tested. Mobile phones have replaced landlines over the past decade, and the trend continues, with more Americans living in mobile-only households each year. The VTech VS112-2 phone system can only be expanded to 5 handsets, which might not suffice for an office. All the phones we tested thoroughly impressed us with their unobstructed range, which we would guess would be more than enough for just about any application. These second-tier phones all do a good job of keeping conversation sounding fairly close to face-to-face conversations but just a bit worse than the top-tier models. One thing we appreciate about all of these phones is the limited to nonexistent background buzzing or hissing.
This feature is particularly handy if you don't like carrying your cell phone with you or if you only get good cell service in a certain area of your home. Unfortunately, this impressive performance comes at a price, and this phone has one of the higher price tags in the group. It also isn't capable of linking to a smartphone via Bluetooth, so you will need to consider an alternative model if that is your preferred use. All in all, we highly recommend this product to anyone looking for a top-tier cordless phone; it's one of the all-time favorite models we have tested to date. We touched on this a little earlier, but we have a full explainer of the technology as well.
Digital Answering System with voice guide - With up to 22 minutes of recording time. Talking prompts walk you through the setup of your new phone's digital answering system. A. Historically, cordless phones have been a bit useless for those who wear a hearing aid — hearing aids can be affected by interference from cordless phones, causing feedback and background noise. These use inductive couplers that give a clearer sound by working with your hearing aid directly. In the past, many people had issues with interference on their cordless phones.
