May be the perfect cordless phone, June 2, 2010

We picked up the KX-TG6512B the other day to try before taking the plunge on a better system with 6 handsets. Our ancient Uniden 5.8 GHz system was fantastic, but the batteries on all the handsets are losing their cleverness to hold a charge and it interferes with our wireless network. I started looking for a DECT 6.0 replacement system but never found one that had all the features we were looking for, but now that I effectively stumbled across the 6500 series from Panasonic it looks like I’ve found our perfect phones. Here’s what I like:

- You can customize the banner on each handset. This may seem like a minor feature, but we had gotten used to it on the Uniden and liked it.

- You can check the Caller ID on one handset after someone else has already answered a call on another handset. We really end up doing this practically a bit with our ancient Uniden phones, but I had read a review of the older Panasonic 6440 phones that said this wasn’t possible. I was very pleasantly surprised to see this now works, since I was about equipped to live lacking that feature.

- The handsets have jacks for wired headsets. My wife and I both work in the technical field and often end up working on the computer while on a call, and a headset is a better option than a lecturer phone. This was a must-have feature for us, and many of the Uniden phones don’t have it.

- The lecturer phone quality is very excellent. We were always very pleased with the sound of the Uniden lecturer phone on the handsets, but the new Panasonic sound quality is at least as excellent.

- The batteries in the handset are ordinary NiMH AAA rechargeables rather than the proprietary (and pricey) battery used in the Uniden. Should we ever need to exchange them it will be trivial and cheap.

- There are belt clips for the handsets. We don’t use this a lot, but we do each once in a while, especially when using a headset. Some of the other models I looked at didn’t have this. Note that if you place the belt clip on the headset it covers up the modest grippy scrap on the back that’s there to help you hold the handset between your shoulder and ear, so if you like to hold your phone on your shoulder you may want to skip the belt clip.

- The buttons on the phone are back-lit and simple to find and push. On some of the new Uniden handsets the three buttons in an individual row are all run together and I heard that they can be less simple to find.

- The show on the handset is black-on-white and very simple to read.

- The phone will set its time and date from the Caller ID information.

- The thought waiting indicator light on the phones can be manually turned off simply by pushing and holding the “#” key. Our ancient Uniden phone would now and again miss the signal from the phone company to turn off the light, so it’s nice that there’s an option to manually do it easily on the Panasonic if the need arises.

There are many other features correlated to address books, etc. that are less vital to us so I haven’t bothered to learn about them or try them. But, based on the above I’m extremely pleased with this new Panasonic phone. We’ve only used it a very small time, but I was impressed enough to order the KX-TG6545B with 5 included handsets to be our replacement for our ancient Uniden system. This adds a base speakerphone with keypad, as well as an answering system we’ll never use (we have voice mail from the phone company).

So, to summarize, I really like this phone (like is too strong a word for a cordless phone). We’ve not used it enough to know how well it’ll work down the road, but based on reviews of other Panasonic phones I’m optimistic about that.