Cordless Phones Buying Guide

Cordless phones have enabled people to throw off the restrictions of a landline connection and move freely around their house whilst chatting to friends and family members, catching up or sorting out their most important business of the day. Cordless phones are so popular that there is an incredibly wide selection of devices on the market, each offering a different incentive for you to pick up your payment card.

Cordless phones fall into two categories in the modern market. The first kind are based on older analogue technology, which generally means that you will not have to spend as much, but will have to make compromises on advanced features and external interference. The second type use Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications technology, or DECT for short, in order to maximise the range over which you can use the handset and also to make sure that it is more difficult for third parties to listen into your calls.

Basic Cordless Phone Features

The most basic cordless phone will consist of a single base station coupled with a single handset. The handset will be stored in the base station, which doubles as a charging hub to keep the batteries topped up when the phone is not in use. It is possible to add in extra cordless phones to your existing system, or to purchase bundle packs which include multiple handsets. This will allow you to have a cordless phone upstairs and downstairs, or in every room of your house if you wish. Many multiple-handset solutions still use a single base station, so you do not need to have telephone points in every room. The extra handsets will just use the same base station as the main phone and will have their own charging cradles which require nothing more than a nearby wall socket and a flat surface to rest on. Having multiple handsets usually means that you will be able to make calls internally between each one. This is a kind of rudimentary intercom stand-in system and can be used for fun, or to call to someone who is in the attic room if you need them down in the kitchen.

Having established the basics of what cordless phones offer, it is now time to look at the extras. Most low cost cordless phones come with standard numeric keypads and basic navigation and softkeys to enter the menus and make changes. They will also come with a built-in display of some kind. Sometimes this will be a basic monochromatic item, but more expensive phones can have full colour LCD screens built in, complete with customisable backgrounds and attractive interface designs. These kinds of cordless phones have taken the most popular hardware features of modern mobiles and brought them to the home phone user. A colour display is far from essential, but it may be something that would attract you to a particular cordless phone. Most cordless phones should be able to display the number of the inbound call, allowing you to tell who is calling you before you answer. If you program in the contact details of your friends, family and colleagues, their name will appear alongside the number whenever they call. Different types of cordless phone will have different amounts of internal memory, allowing you to set up contact details for 150 or more of your acquaintances.

Most cordless phones also allow you to make calls without having to hold the handset to your ear using integrated speakerphone capabilities. A speaker will broadcast the inbound caller’s voice and a microphone will pick up you and anyone else nearby who wants to join in the conversation. You should be able to adjust the volume of the speaker using the onboard control keys on the handset and this will allow you to make changes in the middle of a call without impacting upon the quality or continuity of the conversation. Other standard cordless phone options which you can customise include ringer volume and type. Although ringtones are usually selected from a limited list, you can pick from classic rings and more funky, upbeat tunes. In many cases you will be able to give each individual handset a unique ringtone, which will make finding them when they go astray much easier. Advanced cordless phones can even give specific contacts a ringtone of their own, which is just another way to find out who is calling without having to look at the phone or even answer it.

Cordless phones should be able to keep track of who has made calls to your number and also who you yourself have called using the phone. In multi-handset systems you may have to programme each individual handset with its own set of contact details, as cheaper systems do not share information between the component parts. Once you have each phone set up, you will be able to use features such as speed dial, which are also present on corded phones.

Advanced Cordless Phone Features

The most advanced cordless phones will have advanced connectivity options that allow for compatibility with mobile phones. For example, some cordless phone base stations will have Bluetooth connectivity, which can synchronise up with your mobile phone handset and access the cellular networks which service it. You can then make calls using your cordless phone over your mobile’s network connection, which is ideal if you do not have a landline connection available, or if your mobile tariff has plenty of free minutes that you want to use up before the month is over.

Although cordless phones will all have base stations or charging cradles into which they can be placed for storage when not in use, the wireless nature of the handsets will mean that they can go missing from time to time. As a result, most cordless phones come with a button on the base station that sends out a paging call to all the handsets in the system. This will allow you to listen out for any that have gone missing and locate them under piles of cushions or down the back of the bed.

Various other considerations may come into play when looking at cordless phones, including the length of time they can last on a single battery charge and the range over which they can be used. Each manufacturer should display these specifications fairly prominently and the most secure and flexible cordless phones use the DECT digital technology.

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