You choose your own cordless phone

You Choose Your Own Cordless Phone

The following ideas will help you decide for yourself which cordless phone system to purchase

Welcome hubber to our continuation of our discussion of cordless phone systems and the things you need to know to help you make your decision on which system to use. With the information previously supplied and the information here you should be able to find yourself a cordless system to meet all your family and business needs around the home or office.

The first thing you need to do is choose between using an analog or digital cordless phone for your home or office. Cordless phones using analog transmission will cost you a few less shekels at the counter and usually have superior sound quality, but they can be susceptible to eavesdropping, and their range is a bit shorter than digital models. On the other hand the more expensive digital models are more secure, can support more handsets from a single base, and allow you to conference the handsets.

You need to decide on a frequency band for your cordless phone to operate on; phones using a 2.4 GHz band come in a wide selection and tend to be the less expensive of the models available. However, they are more susceptible to interference problems with other wireless devices operating in your environment than 1.9 GHz or 5.8 GHz models on the market.

Best to plan for extensions to your cordless system once its in place, a single handset is best suited for smaller homes where you're never far from your phone. If your home is too large for a single handset model, give first consideration to the multiple-handset models in the ratings. They usually come with several handsets from one base; each handset sits in its own charging cradle without the need of a phone jack, making it easier to put a handset in places where they are most convenient and give the best home coverage for users.

Make sure you pick the models with the features you want your cordless phone to come with. You can expect caller ID, a headset jack, and a base that can be wall-mounted or left on the counter. But as a rule the more features included with your cordless phone, the more golden trinkets you can expect to pay at the counter.

You will need to decide whether you still want an answering machine included with the model you purchase. Many people still want the ability included with their cordless phone, despite the ubiquity of cell phones with voice-mail capability. Both single and multiple handset cordless phones come in versions with a built-in answering capability. They often cost little more than comparable phone-only models and take up about the same amount of space around your environment.

If you're planning on purchasing a cordless phone with the capability to record calls, you need to pay attention to the following points.

• First consider the voice-quality differences in the models you look at, in our surveys most answerers delivered very good voice quality for recorded messages and good quality for the outgoing greeting. Amazingly the models that allowed the user to record the greeting through the handset usually sounded better than those using a microphone located on the base unit.
• Make sure you decide on the features you want included with your answering machine, they usually come with a few to select from. Such as a selectable number of rings and a toll-saver, answerer on/off control, call screening, remote access from a touch-tone phone, and a variety of ways to navigate through your messages.

Make sure you try the handset before purchasing if possible, while you're in the store, hold the handset to see whether it fits the contours of your face. The earpiece should have rounded edges and a recess center that fits nicely over the middle of your ear. Check the buttons and controls for ease of use and legibility of the script on all the controls and buttons.

Make sure you check out the battery needs of the unit you decide to purchase for your home, in our surveys the batteries, when fully charge, generally provided 8 hours of more of continuous conversation before they required recharging. Most manufacturers claim that a fully charged battery will hold its charge at least a week when the cordless phone is in standby mode, when a battery can no longer hold a charge, a replacement battery, usually proprietary, costs about $10 to $25. Some cordless phones even use less expensive and more widely available AAA or AA rechargeable batteries.

Don't throw your corded phone into the garbage just yet, it's a good idea to keep at least one corded phone with traditional landline service in your home, if only for emergency situations. A cordless phone may not work if you lose electrical power, and a cell phone won't work if you can't get a signal of if the circuits are full.

One last point, always make sure you can return the cordless phone before you purchase it, in case you encounter unexpected problems at home that you can't resolve, like wireless interference.

Well that's it for another hub; this is the end of our hubs on phone services available today. In the future well be talking about digital cameras and camcorders. Happy hubbing!