GE - 5.8 GHZ EDGE Speakerphone w Digital Answering system

This phone seemed like it would meet my needs for an affordable, simple phone with answering machine. I've tried it for two weeks, and I'm disappointed by the sound quality - I've left messages that I later found out the other party could not hear, and I get requests to speak louder.
Annoyingly, you cannot switch between speaker and regular mode while talking. I'm returning it to the store.

All in all this GE phone gives Uniden and other popular phones a run for their money. I needed a cordless phone with answerer and speakerphone in the handset and wanted to keep the price low. This GE did all those things and has 5.8 GHZ technology besides. Only con I could find with the phone is the speakerphone is not as loud as I would like, otherwise this GE is a bargain.

My husband and I wanted to purchase a new phone since we were moving into a new home and had more space. This was our first expandable handset and it will be our last. We don't know if it's our phone that was built with a "bug" in it but the conversation is always full of static (and we have taken the proper precautions to house them away from other electronic devises). 8 out of 10 times if you pick up the phone to dial out you won't have a dial tone and you will receive a message that says "unavailable"-you then have to wait 30-60 seconds to try again. This will also happen when you go to answer an incoming call. Since I operate a home-based business this is not an option for me so we are replacing these phones. Save yourself the hassle of "you may get a good one, you may not" and go for a simpler phone. The store we purchased them at was discontinuing them...I wonder why.