Philips CD4452B/37 DECT 6.0 Dual-Phone Bundle

This is the nearly perfect phone system. I experienced excellent sound quality and amazing range (could walk about four houses away from mine before I started to lose the line). Also looks cool and has high quality construction. A lot of features are customizable, like custom rings for particular phone numbers, options for whether you want the backlight or the key tones, whether or not the phone picks up automatically when it's removed from the base, etc. The unit uses conventional rechargeable batteries, for cheaper replacement. One minor gripe is the caller id list feature. Pressing this button shows a single menu option with the cryptic name "calls log call list", which you then select to scroll through the history of incoming calls. Don't know why that needs to be a two-step process.

Overall, a great phone system. I successfully added a third base, and am going to order two more to expand to the five base maximum.

Rate: 4.0

Philips CD4454 currently featured at ' c o s t c o . c o m '
$79 + tax + shipping ($95) through 12/31/07
1 base/answering machine w/handset + 3 satellite handsets = 4 handsets (black)

PROs:
First of all, let me say the ergonomic design of the CD445X series is wonderful; handsome, refined, and slim w/great weight/balance characteristics. It fits very well into one's hand. Contrary to the colour appearance displayed on Amazon (grey) the units are actually 'black'.

Range is very good with crystal clear audio. DECT 6.0 is the global standard...

Audio codec: G.726 (digital encryption, not easy to ease-drop)
Net bit rate: 32 kbit/s
Frequency: 1880-1900 MHz in Europe, 1920-1930MHz in the US
Carriers: 10 (1,728 kHz spacing) in Europe, 5 (1,728 kHz spacing) in the US
Time slots: 2 x 12 (up and down stream)
Channel allocation: dynamic
Average transmission power: 10 mW (250 mW...Read more

Got these and tried them out for a week and they had to go back. I am always drawn in by Philips design but always disappointed by their technology implementation.
As a previous reviewer mentioned, there was an echo when we spoke, and along with the echo a constant low level static on the line. I tried the phones/bases all over the house and got the same effect. On a high note, I could walk wayyyyy out to the mailbox (100 yards?) and still get consistent reception (it didn't get any better, but it certainly didn't get any worse).

Although the user interface on this phone was complicated, it's nothing different than what a typical cell phone is like. Being given lots of capability means being given lots of choices...

I did like that there was a numerical display showing how many messages there are on the answering machine and that we could mute the ringer on the phones (contrary to what another reviewer mentioned on the non-answering machine version of...Read more