Philips SE6590B/37 DECT Series Cordless Phone Additional Handset

Comment: Great two-line full feature telephone handset for the price. There are other multi-line telephones with and without answering machines which are more expensive. This telephone offers all the features, but may not be as sturdy as the more expensive telephone systems. Telephone made of light weight resin plastic and can break/crack if dropped or mishandled. (More expensive telephones made of stronger resins.) The telephone features and design compensate for the outer shell. Product has functioned for six (6) months without problem.

Comment: I purchased the Philips SE659 Dual line cordless phone system with answering machine. I also purchased the SE6590 wireless handset. One thing that is annoying is that the little red light on the handsets blinks continuosly, instead of just when there are calls on the answering machine. This annoying light cannot be disabled. Using the base station and the seperate handsets, requires hours of set up time. The system is just too complicated.

Comment: The first unit I purchase lasted only 6 months after stop working.
I could not use warranty as it was outside US.

Comment: clear reception ,very long battery life,lots of features,but no edit feature to add 1 + area code to a number recorded in caller ID.,to many manual steps that should be automatic, But best of all competition

Comment: I'm impressed, my experience to date with this system has been exactly what I wanted and needed. I ordered a Philips SE659 with two additional SE6590B/37 handsets to replace an older Panasonic 5.8Ghz two line system. Like other reviewers I found the features and specs exactly what I was looking for. To date the performance of the base and the handsets has been outstanding. For my home/office use I wanted a handset on the base and not a corded phone on the base as seems to be the case on many two line phone systems currently available.

Installation and setup was incredibly easy with auto handset registration. Note that handsets should be charge for 24 hours before normal use. However the batteries that come with the system will power on the handset immediately after insertion and begin to search for the base so you may want to plug in the base first before activating the handsets. The handsets will be assigned a consecutive number for easy identification but this can be easily changed later.

The clarity with DECT 6.0 is excellent. The equipment both handsets and base not only appeal with their aesthetics but both are light weight and do not consume excessive space like older multi handset and base units. I am not using the wall mount so I cannot comment on its usefulness.

The speaker function on the handsets is impressive, loud and clear which helps my wife who has sever hearing damage. The base speaker is also good. I have not had any issues with dialing or the keypad keys on the base as some reviewers complained about. The LCD readouts on both the handsets and base make sense and are easy to read and use. The color background is an appealing novelty but not of any real benefit. It is easy to make snap judgments about the quality of signals but I have found this is often dependent on the calling or receiving parties line or phone, especially cell phones. Having tested and knowing what the line or reception quality was at the other end of a given call I was able to see really how well this system and these handsets work. Excellent in my experience.

There are a lot of great features and I'm sure from reading other reviews that some folks are not aware that they can do things they think the system doesn't allow. I guess we all hate to read manuals but this system is easy enough that my wife has worked most of it out without reading anything at all because she really hates manuals.

The handsets use rechargeable AAA batteries which is a huge plus over those outrageously expensive proprietary batteries of older systems. Everybody has different needs, use their systems in different was and will have different opinions. Still I recommend that if you currently have a home/office two line phone system requirement then the Philips SE6591B/17 base and SE6590 handsets are worth evaluating against any other two line options available to see if they suit your needs as they have mine.

On my wish list is wireless for using a Bluetooth headset with the system.