Uniden CLX-485 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, Caller ID, and Dual Keypads

Comment: It's a horrible phone!!! I got it a month ago, and I put it to charge and I still can't use it because it won't charge properly. I called customer service, they said it's the batery that's bad, but I have to see if they send me one. So, I never used the phone and it's just sitting here. It sucks, because the phone is very beautiful.

P.S. I reached their customer service by phone and they were very understanding, so they sent me a new battery and now the phone works great! I love the phone, it has a lot of features, it's a very good phone once it works. LOVE IT NOW!

Comment: I bought this UNIDEN CLX485 phone and found after the fact that there is no hardware driver for VISTA OS. Another of life's little surprises.

Comment: I kept this phone one week and returned it to Amazon and bought a Panasonic BB GT1540B. This Uniden does not have a mult-color lcd handset screen, you only have a choice of 3 monocolors. The wall mount is awkward with the phone sticking out from the wall. The phone directory holds a lot of numbers but is difficult to use - when you flip through your list it has a tendency to slip and you dial the wrong number. The CID list does not show the time of the call so it's pretty much useless. The CD that's supposed to do a lot was unloadable because I had a "warning" from my virus software that the CD might harm my computer. So, buy this phone at your own risk.

Comment: Well I was surprised to see that my favorite phone was still being offered for sale after all these years. That's rare for an electronic device. I was a little dismayed by the many negative one-star reviews and so I decided to express my opinion on this fine device that I've had for three years or so. I won't repeat all the other review info, but I will try to clarify the important points that I have experience with. I would have rated it 4 stars, but I felt I have to offset the ridiculous 1 star reviews with a 5 star rating.

I have a large 2 story home and the reception is good unless I place the base at the far end of a room upstairs. For example, if the base is placed at the far right end of a room upstairs, the reception is spotty at the far left end of my kitchen downstairs. So I guess I have found the limit of the phone's reception in my home. The headsets doesn't have any problem with reception(with the base) when used outside the house or garage. The range in the front and back yard is remarkable. The bottom line is that the reception will depend on the construction of your home. My solution was to move the base closer to the middle of the house instead of the furthest corner of the room to the right or left of the house.I will admit my old $399 Panasonic phone system did not have this problem.

The battery issues are not entirely the fault of the phone. If I rated products by the performance of their batteries with one star, then everything would be worthless. When our electronics and laptops come equipped with bigger, longer lasting batteries, then we complain about the increased weight and size. Someday in the future, battery technology will satisfy us I hope. Some of my handsets burn through batteries and need replacements every year. Some of my lesser used handsets have lasted over two years. I have six headsets so I purchased about 10 batteries over the years. I have two unused batteries left, but it's not a problem to buy another supply of them because I find them on Amazon for about $6 each. The ones at Uniden cost about $10 each. Only the one that I bought at Uniden proved to be defective and wouldn't hold a proper charge after 6 months.

The point that I find amazing is how advanced and feature packed the Uniden CLX-485 phone system is. Color screens, PC USB compatible, ringtones, Outlook compatible, intercom and every bell and whistle imaginable. The list just goes on and on. I didn't see a long list of features like this on phones when I purchased my unit. I don't see many home phones listing features like this now, three years later. The typical cellphone is far more advanced than most home phones. I would suggest that a person comparison shopping should download the user manual and compare all the comparable phones. That's how I shop and it works just fine.

Here are the cons that I have experienced:

1) The labeling and some operations of the base control buttons, etc. make it confusing at times to use if you're using it instead of a handset.

2) The range and battery life could be better. I've seen better and I've seen worse. I prefer better!

3) If you select a phone number to call back in the stored "redial" and stored "caller id" list the phone won't add the "1" to phone numbers with area codes that not the same as yours. This was a real inconvenience to me for years. Last years I learned from another reviewer, here at Amazon, how to correct this problem. Press the joystick down to select number, press the "*" on the keypad and the "1" is magically added to the selected number for you to call. Maybe it's documented in the manual somewhere but I didn't know about it for the first two yearsI owned the phone.

4) It seemed like this phone model was not created by Uniden. Years ago when I was looking for updates, etc. it looked like this and another similar group of Uniden phones were created by some another company. None of the other Uniden phones had the same set of advanced features. I believe the software may have had one update but that was the extent of support. Many of the issues with the usability and problems seem to be what you find on electronic devices before the firmware and/or software updates that are usually done. I will admit that it's not perfect, but it's minor things that seem like it would have been easy to correct. I could be wrong but I don't think Uniden will be able to update any of the features so what you see is what you get. Thank goodness everything works reasonably well.

Well that's all I have and I hope it helps. I haven't kept up with the updates on this model from Uniden or other competing models so you should do your own updated research. It's a very good phone and I have been very satisfied with it's performance over the years. I thought by now all phones would have all the features this phone has and more. If you love advanced, feature rich gadgets you'll love this phone. If you don't care about the advanced features and range and battery life is all you care about, then I suggest that you try it first or look for a different phone system (you might be better off with a cell phone). Good luck.

Comment: We have had our system with 8 phones and chargers located throughout the house and garages four years now. Only problem we have had is lately we have had to replace batteries in some of the phones. After four years, not a bad deal. We are very happy with ours.