Telephones Online Blog – Reviews of Home and Office Telephones and other Products from TelephonesOnline.co.uk
Buying a Home Phone Online July 8, 2008
Telephones have normally been something I have paid little attention to, but recently I have been looking online for a new cordless phone when the process became an obsession.
I have used the web for a few years now and am quite proficient, though I often become exasperated with its apparent foibles. By the time I had received my product I was so happy with the process that I phoned and thanked the customer services at Telephones Online. They gratefully accepted my thanks and asked that I write a brief article on my experience :
I started out by doing what I guess anyone would do faced with buying something online, first I entered by main keyword :”cheap cordless phone” on the three main search engines: Yahoo, Live and Google and wrote down the top ten results in terms of how much I liked the site and how what sort of range of cordless phones they had.
I then looked at the price comparison websites like Kelkoo, Shopping.com and Pricerunner to see if any of them had any better offers. Now there is one thing about price comparison sites I only found about recently, they only compare products of people who pay them to compare, if you see what I mean. Anyway, having seen a few site names come up repeatedly in my lists of potential online vendors I decided upon this site ( telephonesonline ) . To tell the truth it may have just been the nice colour scheme though it may have been the low prices and great range of phones available..
I had been after a BT telephone as I had always used these since the days of the Post Office So, using the sorting options ( cheapest first ) I can across a nice cordless phone called a BT Synergy 4100, it came in as under £20 and had enough features to suit me. I mean I only really want to chat on my phone. I don’t actually understand why anyone needs all those mobile phone type functions on a home phone, it’s not like you carry it around with you everywhere,
Anyway, in the end, as I said, I managed to choose both vendor and phone and then before I knew it I was tracking the delivery online until there was a knock at the door and, the phone arrived, looking quite like the one I had looked at online.
All in all a quite enjoyable online shopping experience and one that I will repeat shortly as I look for a cordless drill online.
Ideal BT Telephone for Home Office April 7, 2008
The BT Diverse 6350 Corded and Cordless telephone is a versatile combination for the home or home office.
The main base station is a familiar office desktop telephone with an easy to use dialling pad and a large clear LCD screen. As the main telephone is GAP compatible you can also transfer calls to the additional handset with ease.
The system supports music on hold and has an integral answering machine with 20 minutes of recording time. The large 100 name and number directory is easily accessible from either handset and can be updated via import from a mobile phone SIM card.
This twin telephone system supports SMS text messaging as well as a fully duplex speakerphone and a clock with alarm. You can even use the telephone with headset for real ease of communications.
This is the ideal set up for home or home office. The phones are both easy to use, solid and very pleasing to the eye.
The personalised ringer tones can also be used to great affect if you are working from home. If you subscribe to BT’s Caller Display service you will be able to set different ring tones to different callers, ensuring that you neither answer to a business caller in too lackadaisical a manner nor to a family member in too formal a tone,
All in all in testing this telephone for Telephones Online we found it to be a wonderful twin system, capable of almost everything in a home or ‘work from home’ environment. We did not want to give it back. You can buy one of these lovely sets online at BT Diverse 6350 Telephone and you can keep it as long as you want.
In Car DVD Player January 28, 2008
Telephones Online would like to thank Mr M Quarendon of Croydon who sent in this review :
Just when you think you have all the gadgets you will ever need a new one comes out which creates its own niche need area and you just have to investigate its real potential.
I was looking for a Cordless Telephone at Telephones Online ( a home phone ) when I perchanced upon this beauty….I had long been thinking about buying some sort of in car portable DVD player to keep the kids entertained on long family trips but this one appealed to far more than just necessity; it looked good and had some interesting additional features..
What it offered was this
- I plays both DivX© and MP4© films – I have many films in these formats just aching to be watched either in car on on the train.
- iPod docking – I have an ipod which is crammed with both music and movies, these I watch occasionally on the small LCD Screen, with headphones on.
This little baby from Philips includes Dolby© Surround sound, an MMC/ SD Card reader and a crystal clear ( and bright ) screen.
Well, needless to say, I bought it, received it a day or two later and have been extremely impressed at the audio and visual qualities of such a cheap portable DVD player. For a small portable DVD player it has superb battery life and is easy and simple to use.
View the item here : Philips Portable DVD Player
BT Cordless Phones November 23, 2007
I have long been a gadget and technology enthusiast, but only quite recently have come to appreciate the leaps and bounds that the home cordless phone has made.
I have looked at the ranges on the Telephones Online website and tried to assess each model on the grounds of technical specifications and manufacturer. It became apparent to me, looking at the hundreds of phones online, that they all did pretty much the same : DECT technology I found is standard so the range of the cordless handsets are limited by the technology they contain. ( generally about 300 meters in ideal conditions). Similarly talk times and standby times are governed by the handset’s batteries and these seem to be generic across many brands of cordless phone. Most brands of digital phone allow the additional handsets to be registered to the base station so allowing twin and triple handset systems with call transfer and intercom. They all now seem to have nicely lit screens. It is as understood these days also that a digital phone will have as standard a decent telephone directory allowing the storage of names and numbers.
So I look through the endless catalogue of telephones. How to differentiate? I asked a few friends about their experiences with Cordless Phones and the responses were varied to say the least :
“I like to phone my wife and ask for a cup of tea” – says Stamati
“Great for talking on the toilet” – replied Alex
“Whatever” – was Matt’s wordy response
It swiftly became apparent that I was unlikely to garner any useful advice from my friends so I was back to basics.
I made my choice based on two things, looks and looks, and to me the BT Cordless phones knocked the stuffing out of theri competitors hands down. The 
BT Esprit 1200 Exudes Grace and good breeding, while the BT Freestyle 310 SMS (above )has the sleek looks more commonly associated with an expensive mobile phone. But soon I was wowed to the max. 
, this was just the sort of beauty I was after, look at is here in its full glory, this DECT phone was all I could ask for. I never even looked into the deeper specifications of it, as soon as I saw it I had to have it. This is the BT Reveal Digital Cordless Answer Phone . I was not suprised to see that it had received favourable reviews in the national press. This Phone has style so I bought it.
This Telephones Online Shopping experience was sent to us by Neil Bradstock
Cordless phone batteries November 15, 2007
I have been a customer of Telephones Online for many years now and have had great experiences with their customer services; I have received sound technical advice in choosing a cordless phone and been the recipient of unwavering support when I have had a problem with a telephone. The first time the unit, as I remember, had been purchased as an additional handset for an existing telephone but turned out to be incompatible, the second was because the phone had arrived without batteries, this caused a problem, but they were swiftly and personally dispatched for delivery the next day.
Cordless phone batteries are extremely important for the overall performance of a DECT phone. they will naturally influence both standby time and talk time, but also have a bearing on the range you can get from a digital phone. Many people would be surprised to know that the standby time of a battery is inversely proportional to its distance from the base station – this being due to its constant need to maintain a connection with the transmitter in the base.
Early digital phones used Ni-Cd (Nickel Cadmium) cells which tended to deteriorate quite quickly, these were often expensive to buy as they were manufacturers own and hence priced accordingly. Many of these early cordless phone batteries had teething problems and were the cause of many a complaint. More recently it has become the norm to supply handsets with generic rechargeable NiMh ( Nickel Metal Hydride ) AA or AAA batteries. These are available in many shops and even newsagents as they are used now in many household goods such as digital cameras and the like. In general the ampage of the battery will determine its length of charge maintenance, though many handsets will not be suitable for higher power batteries.
The more modern batteries supplied with cordless phones do not have a memory, and hence, no longer require such a long initial drip charge on initial use as per the old style, where one was recommended to leave them overnight for full lifetime battery performance.
New Telephones November 13, 2007
My first cordless phone was a BT Freestyle 1100. It was an analogue cordless phone with answermachine. It was a rather unsubtle dark green colour but it certainly did the trick. I had lived without a home phone for years previous to that as I had lived in a small enough village that a pop to the local cafe was enough for a days communications. The BT Freestyle 1100 worked and took answermachine messages for me while I was out which was all I asked of it. Little did I know what degustations of technology awaited me.
A year of so later I was given as a present a real DECT phone, ( DECT is a Digital European Cordless Technology standard). It was a BT Digital Cordless phone made by Siemens, a BT Diverse 2011 Executive, it was really all singing and dancing with a backlit screen ( still monochrome in those days) and a 100 name and number alphanumeric memory. I also subscribed to BT Caller Display so that I could see the name of the person calling before I picked up the phone. My communications had advanced a lot since the village days, no more cafe arrangements for me now I lived in the City, but a digital phone at the heart of my home.
That is all a few years ago now. We all take for granted immediate connections via mobile phone and the internet, my home phone is still a BT Cordless phone, a Diverse 6450. It is a twin handset system and has a colour screen, games, SIM card reader and a handset speakerphone. Admittedly it is slight overkill, but it all is these days…technological advances for their own sake – and fun.
Two Handsets is Never Enough October 25, 2007
Now it would be quite easy, very easy in fact, to consider the purchase of a digital cordless quad system of telephones rather a sort of telephonic overkill in the home.
I did, initially. It was only that the additional handset did not cost so much extra (I was looking for a trio at first; actually I think, if I remember correctly I started out looking to buy a Twin Handset Telephone System for home as a replacement for a long redundant analog cordless telephone).
The Four handsets, when they arrived, filled me with a great sense of power and anticipation. They needed a good charge – I left them overnight – and the next day ( luckily a Sunday ) I set about the house rigging up my communications systems.
The first one, Handset 1, is kind of limited in its positioning as it goes with the main base station, so that went in the hallway by our phone socket. Handset 2 was easy to place as I had earnestly pined for a handset in the bedroom for many a year.
Hmm, Handset 3 made me ponder…
At first it made me think :
“where am I going to put this“,
then it made me worry :
“where am I going to put Handset 4 if I can’t find a place for 3??”
My house is not overly large, so within a few minutes my fear had subsided as Handset 3 was neatly tucked away in the kitchen. It is rather handy that they come with wall mounting chargers. Thankfully during the screwing process I thought a little and handset 4 was assigned to daughter number 1, who it seems has a lot of incoming calls.
Now I am master of the home switchboard. I answer most calls ( as there is generally a handset near me ) and have even got the hang of call transfer so that I can quite easily put a call through to either of my digital cordless handsets.
I made my selection from Telephones Online who have a range of Quad Telephone Systems for those of us who NEED them.
Buying a Telephone Online October 9, 2007
We would like to thank Mr J Kenny who sent us this descriptive article about his search for a replacement cordless phone
I have to thank Telephones Online for a superlative shopping experience, my old BT Cordless telephone finally packed in, gave up the ghost and died. I was at a loss. I had been accustomed to the freedom of a wireless handset. I talk a lot on the phone, and modern life being what it is; I can ill afford the luxury of sitting down in my armchair and chatting for hours on end. So I would stick the DECT Handset in my pocket, stick it on either loudspeaker or use a headset/ earpiece and continue my endless duties of hanging washing, putting out the rubbish, washing up – the list is infinite, I have even shaved whilst on the phone, but don’t tell my mum, who was at the time completely unaware that I had performed my ablutions and then shaved whilst discussing my sister’s forthcoming wedding on the phone with her for an hour.
Where was I, yes, my digital phone went kaput and I was spending my life in mortal dread for when the phone would next ring and I would have to cease my duties and sit down until whoever was at the other end was finished with my ear.
Once it had really sunk in that my faithful phone was no more, I felt a slight excitement in the anticipation which I knew would follow. Suddenly I was a m an on a mission, one out of the norm also, I was hunting for a new cordless phone and I felt like a circling lion.
Another facet of modern life is that we have the whole world at our fingertips, we wield uncanny power from our home broadband packages. A technology which allow us to access bus timetables in Bangalore, tide levels in Timbuktu will certainly facilitate the search for a telephone.
I like most all of the search engines, they are my friends, I tend to be fair in using them also, I try to make sure that I give each of the ‘big three’ ( Yahoo, Live and Google ) an equal share of my searches. I cant remember which search engine I used, but I typed in “home phones” to the little box and, hey presto, the search results were returned. I sifted, as one does, out some of the bogus results ( I ignored the sponsored ads as anyone can get in there) and finally ended up on Telephones Online – otherwise I would not be writing this short.
What I liked about the website was that it ( to borrow a phrase ) : ‘does what it says on the box’ – it sells Telephones Online, and had lots of Telephones, just about every Telephone a person could imagine – that kind of pulled it for me, there was no pretentiousness about it, just, well, Telephones Online..
Well, the rest of the story is predictable, I looked through the various telephones, looking at the specifications, carefully contrasting the features and balancing up the pros and cons of each single or multi handset system from a variety of manufacturers until I reached the one and only possible choice I could make…………
Thoroughly confused at such a choice I made that call to their customer services team :
me : – hi can you recommend a good digital handset, with a long talk time and………etc etc
CS : - yes Sir, I would try the .BT Lyric 2100….
That was that, I gave my credit card details over the phone and received it 48 hours later
Funny thing that I would have received it 24 hours later, but the courier called – and I could not get to the door – I was on the phone…
My New Phone October 3, 2007
My word, what a gift I received yesterday….
I had been waiting for a long time for my present and it arrived on time.
Now, I should explain to you that I had, for a long time been completely antagonistic to all attempts to buy me a cordless phone.
- What do I need one for?
- The batteries will be a pain to replace..
- I will keep losing it!
- They look stupid..
These had been my usual arguements against replacing my traditional telephone with a cordless one, but I had, after much haranguing, finally bent my head to pressure and allowed my son to order me a telephone online.
I had insisted that it not be too fussy, I did not want, nor need, colour screen nor personal organiser functionality.
My new Philips Cordless Phone.
It arrived, as i said previously, delivered to my door as and when promised by the online telephone retailers, I gingerly opened the courier delivery and managed to open the box without issue. I, then left the phone on charge for 6 hours as per the manual’s instructions.
The answers to my questions were as follows :
- It is actually very liberating being able to answer a phone call whether on toilet or in garden
- I have since learned that a cordless phone batteries will last around a year and are generic AA batteries as you use in a camera or remote control.
- I have lost it a few times, but you can page it form the base.
- It actually looks, and feels quite nice…
