Panasonic KX-TG6822EB Twin DECT Cordless Telephone Set with Answer Machine

Very happy with the phones. Easy to set up

I bought this unit to replace my old Panasonic equivalent, which was still going strong, but after 5 years of faithful service the buttons are very difficult to use, due to wear and tear.First impressions are that the build quality is ever-so-slightly inferior to the old model. The old one stood up on it's own, the new one is "modelled like a pebble, with curved round edges", I guess in an effort to make electronic devices less dated and angular, which I guess is no bad thing. It's just annoying that it won't stand up, lying down on it's back the speaker outlet is covered and therefore the ringer is muffled significantly. The display, buttons, and base are practically identical. The base is slightly smaller and lighter, with a stand protruding from the rear of the unit. The usual answerphone controls are present, along with a message counter (something the old one didn't have), showing clearly that you have new messages, the old one flashed to show a message, but unless you delete all messages straight away, there was no way of knowing how many were new/were on there already.Generally no real concerns about build, the important thing is the audio aspects surely? Well, I'm afraid to say that like many others I feel the sound quality is inferior to the old unit. Voices sound muffled and background noise is amplified far more (like TV's or radios), there is a "Noise Reduction" button, but it doesn't work very well to be honest, just makes the voice on the other end quieter. I have tried turning the speaker volume up to the maximum but that doesn't do a great deal. As far as I can tell, Panasonic have done this in an effort to reduce power consumption. The old unit worked at crazy distances from the base unit, but chewed through the battery life as a result. You were lucky to get 3 days out of it with general use, if you forgot to replace in the cradle. As a direct comparison I have left this unit in the living room for 5 days, using a normal amount of around 2 hours or so a day, it's still going strong with 40% battery life left. I have enabled "Low power mode" which reduces power by 90% apparently, I haven't noticed a huge drop in performance, but a couple of times when the wife has been standing directly in front of the base unit, there is a fair amount of interference and signal breakup.It seems strange that Panasonic would change a perfectly good design, in favour of an inferior one, but I guess it's all about POWER these days! To be fair the phone works just fine, calls are pretty standard, but I have noticed that I do have to ask people to repeat themselves more often, especially when speaking to people with thick accents, as these tend to become more muffled than most. To summarise:Positives = Battery life, Number of ringtones, Answerphone features (remote access/control), Clear display, Call barring (needs caller ID service to work)Negatives = Slightly muffled sound, not free-standing anymore, highly sensitive microphone picks up EVERYTHING in the room.Basically, if you have owned an older version of this model, like me; you may be disappointed. If purchasing this unit for the first time, I'm sure you won't notice these minor flaws, as it is a perfectly functional phone, well designed with an abundance of quality features.

Phones work really well - nice and clear, connected to wifi/broadband hub via the base station. Answerphone works as expected too. Clear display on the handsets, which light up when lifted from base station or charger. Excellent well-written instruction booklet - so much better than being referred to websites!

Good units easy to set up

This is the second one of these we have owned and if anything this one is clearer than the old one which was 7 or 8 years old.

Good set of phones. Setting up extra functions takes a while reading and understanding all the instructions, and I still havn’t managed to turn off the intermittent ringer indicating a waiting message, of which there are non! Hence the 4 rating, else it would be 5.

good product although a bit fiddly to set up . Sound not as good as my old B and O system but in a par with mobile phone quality

A lightning strike ‘took out’ my old phone recently and I needed a quick replacement for my business. This arrived within a couple of days and overall, it is satisfactory for the price tag attached.Pro’s:If you want to get in contact with someone long-distance, this is a remarkable device… at the push of a button – bingo – it doesn’t matter where they are, you can still talk to them It’s relatively cheap (£54.99 at the time of this review) and it does the job – makes/receives phone calls/offers caller display, answerphone (and other basic expectations such as speakerphone etc). It is compact and the handsets are exceptionally lightweight to hold.There’s a decent selection of ringtones (approx. 40), and call blocking is available for up to 50 numbers. You can also block all withheld and international numbers. (The manual is somewhat lacking in this department, so you will need to figure this out yourself).It’s very easy to record/set your own voicemail and you can set it to either leave a message or basically stop the caller in their tracks by telling them you’re unavailable and to call back later… I like this function because if you’re e.g. going away, you might not want to divert your landline to your mobile, but you also probably won’t want customers thinking you’ve ignored their message because you haven’t called them back – this way, you decide whether or not your customer can leave a message.The handsets operate separately (which could also be viewed as a con depending upon your requirements), which means that you can set each one with a different ringtone, night mode/silent setting etc (and can even name the handset e.g. lounge/kitchen/downstairs WC – whatever!)Con’s:A massive downside for me is the lack of quick ‘silence function’. I’ve become used to phones that you can silence (until further notice) with ‘one click’. Unfortunately, with this phone you will need to set the phone to ‘night mode’ to silence calls which means scrolling through the menu to select the year, date, time etc – followed by the start and finish time that you would like to silence calls. So, if you’re looking for a sneaky nap or five minutes peace and quiet, there’s no quick way to silence/unsilence calls. However, the upside to this is that once night mode is set, the answerphone/messages being left are also silent which seems to be rare with most phones with the ‘quick silence function’. (There is little more irritating than silencing your phone so you can have a quick snooze, only to then be woken by someone leaving a voicemail!) It’s worth noting that you will also need to silence the base station for this function to be effective (and also each handset because as mentioned above, they work independently of each other).The answerphone is VERY muffled and it’s hard to figure out what the caller is saying let alone retrieve their number. (The caller display function will at least enable you to retrieve the number to make a call back).The ‘Caller History’ function is pitiful. There is no quick way to redial a previously dialled number or missed call and you can’t delete all missed calls in one hit – you have to scroll painfully through and delete them one at a time. This phone lacks ‘easy shortcuts’ full stop and everything involves sifting through various long-winded menus.The manual is dreadful, and you’ll be better off just ‘playing’ with the phone and familiarising yourself with the settingsThe phone signal isn’t great and even in close proximity to the base station it cuts off intermittently.