Best Cordless Phone
Who wants to be ‘tethered’ to the wall by a tangled-up phone cord? That’s old school!
A cordless phone allows you to move around your own home office while you talk. And if the weather is favorable, a cordless phone can even be used outside. Your conversation continues without the necessity of having one incredibly long phone cord!
Analog Cordless Phones
And speaking of ‘old school’, the first cordless phones were analog. Analogue phones use a system not unlike an FM radio. Although analog cordless phones were relatively inexpensive, they did present problems.
Since you’re essentially ‘broadcasting’ when you talked, it was easy for someone with not-so-sophisticated equipment to eavesdrop. Anyone with an RF scanner or comparable wireless device might be able to listen in. Not good.
Analogs also operated on a limited number of frequencies. Interference from other phone equipment was a typical concern. And that’s a main reason why analog cordless phones are being phased out. (Even if you find a great deal on an analog, don’t bother.)
Digital Cordless Phones
The latest digital technology has upgraded phone service by providing a very clear sound and adds safeguards to those bent on listening in on your conversation.
Cordless phones operate with a main base station with the ability to add up to 3 or 4 or many additional bases. The main base station is plugged into a standard phone wall jack with the capability of transmitting the call to any of the additional bases.
Digital phone service can also be achieved via your cable TV service or Internet provider. They are easy to set up and work well with digital cordless phones. You can even keep your same phone number!
Although mobile phones are all the rage – and will continue to be so – land lines have their place. You can still get inexpensive long distance, especially with Internet digital phone packages. And there are those unfortunate ones who may have “dead zones” in their house. These effectively rule out cell-phone-only plans for reliable phone service.
When considering entering the cordless phone market, fist decide how many extensions you’ll need. Cordless phone systems make it easy to add phones all over your house. You can even operate up to 10 handsets off one phone jack and master unit!
With a digital cordless phone, the higher the GHz, the better. Cordless phones operate on frequency ranges of 1.8 to 5.8 GHz. The larger the Ghz, the better the voice clarity and further the range you’ll achieve.
If you already have a wireless network, you may want to opt for a WI-FI friendly phone. (They’re usually marked). If it’s not WI-FI friendly, it may interfere with your Internet service. Or your web browsing may play havoc with your phone connection.
Cordless phones operate on a battery, so battery life is something to consider. Eight hours of talk time is pretty good, but that’s usually achieved under optimum conditions.
Unless you spend a great deal of your day on the phone, this should be plenty. The base also acts as a charger and leaving the handset in the base will power the unit back up.
Li-ion batteries provide the best performance since they drain at a slow rate. Ni-MH batteries are the next best option and aren’t prone to the main problem found with NiCd batteries — that being the “memory effect”. (Li-ion batteries are even less subject to this problem than Ni-MH batteries).
Of course you don’t loose out on all the bells and whistles we’ve grown accustomed to. Cordless phones come with features like caller ID, call-waiting, and even and intercom capability. (You can call one phone from another phone, just like an intercom.)
Many cordless phones have a headset jack on the handset plus a belt clip for carrying the phone. This allows hands-free conversation anywhere in the house.
Many units can receive calls for two phone numbers. This is great if you have a business line and a personal line. Now you can operate both from a single phone.
These phones will have two ringers, each with a distinctive sound so you’ll know which line is ringing. The two-line feature also permits conferencing two callers in three-way conversations.
Cordless phones are a fantastic addition to our high-tech lives allowing us to talk in comfort anywhere in the home or office. Despite what the cell phone companies advertise, it’s hard to beat the crystal clear connection a landline provides. Without the cord!