Panasonic KX TG5777 - Cordless phone w/ answering system & caller ID - 5.8 GHz + 1 additional handset

List Price: $299.95 Discount Price: $149.99

Features:

• Up to 8 Handsets With Just One Phone Jack
• What's Better Than One 5.8 GHz Phone? Two Panasonic 5.8 GHz Phones!
• Long Range, Clear Sound, Minimal Interference
• Amazing Full-Color LCD!
• Hear Who's Calling Without Getting Up

Customer Reviews:

Very nice phones [Posted on 2008-01-01]
I purchased these phones for my parents for Christmas, fearing all the functions would be hard for them to use, or to figure out. Glad to say they took to the new phone system with little frustration. They really enjoy the talking caller ID, as their first request from a phone is clear and readable caller ID, having it spoken is a great feature. Another great feature is you do not have to program each phone with your phone book entries, simply do one, then send them to the other 2 by pushing a single button, very nice. Overall these phones are terrific and will provide my parents with trouble free, crystal clear phone messaging for years to come.

Base Unit Stops Working [Posted on 2008-02-05]
The handsets (we have four, including the one in the base unit) work fine. But the buttons on the base unit (numbers, messages -- outgoing and incoming --- hold, intercom, volume control, etc. ) stop working within a very short time. Not a big deal unless you don't have a separate voice mail system (we do) or unless you want to add another handset. We've had two base units so far. We returned the first unit as it was still on warranty but in order to benefit from the warranty we had to send the unit in and wait for them to send us a replacement. It was a hardship as this is our only telephone and without the base unit the handsets don't work. So, unless we want to use a cheap spare unit while we send the second one back to the manufacturer we are stuck with a non-functioning base unit.

I like it, but you may want to know this...... [Posted on 2008-03-26]
Recently, I purchased the Panasonic KX TG5777 from Globazar(through Amazon.com). I have no complaints about Globazar, they shipped the phone quickly and I received it within a few days. They provided quick responses to my queries.

Overall, I like this phone. I'm considering ordering a couple of additional handsets. I'm satisfied with my purchase.

Rather than repeat the feature list of this phone, I thought it would be more useful to list some things that were not apparent to me and that I would have liked to have known, prior to making the purchase.

Description: There is conflicting info in the description on Amazon's product page. My phone came with three handsets as shown in the photo. I was concerned after reading the heading "Cordless phone w/ answering system & caller ID - 5.8 GHz + 1 additional handset(s)" and the technical details "What's Better Than One 5.8 GHz Phone? Two Panasonic 5.8 GHz Phones!". I confirmed with Globazar via email prior to ordering.

Color: The phone is Silver/Gray. Upon closer inspection, I can kind of tell that from the picture. When I ordered it, I thought it was white. I'm not a fan of silver.

Battery Life: The manufacturer claims up to seven days standby and/or 5 hours of talk time. I get no where near that. Just for kicks, I left a fully charged handset on the desk over night. The total time was less than 12 hours. The next morning, it still showed as fully charged. I was impressed, until I made a short phone call (less than two minutes) and the phone dropped to 1 bar and started indicating that the battery was low. On another occasion, I was on an all day conference/training call. I started out with a fully charged handset. After approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes, the phone indicated the battery was low. I grabbed a second fully charged handset and it lasted about the same. I ended up switching to my old phone for the rest of the day, since the first handset was still recharging. NOTE: The instructions indicate that using the voice enhancer will reduce your battery time. I have this feature turned off. I hate to imagine how short the battery life would be with this feature on. Also, the manufacturer says to charge the phone for 7 hours. Plan on it.

Address Book: The address book only supports 50 entries. This may seem like a lot, but with cell phones, home phones, business phones, etc. This isn't enough.

Address Book Transfers: Being able to transfer your address book between other handsets and/or your computer is really nice. One nuisance, however is when you transfer contacts between handsets, the photo ID's and custom ring info doesn't transfer. The only way I could transfer these was to transfer the images or tones from the computer and then reassign them manually in each handset.

Ring Tones: This phone only supports wav files. It would have been nice, if mp3's were supported as well.

Missed Call Indicator: This seems to be both annoying and worthless. Each time I receive a call, regardless of whether or not I answer, my handsets indicate "Missed Call". This continues to display, until you go to each handset and manually clear it. I would much rather have the time and/or my background(wallpaper) displayed. One note, I'm not using the answering machine that came with the phone. I have it turned off. Maybe this would work differently, if the answering machine was activated.

Base: I wish that the base had a headset jack. This would be nice when I'm on long conference calls, since the battery life on the handsets isn't long enough. I prefer not to use the speaker phone, since it disturbs others around me and seems to pick up more background noise.

Had I known all of this, I probably would have still purchased this phone.

*At the time I wrote this, I owned this phone for under two weeks.

Great functionality and attractive design [Posted on 2008-04-11]
I upgrade my phone/answering system at least every 24 months. So over the years I've used machines from Sony, JVC, AT&T, and Motorola. I've had this Panasonic system for about six weeks and can honestly say that it is the best system that I've owned so far and it only cost about half what I had budgeted.

There are some features that only gadget freaks like me will appreciate - namely the USB interface, customizable ringers, customizable colour display, etc... However, even if you just want a basic multi-handset answering system this will do very nicely. The handset battery will give you several days of standby time and several hours of talk time. I found no interference or static problems even if I took a handset out into the garden with me.

The quality of the digital recordings on the answering machine is perfectly acceptable but not outstanding. I've found the caller_id text-to-speech feature very useful. You don't have to run to see display, the machine will announce the caller several times giving you plenty of time to decide whether or not to take the call.

The handsets are very light and comfortable to use. O.K. they don't look as hi-tech or as sleek as some of the newer phones from Vtech and Philips but the clincher for me was that these phones accept standard headset connections. I am very happy with my purchase and look forward to using it for the next 22 1/2 months :-)

Was not the best phone I ever owned. [Posted on 2008-09-11]
I purchased this phone also through amazon, forgot who I bought it from, but anyway, the phone I bought was a dud from the start, I could not download any of the features as stated, and what really pead me off, the phone only allows you to talk for 2 hrs, now that is a no-no, because when I get into a conversation I don't need my phone to tell me to hang up
kind of reminds me when I was living with my parents, when I called the company, panasonic those people act like I just landed from mars, they did not have an idea of what I was talking about , so I never was able to use the features, I'm in the market for another talking id phone from panasonic, and the reviews I've read seemed to be pretty good, I'm leaning
towards the KXTG9333T, atleast they states you can talk for 5 hours.

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