Panasonic KX-TG4500B 5.8 Ghz 4-Line FHSS Expandable Corded/Cordless Phone with Answering System, Black, 1 Handset

We bought this four line phone system two years ago. Set up was fairly easy as I read the manual completely prior to doing actual programming. Sound quality is good. This is a home/home business use system and we have all eight cordless handsets in play, along with all four incoming CO lines. The answering machine portion works very well, allowing us to change around the individual greetings easily. It is particularly easy to send a received message to any given handset so that the base unit is not blinking away, instead the assigned handset blinks. We do not have any of the problems with range, handset buttons, programming or unit failures other people have reported. The base unit itself is rarely used, but several of the handsets are punished daily. When we bought the unit, we ordered an extra handset for back up. It is still in the pantry, in it's orignal packaging as we have not had a single failure yet - even the handset the dog chewed on still works perfectly, although it has now become the basement extension. My wife routinely goes out to the mailbox while talking on a handset and it is over 100' away from the base unit in the house. Never a dropped call. No matter where we are in or around the house, upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, out in the back yard, we have a good clear signal. We also have a much older two line version of this phone in one of our stores and it too performs perfectly. Anyway, although this is a pretty expensive system for home use, it was the only four line game in town when we bought it and so far, knock on wood, the best phone system we have ever had. We love it!

We have been using this system in a seven person design firm for about two years now. It works well for us but we realize we made a cost based decision compared to other business phone systems that are available. However for under $1,000 or the cost of the base unit plus satellite phones it is a good deal compared to spending $3,000 and up for a telephone system. Plus it is a cordless system so you only need to attach the base unit to an actual telephone jack and you can put the other phones anywhere there is an electrical outlet - thus saving money we would have spent having additional phone jacks installed. Some of the pros are price, and the cordless phones are very convenient and easy to use and we use the speakerphone a lot which is simple to actuate and the sound quality is good. The multi-line calls are easy to manage once you get used to the system and putting people on hold is simple. Negatives are the beeping sound when another call comes in on another line and you're talking to someone (at which point you can no longer hear them for a second or two); putting people into our voice mail system is clunky (we use AT&T) as we have to hit flash, dial AT&T's #, then hit flash again and wait until the caller is done before hanging up. The Panasonic unit's built-in messaging and voice mail system were un-workable for us because of unnacceptable sound quality - the message people heard when calling in sounded grainy and muddy. The phone's built-in messaging system had a confusing menu system and we could not figure out how to set up individual mail boxes and have staff sort through them easily, so we abandoned these features. This is probably the worst feature of the phone for us, but then we do not depend on voice mails and the telephone as much as other firms might (emails are our most critical communicating medium). However we put up with the inconvenience given the price and that we love the cordless handsets. We do not roam far from the base units and find the cordless range to be as good as we need it for and we have walked to the parking lot or across the street with no loss of sound quality. Another negative is sometimes sound level for callers who often have to ask my staff to speak up, but this only happens occasionally. We have been happy with the system and it kept costs down when we were starting the office; however when we get more money saved up we are moving up to a standard $3,000+ telephone system. In summation we would buy the Panasonic system again given the circumstances and recommend it for small offices who want to keep start-up costs low. We have an open office and we often run around carrying our cordless phones to different areas to look at things while talking; if you have this kind of creative environment this phone is a good choice. However some of the built-in features may be inadequate as mentioned above, but for us they are outweighed because of the benefits of cost, convenience and flexibility.

We had the prior version of this phone system and it worked quite well for serveral years. We upgraded to the newer version, but it is not an upgrade. I dont like the fact I cant delete a message manually. And, for some reason when a caller disconnects from our phone #, these phones "hang on" to the # and thus records a "busy tone." I get at least 4 a day, so annoying. Also, our recorded message wont work for our VM unless all three line are "lit up". But, if they are "lit up" then all three ring and you dont who the caller is trying to reach, because EVERY phone handset is ringing. So sad that you cant just have a phone system do its job...answer, record and DELETE a message and HANG UP when it supposed to. I do not recommend it, not one bit.