VTech EV2650 2.4GHz cordless phone system

There are few cordless phone deals better than this box set from VTech. For $79.95 (MSRP), the EV2650 offers up two phones for the price of one. The system comes with two handsets, a base unit featuring an integrated digital answering machine with three mailboxes, and the now-familiar separate expansion charger set that plugs into an electrical outlet in any room.

As with most things, however, you get what you pay for. This bundle suffers from two major flaws. First, the battery life shrivels in a relatively short period of time. And second, you can't add any more phones to the system: what you buy is what you get, which, as we'll point out, isn't entirely logical.

With its two-tone, powder-blue-and-off-white color scheme, this pretty phone would look perfect in the Victorian lace-filled home of a little old lady (although what she'd do with three mailboxes we're not sure). Well spaced and backlit in bright orange, the dial-pad keys, along with a three-line LCD screen, make dialing and using the phone easy, even for folks with less than 20/20 vision.

Those who are accident prone should be wary though: the handset sits uneasily upright in the compact base and is surprisingly easy to knock over. Plus, the short stub antenna comes to a rounded point that could put out an eye.

The feature set is extensive: conference calling, a handset speakerphone, a 50-name/number caller ID and call-waiting caller ID (for subscribers), a 50-name phone book that isn't transferable between handsets, a handset-to-handset intercom, programmable ring and key tones, call transfer between handsets, and memo record on the base. Still, you can't record a call unless you wait for the answering machine to kick in and record it as a message. The digital chip can hold 15 minutes of messages, but there is no way to limit the length of an incoming message. A caller can spend as long as 4 minutes rambling. The machine cuts people off only if there's just 30 seconds left on the chip.

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