Home > Consumer Reviews > AT&T 5830 5.8 GHz Cordless Speakerphone System

This phone has great range, excellent clarity, clean good looks, and simple to operate. No interference from the microwave or wirless computer link...on either end of the conversation! (I have the 2.4 Ghz wireless B). Also has the annoucing CID which is cool. This phone is the same thing as the V-Tech 5.8Ghz in different clothing. The only thing it's missing for me is the locking keypad. I have tried several other 2.4 and 5.8 Ghz and this one seems to have the best reception (Uniden & Siemens had poor rnage) and sound quality (Panasonics had poor voice quality) of all the ones I've tried. I have tried Panasonic 2.4 and 5.8, Uniden Tru 5.8, and Siemens 8825. It may not have all the features that a SOHO may need or want but if you want a phone that works well for talking in a normal household, this is it! (If you really need a phone with lots of features you'll have to get a real phone system and spend some real money)

There are many neat features on this phone. I especially like the talking caller ID. No more dashing to the phone to see who it is. The speaker phone and handsfree speaker on hand piece work nicely and callers have mentioned how clear we are. I am still waiting for my addional handsets to arrive to see how it all works together. Purshased sets for intercom purposes. The only draw back has been not having an answering machine. I had to hook up to a message center through our local telecommunications company. The 5840 model has all the same bells and whistles and the digital answering machine. For the addional money it would be worth it. Message center costs are expensive and the addtional would pay for itself in a few months. The 5840 has addional mail boxs set up for more than one person in the household with seperate blinking lights. Good luck!

Before I begin my review of the BEST cordless phone I have ever used, I thought some fun facts were in order...

1876 Telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell (believe it or not, the fax machine was invented ~15 years prior to this)
1913 AT&T becomes a government sanctioned monopoly
1946 AT&T begins offering mobile telephone service (this is true!)
1958 AT&T starts selling modems (almost a decade before DARPA creates the internet and more than a quarter century before consumers have access to the WWW)
1984 AT&T is torpedoed by Judge Green's Modified Final Judgement (MFJ) -- this effectively ushers in competetition which drives innovation, and lower prices
2000 AT&T still hasn't woken up to the reality of MFJ (i.e., it's break-up) and is charging rates as high as 35 CPM for domestic calls to more than 20 million of it subscribers
2003 With the introduction of the 5800 series phones, and a new residential VoIP offer, AT&T starts to signal to main street and wall street that it is willing to wake up to the realities of today's marketplace

But you don't need to know the above to appreciate what is, in my opinion, the BEST cordless phone on the market (and I have tried many!). Here's the deal with the AT&T 5800 series...
+ Uses 5.8 Ghtz band and "Frequency Hopping Technology" to eliminate static and security issues
+ Awesome speakerphone on the base station
+ Ergonomics of the unit are unsurpassed
+ Each handset has a speakerphone built into it -- while these speakerphones are not as crisp as the one on the base station, they come in handy when interfacing with those annoying recorded menus that most companies are using today
+ All units include visibile message waiting indication (great for those with voice mail)
+ The unit just feels substantial (they have the sturdy feel of AT&T's old Western Electric produced phones that felt like they could drive rail road spikes)
+ Expansion handsets don't require RJ11 jacks to get dial-tone, they use the house wiring and they also auto-seek the base unit to simplify set-up and intercom signaling
+ For convenience, calls can be transferred from one handset to another
+ Base unit will "speak" the caller ID information -- this is especially convenient for those frequent times that you can't angle around to see the caller ID display

There are some light cons to...
+ The voice mail waiting indication light is so bright (and it blinks) that it has woken me up at nights (the only way to turn it off is to clear voice mail messages)
+ The 5800 series isn't so much a phone as it is a whole house phone system, as a result of this and the EXTREMELY high quality of the product, it is a little more expensive than the 5.8 Ghtz offerings from it's competition -- my opinion is that the extra ten or twenty bucks is well worth it

And I thought the following would be helpful as well...
1) In the past, most cordless phone providers made outrageous claims regarding the range or distance the handset could travel from the base station (AT&T makes no claims with this unit) -- wise shoppers should expect no more than 250 ft of range with the 5800 series
2) For those using the new VoIP technology to save on phone service (e.g. Vonage, Packet8, BroadVoice, Phonom, etc.), this system provides an excellent solution to the whole house wiring problems that these types of services tend to create

I purchased this phone after reading some glorious revirws here. The phone is good, especially the voice clarity. I ended up returning the phone, because a) the batteries did not last longer than 10 hours - even without using the phonr. ( but I may just picked up a lemon). The second annoying feature was the continuous message blinking of the base unit - even having erased all messages. Only unplugging and replugging of the unit alleviated the problem.
I bought the Panasonic 5.8 GHz instead and am quite happy with it.

The 5.8 AT&T 5830 has been our best cordless phone thus far. Our Condo seems to be "wireless" challenged from some reason, but this baby sounds crystal clear! Our set is almost two years old and still kicking, with no failures. I intend to buy another and store it, because our path to this particular model was slow, frustrating and expensive.