Home > Consumer Reviews > Motorola MD491 2.4 GHz Digital Cordless Phone with Corded Base, 2 Handsets, and Answering System (Silver)

I have had the Motorola MD491 phone for about a week and so far it is great.

Good stuff:

1. The menu system and displays are easy to read and use.
2. Range is excellent- I can walk all the way to the edges of my yard.
3. The handsets are a nice size and have a comfortable grip.
4. Each cordless handset has a speakerphone. I am not normally much of a speakerphone person, but I have used this feature a lot and it works very well.
5. This system could double as a baby monitor, wireless intercom, or eavesdropping device, since you can set the intercom to auto-answer mode or room monitor mode.
6. It seems like a good deal, since most 'phone system' packages in this price range only come with 1 cordless handset.

Minor Drawbacks:

1. In the event of a power failure, the base phone will not work on phone line power without the batteries installed.
2. This phone system allows a great deal of personalization between handsets, which sounds like it would be a great idea if each person kept a cordless handset to themselves. However, in some cases it can be a nuisance. For example, each handset has a private and shared directory of phone numbers. The ring tones only apply to the private directory, so if you want a special ring everywhere when a known caller id is displayed, you'll have to put a person in the directory multiple times.
3. Each phone retains its own memory of whether or not you've looked at the new calls. It would be nice to just send a 'clear all caller id' command to all phones once you have checked the caller id in one place. This is a common problem with having different caller id boxes in the same household- but an integrated phone system would be the ideal place to solve it.
4. Ring tones are a nice feature, but there are only 2 really - a ring for known callers and the default ring. It would be better if this could be caller-specific, at least until all the available ring tones were used.

Followup 4 months later...

After living with this phone for a while, I still like the handsets very well, but I have found additional minor annoyances with the base unit:
First, every time you press a key the phone beeps- in addition to the DTMF beep from the process of dialing. Hearing the dual beep is confusing when dialing or using voice mail systems if you are used to the standard touch tones.
Second, although the base unit is small and looks good, the keys are tiny and positioned at angles, so you lose the ability to just feel the numbers as you would on a standard grid layout. Sometimes you really need to pay attention to press the correct key...
Finally, there is a delay when you put the handset back on the base before the phone actually closes the connection.

I am on my 3 set because I was lucky enough to have bought the replacement warranty from PC Richards the first 2 times around. I got this phone because I wanted a corded base and cordless phones too. I was happy to find this combo with expandable base units that don't require jacks. I have Optimum Voice, which runs through my cable modem and I have never experienced any problems with the phone not dialing due to the phone service. HOWEVER, I am on my 3rd set as I mentioned because the handsets seem to loose the ability to dial certain numbers over time. In one instance the handset stopped consistently dialing the number 3 in less than 6 months of buying the phone. When I say it won't dial, I mean you push the button and nothing comes up on the screen. It started out as you having to push harder, then pushing hard and with a little upward pressure, then now, it just won't dial.

I am beside myself because I now have to go out and buy a new handset or go with another phone. The options on this phone are so great. Some of the reviews I read indicate to me that they didn't quite understand how to use the phone correctly. You can turn a ringer or or lower the volume on any phone and the handsets can be set to automatically change depending on the time of day (i.e. in children's rooms you can have the ringer turn off at "night") and the volume buttons on the side work instantly if you've forgotten to change the ringer in advance.

The ability to call back from the caller ID with either an area code or none is a huge plus. You can store tons of numbers, intercom the other phones, even use the phones as a room monitor (if your baby monitor is already in use elsewhere) I love the size of the phone, it is a little heavy, but feels substantial and solid and the button layout and size is great. Some phones have such little buttons you press 2 at once in error.

I hear superior sound quality, and have range enough to drive away from my house and make it down the block before I loose the call (sometimes I forget it's not a cell!)

You can set the caller ID to give you info on your call waiting incoming call, but this must be set up through the OV website. Sometimes I have calls that come in as "incoming call" but those have people have had unlisted numbers, (not blocked numbers). If they are blocked, it comes up as "blocked call". I believe that the people who were having some issues may have been unaware of how to set some functions up.

Regardless of all the pluses, the phone I have sitting next to me now does not dial the number 3 and the 1 and 0 are starting to "stick" so I have to caution everyone to buy the replacement warranty or go with another phone. My friend has the same phone and told me about her phone "crapping out" before I ever had a problem, so it's not just me, or how I use my phone.

Happy phone shopping!

We bought this phone after previous reviews indicated good sound quality. Out phone has very poor sound quality, both in the wireless handsets and in the answering machine playback. The setup is good with both the wireless and the wired handsets, but overall we are unhappy with the system.

The other good reviews gave this phone 5 stars and claim good sound quality. I must have a bad phone since I can hardly understand anyone speaking through the cordless phone -- the corded handset sounds great. I did not have any wireless equipment running at the time. I plan to return the unit(s) ASAP!

Here's a little public service announcement from a 6-month MD491 system owner. I give the phone 4 stars because it does have good sound quality -- from the handsets and the messaging system -- great handset range, and it has lots of great and easy to use features that I haven't seen elsewhere, like the ability to dial from the caller ID with or without area codes -- you tell it your area code and it removes local area codes, and puts a 1 in front of LD numbers. It also has both shared "phonebooks" (across base and handsets) and private phonebooks (on each handset) so the primary handset users can have their own phonebooks.

I drop it one star for two reasons. First and most importantly, the touch tones are not recognized by any VoIP box I have tried (multiple Scientific Atlanta and Primus/Lingo boxes). Specifically, you press the 4 button and the VoIP box does not recognized you pushed a button at all. This is a non-issue for standard phone service. I used it for 6 months with AT&T and SBC. But if you are using (or plan to use) a VoIP service (Lingo, Time Warner Digital Phone...) you should consider a different phone - like the MD681. The second is the answering machine software is a little clunky -- for instance, it records "blank" messages when people don't say anything and then hang up, and you can only delete a message beore or during playback -- not just after playback.

Even after 6 months, their customer support was very helpful and they have sent me a replacement phone for the VoIP problem.