Home > Consumer Reviews > AT&T E5965C 5.8 GHz DSS Expandable Cordless Phone with Answering System

I purchased the E5965C about 2 months ago. Although I have not had this phone long enough to write a review on the phone's overall long term reliability, I can at least comment on some of it's features. Since I have a wireless router in my house that operates on the same wireless spectrum as this phone, I was initially concerned about interference. I haven't experienced any yet. Both the phone and my router have worked fine. Occassionally I do experience an odd feedback or echo when I speak on the phone only heard by myself and not the other caller. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my wireless router. Unfortunately, the ability to "sync" phonebooks from an additional handset to the base unit is nonexistent, but this was not an issue because we rarely use the phonebook feature on our cordless phones anyway. These handsets have a short battery life so you may need set the phones back on the charger at the end of each night. I find the battery life of the AT&T phones to be near exhaustion only after 2 days (considering talk time and standby time combined). The best feature I find about this phone is the additional handsets that can be purchased separately. The additional handset does not require an additional wall phone jack. This frees up uneccessary cords. You can also play recorded messages from the answering machine through your additional handset from anywhere in the house. The ringers to choose from are not the best I've ever heard, but this is not a cell phone. All-in-all this has been an excellent phone to date. I give this phone 4 instead of 5 stars for the following reasons:

-inability to sync phone book from additional handset to base
-strange feedback that I occassionally hear

here's the skinny - land lines have not caught up with the technology available for cell phones. so if you think you can duplicate that level of features and ease of use - forget it. won't happen no matter what brand you choose.

that said, the 5965C is ok. but i'm likely returning mine after about 2 weeks of use. here's why:

1 - the base, the answering machine and the handset all have seperate memories. that means if you have new calls, or miss a call you have to clear the message from the display on the handset AND the display on the base as well as pick up your messages from the machine. and by the way, it's done by scrolling through those calls one at a time! now if the base and the handset are in separate rooms and used by more than one person, this might make sense - but not for a single user. this was the one issue that made me nuts.

2 - there is no integration between the phone book on the base and the phone book on the handset - they are completely separete systems. but again if you have more than one handset or more than one user this might make sense. everyone gets their own phonebook.

3 - the caller id features are not well implemented. there is a voice announce for caller id but it says the number, not the name. on call waiting, with the handset, the id doesn't show until almost the third beep - by the time you see who's calling they've hung up! the CID log lists the last 50 calls, repeating people who have called multiple times. the panasonic TG5571M that i'm testing claims to list the last 50 DIFFERENT numbers and if folks have called more than once, it indicates that (with a x3 for instance).

that said the 5965C has an excellent speaker phone on the base and the handset, a clear out going message and very clear reception (although i did notice some digital feedback on occasion). i found the handset comfortable to hold and very user friendly.

as i mentioned, at the moment i'm testing a panasonic TG5571M - running both phones at the same time before i make the final decision on the 5965C. first comparative observations:

1 - the handset on the panasonic isn't as comfortable
2 - there isn't a display on the TG5571M base comparable to the 5965C - so i lose that second set of 50 phonebook entries but i no longer have to clear everything in more than one place.
3 - i plugged my ipod into then TG5571M and recorded my own ringtones - very cool!!! i'll trade the color display on the 5965C for that feature any day!
4 - the panasonic claims that it can learn your call preferences - that is whether you need to dial the area code or a 1 - and then it saves the number accordingly from the caller id info. haven't tested this yet on the panasonic, but on the 5965C i had edit every local number before redialing or entering it into the phone book to eliminate the area code - a real pain.

i bought the 5965C because it was highly rated by consumer reports and in many respects it's a good phone. but there is zero elegance to the way the features are implemented. this is likely the case with all land line phones but i'm willing to try a few more out before being a semi-satisfied and occasionally very frustrated customer.

We have had this phone, and a single extension over 6 months now. Both have worked flawlessly for us. We went through a variety of 5.8 GHz phones (Motorola, Panasonic, and the gawd-awful 2.4 GHz Siemens), and this AT&T has beat them hands-down. It has great range, great voice quality, and we especially like the rechargeable NiCad batteries that don't cost as much as a dinner at Outback to replace.

Our single gripe is this: when you pick up either ringing phone from its base, you still have to hit "Talk" to answer the call. Both the Panasonic and the Motorola, and yes, even the Siemens answered the call when you picked up the phone from the base, but not this AT&T phone. The unfortunate thing is that we became used to this, and STILL put the ringing phone up to our ear and say, "Hello? Hello?" Our kids just laugh and laugh at this.

This gripe is truly minor, though we would expect more from AT&T. That notwithstanding, we highly recommend this phone.

I've been using this phone for about 5 months now, and I'm reasonably happy with it. Sound quality is good, battery life sufficient for my purposes, etc.

The big flaw is that the answering machine and the phone are not well integrated. The interface for configuring and using the phone is quite good. The interface for the asnwering machine is quite different and rather difficult. So the whole unit is somewhat like an apple glued to a pancake.

A minor flaw is that calls are timestamped with the day of the week, not the date. This is fine unless you're going away for several weeks at a time.

This phone has a great sound as long as you have a noise filter if you use DSL. It took me buying 3 diffrent phones(3 brands) to find in the user manuel this information. Not even AT&T customer service gave me this important info, so if you have DSL and buy any 5.8 cordless you may need a filter. If you have fuzz or static try this before you return to the store. Phone has many options that others do not. Wall paper isn't great but is a nice feature. I like the way this phone hangs on the wall unlike the others 5.8 this one does not stick out too far on the wall. Ring tone are not the best but if you like the way cellphone sound than the tone are just fine. Give this phone a try and do not forget the filter. TLAdams