Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic KX-TG5240M GigaRange Supreme 5.8 GHz DSS Expandable Cordless Phone with Answering System

the phone is great just stay away from the base. when you get near the base people on the other end tell me it sounds like a chopped up cell phone. Living in New York City you are sometimes always near the base. Come on panasonic, for having good features, make the phone able to work near the base, and why was this not tested before release?????

A friend spent a long time deciding what new cordless system to purchase to replace his older Siemens 2.4Ghz system. He excitedly ordered this phone from Amazon when it was available and set it up right away without any issues. Then he started making phone calls. He must have called me about a dozen times one day to test out the sound quality. Every time he called me it sounded horrible. It sounded as though he was on an old bad quality cell phone. He was garbled and hard to understand. And that's sitting in the same room as the base station. He called Panasonic support and they recommended that he move the base station further away from other electronics, like the computer. He did this and still no improvement. So he is now returning the Panasonic phone and buying the Uniden TRU8885. Will have to see if that one is any better.

Beware of the handset interference within a short distance of the base unit. The talking caller ID is absolutley laughable. And the battery life will deteriorate extremely fast. I had to return my unit for repair because the base unit started to produce severe static causing the answering machine playback and calls to be inaudible. They would not give a refund and have to wait until they receive my unit before sending me out a "refurbished" unit. Still waiting without a phone for 10 days. I think there are a lot of Amazon shoppers from Panasonic... Check out the class action lawsuit that is pending. http://www.sheller.com/Practice.asp?PracticeID=140

I bought the 5240 for my business and was happy with it right away. Since it's important for me to have my hands free while talking, I use a Panasonic headset (a cheapie). The voice quality is fine, and when I use the Voice Enhancement feature it's even better. I also have a wireless network (running at 2.8 GHz) and have run into no problems with the two frequencies running so close together. I'm able to walk well away from the base with no cut out problems, either. Talking Caller ID is cool, but not too useful. The handset by itself isn't too comfortable, but it's fine.

The main problem I've had is with the display on the handset. Suddenly, they became so dim I couldn't read them - but only on some of the menus. This became a little worse over the next week or so, so I exchanged. After looking at what was available, I exchanged it for another 5240 since I liked the first one so well. I ran into another display problem almost immediately with this one, but it wasn't bad enough to exchange. Six months later, I still have it and am living with the problem. When compared to sound quality, ease of use, and range, this is a minor problem.

My old Panasonic answering machine had the ability to call a pre-programmed number to notify that there is a message. They call it 'to page', but since the pagers have long gone - it just calls my cell phone and hangs up. That is the feature that I will miss a lot!

Also, I don't see it offered at Amazon, but Panasonic also has model KX-TG5243: same as this one but with three handsets. If you are planning to buy this and a handset - 5243 combination is cheaper