Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic KX-TCD650 Digital Cordless Phone - Twin Handset

The phone appears reasonable in build quality and performance, but there are a few quirks that I wish I had known before buying. If you read this, then you will.

1 - The display is hopeless, cryptic and virtually unreadable by virtue of 7 segment LCD only being able to display a limited number of characters, therefore N = M, V = U etc etc. I can honestly say that I have not seen a worse display on any electronic equipment in years, far less on something which is supposed to be user friendly.

2 - Following on from that, the Caller ID and the phone list are numbers only - no names (and the numbers are pretty difficult to read, too). Can you believe, they give you a little section of the instruction manual where you can write down your speed dial numbers..... "For convenience"!!!!!!!!

3 - There are two power supplies - one for the handset and one for the base station. Although they are visiually the same, they are different voltages and, according to a little suplementary leaflet, use of the wrong one can damage the equipment. Also, the socket for the adapter is a little dodgy, if you don't have the plug in at the exact right angle, it doesn't make contact.

So, this is not the Panasonic I have long trusted to produce decent telephony equipment.