Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic KX-TCD455EM - DECT Cordless Telephone With SMS Text Message

I got this phone a few days ago, and it's definately the best phone I've ever had.
I love that it displays the name of your caller, as long as the name is in the phones memory. This isn't a problem of course because their are 200 entries in the callbook, which I think is brilliant!
If you miss calls, the phone tells you how many calls you've missed, who they were, and what time and day they phoned. This list goes up to 50 missed calls, which again is brilliant!!
The phone has 20 ringtones to chose from, from the traditional ring,to things like London bridge is falling down!!(strange but true!) The rings are ok, but the melodies leave a little to be desired. However I think the phone is very reasonably priced, so I don't mind.
Another good feature is that you can personalize ringtones to various people, so when you hear a particular ring, you know exactly who it is without even going to the phone(up to 3 profiles only)
One drawback to the phone is that the flex that connects to the phone point isn't very long, which is a bit annoying. Another drawback is that you can't buy this phone as a twin or multi pack, which I find strange. You can of course just buy more phones and link them up. I wouldn't mind another one free!!
Another good point to this phone is it's ease of use, it's easy to learn, and you soon find your way around.

I think it's brilliant

Buy one!!!(or 2!)

It looks pretty cool too

Maybe I expected too much, but I have to say that my first reaction to this phone as I unpacked it was disappointment. Owing to being housebound by a bad knee I had to do all my phone research online and wasn't able to see any units before I bought, & I have to say I might not have bought this if I could have seen it beforehand. The best way to describe it is to say it's like a very old fashioned grey mobile phone with green backlighting on the LCD and number keys. The handset is a bit too small for my liking, it doesn't reach all the way from my ear to my mouth, and though I can be heard clearly I just don't feel comfortable with a small handset. The ring tones, all twenty of them, are a joke; just patterns of beeps and bleeps. In these days when even basic mobiles offer a wide range of traditional, natural and musical tones, I'm genuinely surprised that Panasonic thought these tones were adequate. And there's an aggravating short pause, just long enough to wonder if you've pressed the right button, between the time you tell the phone to dial a number & the phone actually complying.

The phone functions pretty much like a badly designed mobile. Being used to Nokia's elegant mobile software I find the menus on this phone to be awkward and non-intuitive, rather like the inscrutable instruction manual. The SMS functions are something of a dark mystery, the phone appears to say that all text messages *must* be run through a rather expensive & awkward route, involving a company called Bizzyline Ltd, even though my BT landline supports a cheaper and easier BT land-texting system. I still haven't figured out if I may forgo paying money to Bizzyline for each text, and I may not bother as, again, the SMS software is incredibly old fashioned, not even providing predictive texting. I think I'll stick to my Nokia 3330 for texts! It may be old, but it's much more sophisticated than this Panasonic.

Although in many respects this phone is a sore disappointment it does have some redeeming features. The 200 entry address book is nice, and it's good to have 20 characters for each name. Though it must be said that while the names display nice & clear the numbers are in some hard to read font. I was disappointed that even with the internal adddressbook the many foreign numbers that ring me from the US & Australia *still* don't display, the phone just says "out of area", I do accept this is probably due to BT's silly Caller Display programme rather than this phone, though. The call clarity is good, no crackles, no hisses, and people can hear me clearly. I have a bit of trouble hearing them though, even with the receiver volume turned all the way up, it is still not loud enough for me what with the trains and cars going by my flat. The handsfree speakerphone is loud enough however, and rather a nice feature in itself. I can't really comment on the range as I live in a tiny central London flat. It's nice not having to store the handset in the base unit, really the phone can be treated like the slightly-mobile phone it is.

What can I say? As far as basic functions go this phone is perfectly adequate if not enthralling. It makes & receives telephone calls without too much difficulty and can be carried around while talking with no interference to your conversation. Those who like such things can wear it on a belt clip & use a headset. It doesn't cost that much money, and I've read reviews suggesting that none of thes Digital Cordless phones are that good yet anyway. Still, in the end, I have to admit it has left me wishing I'd spent more and got a bigger model with better software and a human-friendly instruction manual.