Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic KX-TCD 515EM DECT Cordless Telephone With Answer Machine - Metallic Silver

Very professional looking (although slightly on the large side), this phone is attractive and very feature rich. The large screen which glows a pleasant blue uses icons to navigate the menus which are, for the most part, pretty intuitive.

RING TONES
The multiple ring tones are more reminisant of a mobile phone than a home phone - most people will find one that works for them. The base station and the handset ring when a call is received - only problem there is that you can't change the base station ring which is odd (and a shame) so they clash if in the same room! The ring is very loud.

SOUND QUALITY
Impeccible - you cannot distinguish it from a hard-wired phone.

RANGE
I don't have a huge house (3 bed semi) but it works everywhere including the garage with no loss of quality.

ADDRESS BOOK
Very good, quick and easy to use - bit like a Nokia mobile although only one number per entry is possible (unlike Nokia!).

BATTERY
The batteries are AA NiCads which won't last as long as more advanced battery like a Lithium Ion, but are cheaper to replace.

ANSWERING MACHINE - POOR!!
The answer machine is not easy to switch on and off - you have to go through several menus to get to it. I would rather have a single button, preferably on the base station. In fact this is what I have on my previous BT cordless - the handset broke on this and I am still using the base station as an answering machine for this reason.

PROBLEMS
I have had it lock up when the battery gets low (but before the battery indicator shows it's dead). Removing the battery for a bit fixes it (as does charging it up again)

Overall, I'm pleased with it but it does have a few flaws which shouldn't be there in such an expensive and otherwise well-designed phone.

Bought the phone yesterday and haven't stopped playing with it! £100 is the best price I managed to find (The Link price matched) and it is worth every penny.

Had a BT Synergy 2150 that stopped charging batteries so decided to buy a new phone, and settled on the Panasonic 515EM. This Panasonic has so many great features.

It has a really nice big display that lights up so you can use the phone in the dark. The keys also light up which is very useful too.

There are some great ringtones and you can assign them to different groups (much like a mobile) so you can tell who is calling. However one even better feature is that you can add contacts to your phonebooks (one is on the handset - 200 spaces, and one on the base station - 20 spaces). If you put or transfer a contact to the base station phone book you can also record a name or message aong with the contact. And this is the cool bit, when that contact calls you it reads your message over and over again interspersed with the ring tone. Works great here - if my girlfriend's parents call I no longer have to get off my backside and pick the phone up. Hearing "Sarah's parents calling" means that Sarah has to get up and answer the phone instead.

Not that she has to get up as the wireless capabilities of this phone are great. Amazing quality and reception. There are far too many more features to list here - SMS capabilities are amazing, if a little fiddly as the person replying to your SMS has to include your home number in #number here# marks. Bit of a pain. Caller display is great (even works with Call Waiting - if another person is trying to get through you hear the beep in your ear, but you also see the number or name on the screen to decide if you want to switch and pick up the call. Digital answerphone is very good - you can access it remotely when away from the phone. You can also record your telephone conversations digitally (useful when making a complaint or wanting to record important details given to you over the phone).

All in all A BRILLIANT PHONE. What are you waiting for, go out and buy one. I did and it is the best phone I have ever had. Hey Sarah, it's your parents again.

This little phone is brilliant. I am very impressed with the clarity on the handsfree audio as it is crystal clear and great that you can use this anywhere instead of only at the base. The SMS is an added bonus. The instruction book could be a little more user friendly but once you decifer it everything works fine.
The answer phone greeting is friendly compared to the usual digitalised voice machines. I am more than happy with my new purchase and highly recommend this phone.

Now we're all used to slick and stylish mobile phones, it comes as a bit of a shock to pick up most home DECT phones these days, with their garish plastic mouldings and rat-droppings for buttons. Not only that, but most of them have a display that the average calculator would be ashamed of.
This Panasonic is different. It looks as slick and sophisticated as any mobile phone, though thankfully, since there's no need for it, it isn't as small. The (illuminated) buttons are a decent size, have a crisp action, and elicit a business-like bleep that's a refreshing change from the 'vomiting gerbil' noises that some cheaper phones make.
And it has a big multi-line backlit display that displays text and graphics instead of lesser phones' impenetrable symbols. Full marks for that.
The base station is neat, there's a belt clip so you can wander around your mansion, and even a headset socket for hands-free use. And of course there's the speakerphone function.
All very mobile. Likewise the range of ringtones, most of them classical pieces, as befits the upmarket feel of this phone. There are several traditional bleeps too if you prefer those.
This phone makes a very good first impression.
Then you read the instructions. Oh dear. Eighty-five pages (at least the whole thing is in English) of really quite badly written and organised material that's like the manual for a computer. But, not to worry, because the phone itself is quite logical in its operation. There's a nice little joystick to select the different icons of the menu system, and everything's pretty clear, helped by the multi-line display which means that menu items have a full description in words. Phew.
Perhaps this phone is a bit too clever for its own good though. It has such a myriad of functions that I wonder if I'll even remember they're there, let alone how to use them. Like all the different categories: you can put different numbers into several different categories, rename the categories, have different ringtones for each one, make the LED on the top flash different colours for different categories, have a separate list of numbers with an announcement you record yourself (the ultimate version of caller display surely), and probably more things I can't remember. Plus SMS text messaging. Still, if you like playing with your phone...
Caller display works absolutely fine on my cable system.
Irritations are very slight. When entering text in standard (as opposed to predictive) mode, and the next letter along is on the same key, you have to press a second key to tell it that. And the pre-recorded answerphone message is a female voice, which although very chatty and friendly, says that 'we' are not at home. No use for single men. But those are minor gripes.
The bottom line is that it looks and feels great, works well, has every function you could ever wish for and a few more, and will definitely impress your friends. It's more expensive than some of its rivals, but for once it's easy to see why.

Basically this is a very good DECT phone. It feals quite solid, reasonably feature rich and I've had no problems with it.

My only gripes are areas where the phone could be better. I tend to find the menuing a little counter-intuitive and as someone else here says some of the features you might like to use often are burried a little deep (like turning on/off the TAM). It would have seemed like a good idea to flash the multi-coloured LED when there is a message waiting, instead it is only used to indicate charging status and you have to look at the (unlit) display carefully to see if messages are waiting.