Panasonic KX-TG1034 Quad 1-Line Cordless Phone

I have always liked Panasonic products - they always seem to be well thought-out and logical to operate.

The KX-TG1034 cordless phone is generally along those lines. This is a digital cordless phone with 4 handsets using the new DECT 6.0 technology (1.9 GHz). This means you can use it without interfering with your wireless home network/Internet - a big reason why we got this phone system. We have been using the system for about two weeks.

The pack came with 4 handsets but can handle up to 6 if you require that many handsets. The voice quality is very good.

A great feature we love is the intercom system - each handset can page and talk with any other individual handset.

The Answering System is a standard digital model with good playback quality. Features are standard answering machine. The answering system can be accessed from any of the handsets or remotely through the input of a code.

The phonebook holds 50 numbers - once you get the numbers input into one handset - you then go through the menu and copy that number set to all (or some) of the remaining handsets - a great feature! I can recall doing individual handsets with our older coreless phone.

The range of the unit is great as well - in our two story house it easily hooks up with the one room over the garage through several walls and a floor. The phone reaches outside about 100 ft, so anyplace on our suburban lot is accessible.

OK - now for a couple of small gripes:

The answering machine allows you to screen call. However, if screening is turned on - ALL the handsets screen calls - we turned screening off after being awakened a couple of times by early weekend callers played out on ALL the handsets - effectively waking everyone in our house. As far as I can see, you can't have just the base station screen calls - how dumb is that?

Gripe #2 - the handsets are all identified by numbers, 1-4 in our case. It would have been nice to change the ID to something more personal like "Hallway" or "Jon's Rm" and so on. That way, when you use the intercom you don't have to remind yourself where each of the handsets are. It’s a small thing - but one that I thought Panasonic would have thought of.