Addition by Multiplication: Expandable Cordless Phones

By Jonathan Berohn

There's usually not a lot to get excited about when it comes to phones.  Yes-touchtone was a big deal.  And cordless certainly was about as revolutionary as you'll get when talking about the household phone.  Oh yeah-and then there was caller ID-also quite useful.  By and large, though, you don't usually look forward to picking out that new phone with the excitement reserved for more high-end electronics like TVs and stereos.

Phones without Phone Jacks

OK-that's still the case, but a new generation of cordless phones has actually broken significant new ground.  Just when every house is being built with a phone jack in every room, it turns out we don't need them any more.  With the new expandable cordless phones, you simply need one jack, and you can add phones wherever you have an electric outlet.  Depending on what you want to spend, you can add anywhere from one to seven additional phones to one base unit.  I know-it would seem that the idea of a portable cordless phone is to make such a glut of phones unnecessary, but more modest expansion-like one or two additional handsets-are quite useful.  While one phone in each room is overkill, one per floor makes life a lot easier when it comes to finding and recharging the phone.

Choices

Most of your major phone manufacturers make expandable cordless phone systems now, but the two most recommended by the electronics stores I visited were AT&T and Panasonic.  Both companies make solid, reliable phones backed by a company that you know has more than passing experience with cordless phones.  I opted for a Panasonic model primarily because my old phone was a Panasonic and I had good results with it.

Panasonic KX-TG2344

The model I chose has both caller ID and a digital answering machine built in.  The bare bones requirements for me.  It comes with one extra handset, but that's all the expansion you get.  For me that wasn't a problem, as I wanted a phone for our main floor and one for my basement office.  If you think you might want more handsets, you should look at the more expandable phones.  You will pay a lot more for those, however, so make you need the extra capacity before going that route.  For my needs, the $90 one-handset option was far more attractive than the $150+ for additional capabilities.  The model I bought also has useful features such as a speakerphone built into the handset and the capability to transfer programmed numbers from one phone to the next.  All in all, Panasonic makes an excellent phone that lets you eliminate some of the extra wiring that is starting to inundate us all.