Review on 📞 Panasonic KX-TGC352B Cordless Phone System with Backlit Amber Display – 2 Handsets (Black) by Megan Evans

Cell phone destroyed by fire. We have a Magicjack but the old cordless phone doesn't work. So I was without a phone for several days. We are very impressed with the speedy delivery despite heavy smoke everywhere. We have had MANY cordless phones over the last 25+ years. Panasonic has always been the best. A lot of those phones had more features than these new ones, but it turns out I rarely used all those fancy features. And I absolutely don't need an answering machine because Magicjack comes with a great voicemail system. Some of the older phones cost over $200, which is about $400 in today's dollars, and they had expensive proprietary batteries. Also, the old ones only had one pipe. We used to have two cordless phones in the house. The cost of the KX-TGC352 is almost negligible compared to the old ones. Because I use a variety of devices that use AA or AAA batteries, I have a good charger and spare batteries. In one phone I replaced the included 300mah batteries with 1000mah. I charged both phones overnight and they still show a full charge this morning after an hour of use. Just to see how things go, I won't be taking them back to the bases until they run out. I suspect that I can last 2-3 days with standard batteries and at least a week with 1000 mAh. I'm not at all worried about running out of batteries as I can easily switch handsets if needed, and I also have plenty of freshly charged AAA NiMH batteries to replace. You can switch mid-call by picking up another phone and then turning off the first one. A problem was easily solved. DTMF tones were not recognized (when pressing a number in response to voice prompts). Opened up a magjack chat and the tech knew exactly what to do. changed some settings on their side and everything works fine now. I set up VM detection on the phone (Menu #332). Now when the VM is waiting, the screen will say New Voicemail, Press VM and the VM button will appear on the screen. Pressing VM takes me straight to Magicjack VM (adjust the number in Menu #331). Set the ringtone (Menu No. 161). There are 5 tones and 10 melodies to choose from. You can also mute (menu #238) or mute for a specific time (menu #237) if you don't want to hear a call while you're sleeping, for example, say between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Another setting: time. is set automatically when a call comes in. This might be fine if you're in the US East Zone, but I didn't like that it shifted in that direction. Thus, the manual setting (Menu #226) will maintain Pacific Time. I used to love having a headphone jack on older phones that I used for conference calls. This phone doesn't have a headphone jack, but to be honest if there was one I probably wouldn't ever use it. We typically use Skype, Zoom, Go-to-Meeting, or some other web-based conferencing application. On the first phone, I configured the speed dial buttons the same way as on my cell phone. With the second one I haven't installed speed dialing, but it is available if required. The phone book is shared between both phones (if you add/edit/delete an entry on one phone, it will appear on the other). There is a place for "phone name" but I don't know what that would be. Each handset has a number (1 or 2) next to the charge indicator so you can easily tell which is which. The phones appear to be identical except for these numbers. Some features like hold, call waiting, redial, etc. are present and work the same as in previous models, plus some new useful features. So this system is basic, but it has all the features I have ever used or wish I had, not a bunch of things I would never use.