Panasonic Cordless Phone With Large Display And Buttons

This will be an ongoing review.

Part 1. 2024-08-30

Ordered this on 2024-08-28 and it arrived swiftly within a few hours. However, the box was very damaged. Initiated a return and ordered a second one the next morning, which arrived swiftly…also in a damaged box, but not quite as damaged as the first one’s box. I suspect that maybe a palette fell over in a warehouse, things happen. I was able to peek inside and it looked like the area where the box’s damage is were non-critical cables, so I decided to set it up to see if it works.

I’ve plugged in the phones and the batteries are now charging…for the next 7 hours. I do like that the phone states, “RECHARGE FOR 7 HRS.” That is good information that I’ve never had on a landline before. I’ve tested both of the phones with their ~25% charge, and each gave me a dial tone. Once they are both fully charged, I looked forward to getting them setup and tweaked.

A few other initial thoughts. The large font on the phone’s relatively large and bright screen are nice, making it very easy to read. The font’s on the base / answering machine are also large and easy to read. I wear +2.5 to +3.0 strength reading glasses when I read, but I can make out all the text on the phones and the base without them. A very good thing!

Part 2. Coming soon.

Panasonic lasts a very long time and they are easy to use

My mom likes the large buttons and easy read screen. She uses reading glasses on her cell phone, these are big enough to not need her glasses. The volume control is really good as she is loosing her hearing and it goes really loud so she can hear and does not have to ask “What” all the time. There is even more volume then she needs, she loves that!

However it is not as easy to program and figure out as decribed.described. I managed to do it but it took a lot of time to program and input all the info it asked for. My mom would have given up on it if I hadn’t set it up for her. Now she likes it once it was allset up

I was impressed with this phone on unpacking, and liked the compact handset and functionality. I had purchased it for my mother who has dementia and is hearing impaired. She had been trying out one of the picture phones, but the sound was totally deficient considering these are made for the elderly (check this feature out carefully if you are buying one). I thought this Panasonic phone would be simple enough to use and provide the decibel level we were missing with the picture phone.

The interesting thing I learned in trying to teach her how to use this phone is that we basically need to relearn how to use a cordless landline phone, as many of us haven’t used one in over 20 years now. Most elderly innately understand the original corded handset that you hold to your ear and replace in the base to disconnect. Where the cordless landline is more similar to a cell phone (which my mom had been using for the past 15 years or so), there are some key differences that are critical to the proper usage of this phone. Primarily, the phone line must be disconnected at the end of the call. That requires the user to tap the OFF button or replace the handset in the base. One party can disconnect a call on a cell phone, a landline requires both to disconnect. This can be dangerous for seniors who fail to end the call properly, and leave the line open. You can’t text them and tell them it’s off the hook either! Secondly, placing a call requires two steps as opposed to one. Even the “Favorites” button (which ideally would be labeled) covers ALL “favorites”, so requires multiple button presses to reach the desired party. I was the only Favorite designated on my mom’s phone, but it still required two taps to make the connection. As an aside, even though I advised my mom that there were essentially only three buttons she needed to know, the busy display and sheer number of buttons and labels was likely overwhelming to her.

Our tests with the Boost feature didn’t seem to be too successful, as the only step we took that made the calls clear enough for her was using the speaker phone. I personally would have labeled the speaker phone “Speaker” rather than “Sp Phone”, as I think the former is more recognizable terminology. I also think the speaker should be a major button, not a minor one in terms of size as it is so commonly used. Likewise, I think “END” would be clearer than “OFF”, but these are just my opinions.

Because I did not get to utilize many of the other features, I withheld a star from my rating, but that does not indicate any disappointment with the phone’s performance. If I had a landline, I would love this phone and even debated keeping it for myself. I think it is well-designed and while not necessarily configured intuitively, it still packs a lot of functionality into one compact phone. The ability to purchase it with multiple handsets is a big plus. In summary, my only issue with the phone was its potential unsuitability for a senior, particularly one with hearing or cognitive impairment. Otherwise, it’s a good phone for the money.

Footnote – Panasonic gets extra points for including a diagram on the top flap of the outer box on how to repack the phone. This packaging was an engineering feat on its own, and repacking it in the same configuration would have been impossible without the diagram!