Instead of some awful electronic ringing sound, this home telephone sings in Chinese to you! Hmmmm ... well it gets your attention anyway.
HOME TELEPHONE HANDSET
ODTED
Chinese design & manufacture
Model KX-T8400CID
Desktop AND wall mounting (two screw slot system)
Creme/White case & handset
This phone is ALMOST brand new, I just got it to have a look at and then put it away (my hobby is telephones, ALL telephones no matter how strange they may be)
It has features galore but I have only used and tested the most basic of them.
Lift the handset and dial your number, works fine
Handsfree works fine and is powered from the telephone line, volume is very good although I cannot figure out how to raise or lower the volume!
Incoming calls it SINGS to you (batteries must be installed), I have no idea what she is singing as it is Chinese or Korean perhaps.
Along with the singing, all around the outside of the phone flashes blue!!!
If you do not have the batteries installed (3x AA) then it reverts to a typical electronic ringing sound.
If the lady singing doesn't get your attention, the blue lights will.
Great for senior persons where the eyesight isn't what it used to be! as it has VERY LARGE BUTTONS - much easier to see than the tiny buttons on modern landline home phones.
You can use the phone as it is or when you insert 3x AA batteries in the back it then has extra features like a call timer, clock and the singing plus lights mentioned above. You do not need the batteries for the hands free feature. This display is very graphical with little birds flying across the screen and the clock face has hands - much less digital looking.
I noticed the LCD coloured display is quite difficult to read in strong daylight but inside the house where the light is much less subdued it is fine.
Another feature:
There are two keys supplied - insert in the rear panel lock and the phone can ONLY take incoming calls - you cannot dial anyone with the keypad locked.
This feature would be useful if control over who is making outgoing calls is needed.
Switch on the rear panel allows for pulse dialling instead of tone, it is very unlikely anyone would want to use pulse dialling these days.
It also has a HOLD feature, this sends one of those tacky electronic songs down the line to the caller while they wait - very irritating tune after a short while. It may be possible to turn it off but I haven't figured out how to do this, if it is even possible.
I haven't made myself familiar with the other features but I can assure the buyer that all the features described (and most people need) do work fine.
Supplied ready to plug into a standard Telstra socket or the more modern little RJ12 type socket.
This telephone will work with the old dedicated Telstra telephone line to your house or a VOIP service such as you get with an NBN connection (plug the telephone into the phone port on the modem supplied to you. Of course you must have your VOIP service enabled by your internet provider)
TESTING:
Tested the telephone using both a dedicated old fashioned telephone connection and also through our NBN connection provided by TPG - works fine in both situations.
