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BT Duet 20
by ots1987
Our old portable landline broke and we decided to just get a very basic landline as we both used our mobiles more anyway, so didn't see the point in a fancy landline phone.
We went to Tesco and were just going to get their Everyday Value phone, but saw the BT Duet for just a few pounds more at only £11.50.
It comes ... boxed with instructions (but who needs instructions for using a phone these days?!), and an optional attachment for mounting it on the wall. We decided to use this as we have a grabby toddler so wanted to keep it out of his reach.
It's just a basic phone, with a section at the top of the handset for writing your own phone number in, something which is very useful for us as my husband is always forgetting our number! There are four extra buttons below the keypad which are pause, redial, secrecy and call waiting. There is a slider on the side of the handset to change the ringer volume or mute it, and a light on the front which flashes when it's ringing. This is very useful as I often turn the ringer to mute if my son is having a nap, so if a call comes in, I will still know (if I think to look at the phone that is!). It would also be useful to people who are slightly hard of hearing.
Physically, it's a nice shape to hold comfortably, and nice and light so you can speak for hours quite happily (which is a good thing when I get on the phone to my sister!).
It's quite a basic phone and doesn't have contact programming or anything like that, but considering most people have a mobile phone these days I don't see this as a big problem.
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BT Duet 20
by Nar2
A couple of weeks ago before I went on holiday I was in the midst of getting things organised to go when the phone rang for the umpteenth time. Another blessed call centre offering me solar panels when my house isn't south facing! Trying to get these people to remove my name from data books is impossible and even if my home phone ... landline has an extra facility paid each month so that companies can't withhold their telephone number when ringing me still doesn't make a blind bit of difference - I'm pestered continually with call centres trying to sell me something I don't need. In my haste after receiving the fourth call that day, I slammed down my trusty cordless Siemens phone hoping that would be the end of it - and the end it certainly was as no one could phone me back that day since I had inadvertently broken the phone without my knowing! I may have loved the idea of a cordless DECT phone many years ago, but if you have to make long calls, sometimes the batteries in mine are either half-mast of power or running out after an hour of call time. I have wanted to change all the phones in the home to the corded type, as they are far simpler and far more reliable than having to change the batteries every couple of months.
However I have owned quite a few corded phones beforehand that were cheap to buy and from companies like John Lewis who paid license from Binatone, a company that has been touch and go with me where the reliability and design of their corded phones are concerned. Although my last phone has been utterly reliable, the one designed to replace the Siemens handset would be placed in my room and would have to be better made as well as put up with being slammed down from time to time.
The Price, The Product & The Promise
Well, three weeks ago I bought myself a BT Duet 20 2 piece corded phone. I had read a couple of fine reviews online regarding this phone, so I knew what to expect in the first process of use and general design - and at the cost price of £19-99 from a nearby private electrical shop, the price I paid was a bit expensive compared to EBay UK prices selling these at £5 compared to Tesco and Amazon at £13 to £15. But, despite that BT have now replaced this phone with the Duet 210, a slightly larger looking hand set with bigger and clearer buttons incase anyone has bad eye sight. Where I bought this phone at, the sales lady did offer the newer 210 model but I liked the look and feel of the BT Duet 20 as it is slightly curvier looking and has all the features I would require with a big red LED arrow on the top of the hand set that shines any time there is a call and more importantly acts as a silent alert if you have switched the 1980's electronic ringer off.
General Design, Clarity & Controls
Compared to Binatone, BT's simple Duet 20 corded telephone is a master of design excellence. Smooth, curvy and with black lettering on white soft release circular push buttons, the numerical key pad is easy to see as well as ergonomic from the way the key pad bends on either side. Inoffensive but clear is what I've expected from BT in the past and I haven't been let down here. Below the keypad there are other function buttons that have been added here from redial, secrecy, call waiting (if you have paid for the option) and mute.
To the side of the handset at the front exterior, you'll find a ringer high, low or off slider that controls the volume of the ringer alert. The phone can also be wall mounted but I much prefer the gondola cradle style that can just be left on a table and the phone's size is slim and efficient enough to be put on a bedside cabinet table without taking too much space. Two plasplugs and screws are enclosed with the box and the phone, allowing the owner to wall mount the secondary cradle - but make sure you pull out the flush tab and turn it the other way so that the accompanying phone handset can be locked on, otherwise it will fall off in an instant.
An inverse window is also added to the phone's handset so that you can write your home telephone number on.
General Performance & Downsides
The last time I had a BT corded phone was many years ago and it was a huge desktop phone that apes this slim white elephant by size and feature. Though my dark blue one had a speakerphone, it was particularly bad for showing up dust but it was a fine phone and did the job for about five years before dying off slowly. Well, having a slim white phone now in the home did present me with thoughts of having to clean it more often but I have been pleasantly surprised! The white plastic is speckled slightly to the touch and the phone seems to be well made, even right down to its curvy-coiled wire, which feels like a thicker rubber than what I've been used to with Binatone.
However it wasn't before long that I discovered despite the rubber thickness, the old adage of having a corded phone - the wire has a tendency to curve into other parts of the wire - and when reaching for a call, the hand set can pull the resting cradle along with it as a result when there's a call coming in. A gentle, slower hand is required for grabbing the phone and less of a tangle situation going on!
Where speech and clarity is concerned though, the BT Duet 20 is top notch. It makes life a lot simpler than trying to stay near a cordless phone's home base unit regardless of how far it travels from and there is no crackling on this phone compared to the last corded Binatone I had! In the amount of time I've used this phone more than I use my retro Trim phone, I have never inadvertently switched the ringer settings off or on. The position of the slider seems to have been met with negative remarks from other reviewers and owners and it is to the phone's natural ergonomic design that pulls the hand away naturally from the top when holding it.
A downside of this phone is that it doesn't have any memory presets, so you can't program the phone to accept speed dial numbers. The only facility it does have is a last number redial. The call-waiting button however also acts as a recall feature, so anyone with a small business that requires telephones on a desk could well use this phone to recall feature effect.
However, if there is one basic element of this phone's design that I appreciate, it is the basic wire that has been supplied to the wall socket. It is of average length but BT have wisely added a skeleton path on the back of the phone that allows me to lock in the excess cord away from the phone. This in effect ensures the cradle can be kept permanently on a surface without the phone taking it up each time it is lifted up to be used or receiving a call. It is a basic element of design - but one aspect that my last Binatone phone failed to have, resulting in too much cable around the back of the phone that made it look untidy.
Final Thoughts
If you need a basic corded telephone in your home, you wont go far wrong with the BT Duet 20. Even if it is being replaced in time by the chunkier BT Duet 210, the BT Duet 20 has a lot going for it on the basis that it just does what it promises and with the least amount of effort required to plug it in and "play." Though corded and though pretty basic for what it offers, the BT Duet 20 is well made, easy to keep clean and above all super simple to operate. The only fly in the ointment is that the cord can be liable to tangle up too quickly and no memory telephone numbers other than just redialling the last number you rang. The speech quality and clarity however is worth considering over cheaper rivals like Binatone and Argos Value, though! Thanks for reading. İNar2 2013.
www.bt.com
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BT Freestyle 710
by springtide
Both my Mum and Dad are in their 80's and both suffer from, in varying degrees from the condition age related macular degeneration which, although does not result in blindness can restrict vision in the centre of the eye. Mum in whom the condition is more severe loves her fixed Big Button BT phone but Dad still likes to wander about , ... (don't we all) whilst on the phone and to this end we chose a portable hand set which was recommended by The Somerset association which offers help and advice to partially sighted folks and has a range of aids like speaking clocks and weighing scales, special talking book machines and similar helpful gadgets.
Obviously the factor that was the most important was large buttons and a very clear screen and ease of use. It gets top marks for all three. You can buy up to five handsets which will cover a large house and out into the garden we went for just the one as it is only Dad that uses it.. It sits on it's neat charging stand on the hall table plugged into the mains and also into the phone line socket and provides an essential link to the outside world.
When we bought the phone kit it contained the handset, a base, two AAA batteries already in the hand set, mains power adaptor with a cord 2metres in length and a telephone cord . There was also an instruction booklet to help in setting up the phone.
It was stressed that the base station must be fully charged before you pop the handset into the base, this can take up to 20 hours to charge which seems a long time to me but as my brother was in charge of the set up and it took two days discussion as to where to place the phone maybe that's not a long time although the manual says keep the phone at least 1metre away from other electrical appliances, ours works quite happily next to the BT Big phone. We are also told not to place the handset in the bathroom or other humid areas. Although this type of phone works on the line of sight principal we can wander around the little house up and down without any loss of signal which means you can hunt for that elusive piece of paper whilst you are on the phone.
When the base is charged a battery icon lights up on the phone and you can then plug in the phone line. You then have 10hours of talk time or 100hours at stand bye.
The handset which is quite attractive looking in black and graphite. measures 5cm x 17cm x 3cm which fits comfortably into your hand and the all important screen is 4cm x3cm. When in use the letters and numbers are in bold black on a glowing orange screen, if you do not press any buttons for 30secs the screen light goes out. The buttons are big and black and the numbers are in white and are very easy to see.The phone book which can contain 50 names option is smack in the middle of the phone. One press opens the phone book and you just keep pressing until you reach the name that you want then press dial. Above the phone book button is the menu button which has a tick on it and the X button which takes you back to the previous screen, below the phone book is the call button in green and the hang up button in red.
The phone is hearing aid friendly and has speaker phone option, mute, hands free, redial, keypad lock, new call alert and 8 speed dial options, I am number 7!
I am very impressed by how easy it is to use this phone and it has certainly kept my Dad in touch with his many friends and family.Mum finds it too difficult to use but her eyesight is now very poor. The clarity of sound is very good and the volume control is responsive.
We paid around 40.00pounds for this easy to use phone which we have had for over two years and I have used it many times whist on my frequent visits. I feel that this phone would really help anyone with eye or hearing problems or, anyone who likes easy to see and easy to use phone.
5 stars from me I find it hard to fault it.
Thanks for reading my review which may also be posted on Ciao under splishsplash.
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