BT Freelance XD1500 (BT Freelance XD1500 Trio)

Member Name: chris212

Product:	BT Freelance XD1500 Trio
Date:	28/07/09 (395 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Phone call clear and precise - Cheap

Disadvantages: Started to develop a click - Not most interesting design

The BT Freelance XD1500 is a phone that is branded with the BT logo, that includes a base station with an answer phone, as well as a number of satellite phones. The handsets are wireless and are charged by placing the phone in either the main base station or one of the separate charger bases.

In terms of the appearance of the phone, it can be said that the appearance of the phone is quite dull, and does not make it stand out from other phones. Although saying that it is the standard type of design that you would expect from a wireless house phone. As the buttons on the phone is the standard key pad, menu button, volume buttons as well as an address buttons. In terms of the colour of the phone and base station, it is a dull grey colour that that could be seen as slightly depressing.

The handsets are also very easy to link to the base station. When we first good the handsets, two of the handsets were linked to the base station, so what this meant was I had to link only two of the base stations. This was easily done, as the manual that is included in the pack easily instructs you on how to link the phones. This process only requires you to press a button on the base station and then go to the correct menu within the phone. The number of phones that can be linked to one base station is five phones, but I have not tested this as I only have four phones linked at the moment.

In terms of the features of the phone itself, it could be said that it is quite basic, as all the features that are available on the phone is the change of the ring tone on each phone in terms of the phone settings. A good feature that I like on the phone is the intercom feature, which is almost always included on phones that have the capacity to be linked with another of the same type. This means you can use the phone to make an internal phone call to some else in the house on another had set. Another feature is caller ID, although so far I have not used this feature as I do not have it yet on my phone line.

In terms of the quality of the call to both internal and external calls, the quality if quite good, as the person on the other end can clearly be heard. Although what I have noticed recently is when you call a call centre with the phone, it can be quite hard to hear the person, although I believe this is more to do with the other end of the phone. The call, both internal and external, can either be listened to as normal on the ear piece or through the speaker phone, which is a good feature to have when you have a group of people that want to listen into the phone call.

The range that the phone can be used from the base station has been stated as 300 meters, although what I have found is that this is not quite the case, as I have only gone to the next street, which is under this range and the phone was out of range. Although this was an extreme sort of test, as the range is easily within the phones comfort zone with a house and in the garden.

The battery life of the phones is quite good as well, as the battery is charged through the mains and the charge is stored in rechargeable batteries. Normally I can leave a phone off the charger for a day and still have plenty of battery left, with the phone also being used for phone calls. Normally it only takes about six to eight hours of the handset being constantly on the charger for the phone to be fully charge or nearly fully charged.

In terms of the answer machine on the base station, I would describe it as your standard answer phone, as it records messages, with a maximum amount of recording time about 15 minutes. The way that the messages can be reviews is through the interface in the base station. The quality if the recordings are usually good, but does depend in the line quality of the person that is leaving the message. The answer machine can also be accessed by another telephone line by using the correct access coded for the phone, the same it is alleged that the News of The World uses, but I have not used this feature as of yet.

One problem that I have had with the phone recently is when a handset is used to dial an outside the phone makes a loud clicking nose a couple of times just before the ringing tone just clicks in. So far I have not found the reason as to why the phone makes this noise or how to solve it. Although this is annoying, it is not a major problem, as the phone still works as normal.

Overall I would recommend the phone, as they are good value for money, as I bought a set of four for just under £30 through an online shop on Ebay; although I have seen the phones cheaper, but this is with less handsets. Although the handsets are basic, I believe it is all that you would need, as I would not use any other features that would be included and this would also push up the price of the phone.

Summary: Very good value for money

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