We were given a set of phones when we first moved into our own home but towards the end of last year we found that they were no longer working properly and we decided we were going to have to buy some new ones. We quite liked the idea of having an answering machine as it was what we were used to so we set off to find a set of two phones complete with answering machine.

I was quite surprised that we found these phones in our local b & m discount store as we had only visited the store for a couple of bits and pieces before going phone shopping, the phones cost us £35.99 which we knew was a decent price as we had had a look on the internet before we had gone shopping so we had some idea of what price we would be paying. The phones came securely packaged in a cardboard box and all of the packaging was suitable for recycling.

On opening the box we found the 2 handsets and 2 bases complete with wires and plugs to allow them to charge and there were four rechargeable AAA batteries two for each handset, the base with the answering mahcine on it is bigger than the one without and all the screens had sticky plastic covers on them to protect the screens. The phones weren't fastened into the box in any way so it was easy to remove them from their packaging and underneath everything was an instruction manual.

The phones that we bought were not only for answering calls, you also have the answering machine, an address book which holds up to 50 contacts, a redial list of up to 10 numbers, a 40 number call list, a clock, keypad lock, call timer and a low battery alert.

The phone was very easy to set up literally just plugging the charger wire into the base and then plugging into the wall socket and leaving it to charge for an initial 24 hours before using it. My husband set the phone up initially so I don't know exactly how to do it but he managed it pretty easily and managed to have the correct date and time set, we don't use the programmable contacts list as we don't ring out on the landline so we don't need them in.

The phones look pretty good too, they are silver in colour and have rounded corners making then look pretty sleek, the bases are also silver in colour and both handset and base are black on the back. The buttons all dip in the middle and the phone is comfortable to hold even when you are on a call for quite some time.

The phone works well and the sound is extremely clear, the ring tone on the phone is not very loud and my daughter has to shout me if the phone rings when I am in the kitchen as it simply isn't loud enough to be heard from there. There is an intercom button which will call the other phone, ours is upstairs and this has come in useful rather than shouting up the stairs when my little one is sleeping, I would say the phones don't seem quite so clear when using the intercom. The phones have a good range supposedly 300 metres outside and 50 metres inside, when my Mam had an accident and needed to speak to my Dad she rang my phone as he was engaged and I was able to walk next door and into another house and the phone still worked pefectly. If your signal is getting weak on the phone the signal symbol will flash however this is pretty useless if you are on the phone as you would have it to your ear and not notice this anyway.

The answering machine can hold up to 12 minutes of messages and each message can be a maximum of 3 minutes long, the answer machine is clear and gives you the date and time of your message aslong as you have set these details, the controls for the machine are easy making it easy to play and delete your messages. The drawback of the answering machine is that it doesn't let you know when you have a message apart from a number on the screen whereas my old phone beeped to let you know which is better.

I would recommend these phones but we are thinking of buying another single handset to have in the kitchen due to the volume issue but this is probably as the kitchen is an extension so is quite far from the phone. The phones do what we wanted and so I give them 4 stars.