Appalling! (Siemens Gigaset A265)

Member Name: Simon

Product:	Siemens Gigaset A265
Date:	06/11/08 (385 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: call quality, battery life

Disadvantages: hopelessly unreliable

After messing about briefly testing the phone everything seemed alright, but eventually I got a call where the base station wouldn't stop ringing. I answered the phone and the base station didn't shut up. I hid from the noise in the bathroom and spoke to the person for a while, and the base station kept going. I finished the call and hung up, and the base station still wouldn't shut up. I made an internal call and the ringing stopped, but the speaker in the base station continued to emit a low hissing sound. It wasn't until I called it with my mobile and answered that call that it finally shut up.

On further testing trying to reproduce the problem I found that it doesn't actually hang up when you press the button. The other end just gets silence, but is still connected. I hate to think what happens if you call a premium rate number with this phone.

It may be that it relies on the user docking and un-docking the phone to make it work correctly. I did my testing from another room. It should work regardless.

Call quality itself is fine. The battery lasted right up until I returned it on just a single charge -- still not a single notch short of full.

The buttons don't feel all that nice. The one in the shop seemed alright, but there seems to be some variation and the phones I got had a less positive feeling.

Summary: stay well away

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