Gigaset SL400A Twin DECT Bluetooth Cordless Phone - Black / Silver

Looks like a mobile phone and, more importantly, has an interface a lot like a mobile (feature) phone. This is actually very clever, it makes navigating around almost intuitive. The contacts work just like you'd expect. The answer machine is also very easy to use. It's nice that there is a message symbol that flashes to indicate missed phone calls and messages.The physical construction is pretty solid, and they look as great as they do in the pictures.The battery life is fantastic. The manual recommends letting the handset batteries run to empty before charging the first time to improve the battery life - it took days and days and I was playing with the units constantly as well.The sound quality is really good, these sound much less tinny than my previous DECT phones (Panasonic models).The Bluetooth is a great feature and worked really well as it enabled me to transfer all my contacts from my Smart Phone (Samsung SII, if you're wondering about compatibility). This won't work with an iPhone I think because they lock down all the Bluetooth profiles except the hands free/headset profile.The manual is not the worst I've seen nor the best, but you can find the information you want quite easily. I wanted to put pictures of my family on the phones and you need to format them to a certain size and shape. You need to download the PC sync SW from the Gigaset website. Once I found it, it installed and worked quite well. The Sync SW is a little more clunky but still works well. I got the pictures on the phone, no problems.Overall, very pleased with these DECT phones.

Siemens Gigaset SL400A Twin DECT Bluetooth Cordless Phone - Black / Silver Update 1st June 2017After about 5 years of use a couple of the physical keys began to become sticky. I also had to replace one battery. I have replaced the faulty phone and they still appear to be working well.***************************The SL400 is a joy to use. It's stylish, sleek and feels robust. The only thing that it doesn't do is stand up which would be useful in handsfree mode. I do like the way that Gigaset have endeavoured to capture the essence of a mobile phone in the build quality and features of these handsets. You even have the option of vibration alert instead of ringtones. Whilst there is a reasonable number of ringtones you can also add your own i.e. MP3. You can also allocate different ringtones to individual caller profiles.The backlit keypad has slightly oversized numbers which makes them easy to see even when the backlight is off. The menu display is clear and whilst the text and numbers font is fairly small the contrast is high which makes it easier to read.The range appears to be good although the weather hasn't been good enough for me to venture outside to the garden.The quality of the audio in normal and handsfree is high. With my Plantronics bluetooth C65 headset the volume is OK but could benefit from another couple of levels up. This may well be dependent on the headset and a newer one may perform better. I've ordered a newer headset and will update the review on whether this makes any difference. As it stands, in my home/office environment it's fine, but in a noisy office I would struggle with the existing headset combination.The software that comes with it allows you to synchronise your Outlook contacts. Bonus points to Gigaset for getting this to work with the latest version, Outlook 2010. (Be aware that the plugin only works with Outlook 2010 32-bit and not 64-bit). This does work well enough but could be improved. I have over a thousand contacts and it only allows you to sync 500. The obvious solution to this would be to allow you to filter by category then you could simply add Gigaset as a category. I will be making this suggestion to Gigaset directly.Also you can add images to your contacts but this has to be done manually. The software should be able to import the images that you have already added to your Outlook contacts.One nice feature is that when it is sitting in its dock it displays an analogue style clock with minute and hour hands the hands, hours and minute markers are in white. There is a pleasing seconds sweep effect as the individual hours and minute markers turn red and then back to white as the seconds are marked off.This is a great effort from Gigaset and if they could sort out the sync software issues I would consider giving this a 5 out of 5.

I say "probably" because I've not tried all the DECT phones on the market, however I was after something which is well made, with good features, a nice design and is comfortable to hold to your ear.Although I use a landline as little as possible (it's mainly for work - I use my mobile mostly) - I did want something I would WANT to use, rather than spend £50 on something I would begrudge. This phone was worth the extra money.What particularly sold this phone for me was the option to use Bluetooth to sync contacts from Outlook to the handset. In my use case, I have contacts primarily on my iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) which are shared with my partners' iPhone via a shared iCloud account. This keeps all our contacts in sync between devices. iCloud will sync contacts with Outlook instantly and wirelessly via the iCloud Control Panel (for Windows) or via OS X. Once the contacts are in Outlook (where we don't really use them), there is a free Gigaset utility available from their website to sync with the handset via Bluetooth. We had to buy a £3 Bluetooth USB adaptor for our PC from eBay, but it all works.Another particularly good feature of this phone is the scheduled ringer. As I want this primarily for the home office, I don't want those Indian call centres or free insulation companies calling me in the evenings or during the night. I have scheduled the ringer to only operate between 0700 and 1800.Battery life is amazing. The manual says to fully discharge the battery before doing a complete charge the first time - it took several days to deplete the battery, with light use of the phone (a couple of calls per day perhaps). It wouldn't die.The build quality of the hardware is excellent. Almost to Apple's standards, with metal buttons and a pleasant aesthetic to the design. I say almost, because the buttons have a little wobble to them and the screen is just a normal colour LCD, but for a landline, it's more than adequate.Gigaset also sell this same model with a total of two, three or four handsets I think. If you need more than one, that option my suit you better, but they're all the same, save the quantity of handsets. They also sell a different model with a touch screen, but having tried one in my hand in John Lewis, it was too bulky, FAR too heavy, and compared the experience many of us are used to with a smartphone - very sub-par.Overall, this is the king of landline phones. At least the king of landline phone manufacturers. The quality is excellent (for a landline phone) and the features are well thought out.One gripe, though it doesn't warrant removing a star, is that when you sync contacts, their birthdays are also synced, and the phone automatically sets reminders on those days. If you share contacts, as we do, then you may well have hundreds - which means almost every day is a birthday. There's no way to disable the birthday reminders in the phone, unfortunately. You just have to ignore the calendar reminders.I would definitely recommend this product if you don't mind spending more money to get more phone. The design and features are worth it, and it's been very reliable so far.