Product Review: Panasonic KX-TG7331BX

Panasonic KX-TG7331BX is a sleek and sophisticated digital cordless phone, probably one of the best of its kind in the market. It comes in two colors: black and silver. It has a bigger brother, the Panasonic KX-TG7341BX which has an answering machine but with the same features. Both these models come with a hands-free Speakerphone on both the Handset and the Base Unit. You can expand your phone system by registering upto a maximum of 6 KX-TGA731BX handsets to the base unit (which is optional). What I like about this unit is that it lets you do an intercom between the base unit to the desired handset and between handsets, which is ideal for a big home.

The base unit is well-designed and looks much like a mother-ship awaiting its capsule to lock onto it. Inspite being a charging point for the handset, the base unit comes with a num-pad and lets you call outside without you even reaching for your handset. In case if you have a bigger home and you want to expand the range of your base unit, you are advised to buy a DECT repeater (KX-A272) unit and register it to the base unit. One might find it very odd that this phone plays only 5 polyphonic ringer melodies, all of which were not upto my liking. It would have been nice if they had incorporated an option to add your own ringer tones to the phone. The base unit can also be wall-mounted, if you are planning to put it in a hallway.

The handset with it LCD screen and lit-buttons make it look more like an elongated mobile phone of the 90's. Even though the LCD screen may throw you few years back, its smooth design, glossy curves and light weight does make you want to hold on to it even after a tense phone call. It can store upto 100 contact details in its phone book. Other features include Call transfering, Conferencing, Intercom apart from the basic call features.

The box includes a AC adaptor for the base unit, a telephone line cord and 2 rechargeable batteries for the handset. This unit is ideal to use in an office PBX-system as it lets you to include a pause when you make outside or long distance calls. You can also enable the Call Privacy feature so that other users do not join your conversation. Most of all, for guys like me who have a habit of misplacing their handset, the base unit is equipped with a button (Intercom button) to locate the handset and the unit is also equipped with an alarm feature to wake me up in the morning if the numerous other alarms fail to do so.