Panasonic KX-TG4500B 5.8 Ghz 4-Line FHSS Expandable Corded/Cordless Phone with Answering System, Black, 1 Handset

We bought this four line phone system two years ago. Set up was fairly easy as I read the manual completely prior to doing actual programming. Sound quality is good. This is a home/home business use system and we have all eight cordless handsets in play, along with all four incoming CO lines. The answering machine portion works very well, allowing us to change around the individual greetings easily. It is particularly easy to send a received message to any given handset so that the base unit is not blinking away, instead the assigned handset blinks. We do not have any of the problems with range, handset buttons, programming or unit failures other people have reported. The base unit itself is rarely used, but several of the handsets are punished daily. When we bought the unit, we ordered an extra handset for back up. It is still in the pantry, in it's orignal packaging as we have not had a single failure yet - even the handset the dog chewed on still works perfectly, although it has now become the basement extension. My wife routinely goes out to the mailbox while talking on a handset and it is over 100' away from the base unit in the house. Never a dropped call. No matter where we are in or around the house, upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, out in the back yard, we have a good clear signal. We also have a much older two line version of this phone in one of our stores and it too performs perfectly. Anyway, although this is a pretty expensive system for home use, it was the only four line game in town when we bought it and so far, knock on wood, the best phone system we have ever had. We love it!

I have had the previous generation of this phone for 5 years and have just replaced it.Pros:1) If you need 4 lines, this is the only game in town. They used to make a 2 line one, but no longer.2) There is a headset jack on the base unit, which is very rare, and which is the reason I was willing to pay for this unit. And you can switch among headset, handest and speaker phone with no switching noise - very unusual.3) Excellent sound, and it's perfectly quiet going from one line to another - no transition noise.4) Unlike some, there is no cross-talk between the 2 lines. If you have one person on hold and are talking to another, the first party won't hear the other conversation.5) Obvious quality build.6) Battery backup good for a while.Cons:1) Cordless range only so-so for a high-end unit.2) BIG CON: The number pads on the cordless units are somewhat delicate and after a couple of years start being a bit harder to press or stop responding at all. The authorized repair place I used said that this isn't uncommon with these phones. Repair (including shipping) was going to be enough that I just bought a new/extra cordless unit to use with it.There are 2 new features, the ablility to MUTE a call and the ability to record a call. The lack of a MUTE button on the base unit of the previous generation was strange in a unit of this type.

Reception & Audio problems worst than a very cheap phone. We ordered this for our small business & not worth at all. Obviously we could not return after we found out the problems. We simply have to discard this expensive set & replace it with much less expensive option with better performance.

We've used a single line 5.8 GHz Panasonic for years and it's quiet. No background noise, but our new 4-line Panasonic is horrible. On the base unit handset, speaker phone or extension unit there is a constant high pitched whine along with other people talking. You cannot make out what they are saying but they sound like an off-frequency short wave broadcast. We have followed all of Panasonic's recommended fixes and nothing works. It's still there. Now they have suggested I send it to their service center and they'll send me a reconditioned unit in 7-10 business days. I didn't just pay hundreds of dollars to get a "reconditioned" used phone. . . .and just how am I supposed to conduct my business for those "7 - 10 business days"?The audio quality of the voice mail and answering machine outgoing messages is excellent. So why can't the music on hold record with the same clairity? Both the pre-recorded music on hold and anything we load into the music-on-hold system sounds horrible. Very low fidelity and distorted. Don't think you can use your professional voice over hold messages with this system. It's actually less painful for your callers if you just turn the music-on-hold off.Very disappointed with this and I've been a fan of Panasonic products for decades.

The phones are easy to set up and have a lot of nice features for the money. But for this low price, don't expect perfection. The sound quality on some of the handsets is low - callers can't hear us well, or we hear background noise. Other handsets seem to work perfectly. When two lines are calling at the same time or on hold, it is hard to tell which call is "yours" as opposed to another extension (there is no flash pattern.) The automated attendant is great if you plan to use it 100% of the time. But, if you want to have a live attendant at times, you can't route a caller to someone's else's voice mail extension directly (that is, you can't say, "Jane is not here, would you like her voice mail?" and then transfer them there.) The last big con for us is that you can't change the outgoing greeting for the main system remotely - though you can change the outgoing greeting on the extensions. When there's a snowstorm, I would like to change the first thing the caller hears to, "Due to the storm, the office is closed" but you can't do that from home. We got this system 6 months ago to replace an antiquated PBX system. For the low price, I figure if we get two years of use out of them they're worth it. But we will be replacing them with a higher end system as soon as we can afford it.