Brents IT Blog

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At&T Home phone DECT system

So i recently went shopping for a new home phone setup.  I had several different DECT phones of varying ages sitting around the house, some of which had fading displays, failing batteries or i hated the design(UNIDEN!  big on/off buttons in the middle of the handset will only cause your face to handup on people when you try to shoulder the phone! ). 

Ok, so i needed two new phones to replace some dying units and needed one more additional phone to fill the house with phones(YAY phones).  Well i went to Best Buy and started wandering the isles.  Yes its impossible for me to go there and not wander through the sections i can draw from memory.  Anyhow, they had a few sets of handsets that i thought might work.  I needed the following features:

1. A single line shared system with repeating type handsets that only needed a plug.
2. Speaker phone ( i love speaker phone ).
3. Display with caller ID and Message notification
4. NO message system or one i could disable
5. Headset port
6. DECT 6.0

Nothing i looked at had all the features, but the AT&T system and the Panisonic systems came close.  So thinking, hey i have a 10 year old AT&T phone that still works, maybe they are the safe bet?  Of course, being best buy they have sets of phone, none of them have the amount of phones i need and of course being best buy, they didnt have any extra handsets.  So i hit the interwebs while at the store and discover the AT&T store has handsets for $20 bucks.  Sweet, good deal, $120 for the four handset pack with answering machine base.

So i get it home and setup in a matter of an hour(yea four handsets tightly wrapped!).  As i am lovin the phone i realize there is no headset port! Ok time to return right?  Nope, i just happened to be online when this happened and just happened to be looking at the store.  Turns out they offer a wireless headset for $100 bucks!  Hrm, 260 for a home phone system!!! holy moly.  Well i found out that the ATT site had a customer loyalty program!  Just go to their website, give them your email( i gave them an alias email as i do with everyone) and they sent me coupon code!  The coupon gives you 15% off and free shipping.  So total package was now $239, not bad.  I guess in retrospec i could of returned the main unit to best buy and got a larger discount, but for me, it wasnt worth the time/effort. 

The system i bought has been working great.  I speak for hours on the wireless headset and have used the speaker phone without issues.  The system also has an intercom so you can call handset to handset.  My house is large, but not that large, but still a kewl feature!  So if you are looking for a good handset system, get the CL82509 from ATT.

Here is a link to the store:  http://telephones.att.com/att/index.cfm/product-detail/?event=ehCatalog.productDetail&ProductID=1445 

Here is a link to the discount area: http://telephones.att.com/att/index.cfm/customer-support/warranty-and-returns/warranty-support-and-returns/out-of-warranty/  ( current code is: 9975704 )  BTW, at the time i had to give them an email, i guess they changed it in the four months since.