The New VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone and Digital Answering Machine

Our cordless phone died on us the other day. I would have given it a proper burial, but the landfills are overloaded enough, so I tossed it into the pile of useless junk in the garage, and went out to find a new one.

I hit on the VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone at Best Buy for $44.99. It has newer technology called DECT 6.0. (I looked that up out of curiosity, and it means Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) which is better than the old 2.4 and 5.8 GHz phones. The sound quality is much clearer and crisp.

I got the VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone home and connected it and set up the answering machine. The set up for this was relatively easy. Since I have DSL service, the first thing to do was to make certain that I had a DSL filter on the line coming from the wall to the VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone. As I had already previously had a cordless phone on my desk I had the filter installed on the line. Don't forget to use DSL filters on all your phones.

Then I installed the battery in the VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone, which is fairly easy to do. When I looked at the screen the phone was blank. My first thought was that the battery was no good, and then it hit me. Doh! You have to charge the thing first. According to the manual, you need to charge the phone for at least ten minutes or until you get a "Low Battery" indication before you can try the phone out.

Once I had done that, I could check to see if I got a dial tone on the VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone. Eureka! It worked! I followed the instructions for setting up the time, date and other functions on the handset. The great thing is that it has a 50 number phone book feature.

The VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone also has a speaker phone feature, which I tried out after it had reached a full charge. The speaker phone was a bit tinny but both parties could hear fairly well.

The answering machine function on the VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone works great. Messages are easy to understand (As long as the party leaving the message speaks coherently!) and I have not had any messages cut off in the middle. You also get an audible voice time and date stamp. This is very useful.

I am very pleased with the VTech DS6221 Cordless Phone, and highly recommend it.