VTech DS6151-2 2-Line Expandable Cordless Phone System with 2 Handsets, Digital Answering System, Caller ID, DECT 6.0 - Home & Small Business (Black/Silver)

I am running a business with 2 phone lines for many years now and phones have always been a problem for me. I found that all cordless phones degrade or stop working after a couple of years, so I went through several different brands and models which I can repport here for you. My comment on the VTech is the last paragraph. Starting 1999 I had a 2.4 GHz Siemes Gigaset and that was the best phone I had, it was stylish, very well organized and functioning. Unfortunately, wireless computer networking exploded shortly after and swamped this frequency band that no cordless phone at 2.4 GHz worked well any longer. Features included phone book copy amongst the different hand sets. I had two sets of different Panasonic 5.8 GHz phones, and all were really bad. Voice quality was horrible and something stopped working in a short time. One is tempted to buy Panasonic because they have the largest selection of models. But don't be fooled by that! I could not buy Siemens because they retracted from the 2-line analog phone market, they only offer VoIP stuff, but I am not ready for that yet. I had a Motorola 5.8 GHz for a couple of days and let me tell you, this was the worst phone I ever had, it was even much worse than all Panasonics. There would be not enough space on the Amazon server to write down all the details :-) Then I had a 5.8 GHz AT&T phone and I really liked voice quality and workmanship. But all hand sets had different numbers in their phone book because you cannot transfer the phone book between them; I just could not keep up with this. Also, the functionality was not very intuitive. Finally I got his VTech phone, and I must say that I am impressed. I wanted to have a DECT 6.0 phone because I believe this is the best frequency band for cordless phones. This phone looks great, has excellent voice quality, has an intuitive menu setup, and it has a very competative price. And what I like most which no other phone ever had: You program a number into your phone book and it is available instantaneouly in all hand sets. Only thing, they should have memory for more than 50 numbers. I have this phone and 4 hand sets since Dec 2009, and the only thing I hope is that it will be reliable. As soon as I have an issue I will update this review, so if you don't see an update, that is more points for this phone.

Had same product before and loved it.

Have had this phone and 2 extra handsets for about three months in a home-office environment using 2 phone lines. Overall very pleased with the unit and its performance. Very good value for the relatively low price. Positives: Low cost. Good feature set. Light weight handsets. Speaker function on the handsets works well. Answering machine is decent and has good capacity (at least we've never exceeded it). You can easily enable/disable answering on a single line. Intercom between handsets and base works well. Easy to register handsets with base. Can have up to 5 IIRC handsets. Changes to contacts and time/date etc. are automatically propagated to handsets. Push and hold one of the number keys for speed dial - nice. Negatives: Speakerphone function on the base sometimes works great but other times it fades in and out or locks onto background noise. Our old Panasonic worked better (but at 4x the price). Contacts are not the first item on the menus so you always have to skip past "answering sys" to get to contacts. No dedicated speed dial buttons. Hard to see the small letters on the handset screen sometimes. Overall this system is recommended. For the relatively low cost it is a very good value.

At the business where I work we always have a landline where customers can communicate. So easy to install and super functional the quality of the answer machine or call quality is great. The sound quality and volume is great and the range I am able to go all over the business.

Please note that I am reviewing this as a complete system, with some comments directed to the base and others to the handset portion of the equipment. This phone system just isn’t cutting the mustard for small business use. As the cons far outweigh the pros, I’ll start with them. Cons: Distortion. This is my number one complaint. Every handset’s earpiece distorts pretty badly once you speak over a certain level. I’m not sure if the caller also hears the distortion, or it’s just present locally. But it is extremely annoying and totally unacceptable for a business phone. Reliability Issues. One of the three handsets I purchased still rings, but it refuses to answer the line, and you can’t draw dial tone to make a call, either. All you get is the infamous “Unable to call at this time. Please try again later.” I used to be able to cycle power to the base and/or remove the battery temporarily and it would come back for a while, but now the failure seems to be permanent. Again, it's simply unacceptable to be constantly rebooting when the phone helps you earn your livelihood. Poor range. Less than fifty feet away, with only a single intervening inside wall (and no foil backed insulation), the handset started breaking up. My antiquated 900 MHz cordless functions all the way to the corner mailbox, which is about 500 feet! Inconvenient mute function. The aforementioned 900 MHz phone has a dedicated “mute” button, conveniently located at the bottom corner of the handset. With the V-Tech, the mute is a “soft” function, so it’s kind of in the middle of the phone.. There’s no way to definitively access it without moving the phone away from your ear. It’s very easy to press the speakerphone button accidentally instead. I wish they’d made the “hold” button a “mute” button instead, and made “hold” a soft function. Annoying light timeout (base). The backlight on the base’s LCD screen stays on for a whopping 10 seconds after the last button is pressed. With the very low consumption of these LEDs, why isn’t there a menu option to simply leave the base’s backlight on all the time…or perhaps just leave it lit when you have new calls or unheard voice mail? Poor LCD labeling (base). The LCD labels such as “REDIAL” and “MENU” take up more physical space than the buttons they are referring to. They actually overlap TWO buttons. It’s pretty counterintuitive. I have to wonder why they didn’t use the nice, big four-way button to handle most of these chores as well. No auto answer. If a line is ringing and you remove a handset from its base, it should answer whichever line is ringing, right? Wrong. You have to pick up the handset and push Line1 or Line 2. This should have been an option under “Settings.” Weird line selection. If you accidentally press the wrong line, then realize your mistake and press the correct one, the other line is put on hold and left off the hook indefinitely unless you press “Off” first, THEN choose the other line. In my opinion the second line should merely be terminated, or, again, give us an option. No transfer button. If you want to transfer a call from the handset to the base, or vice versa, unless you push “mute” first, you (and your caller) will be greeted with squealing feedback until one of the devices is hung up. Poor VMWI. The only voicemail “message waiting” indicator is a small envelope icon on the LCD screens. There’s no flashing light or anything else that’s readily visible. I can’t imagine why they didn’t let the prominent “charging” light in the handsets double as a VMWI indicator by flashing it. No headset jack (on base). Ok, I knew about this one before my purchase, but the one system phone that needs this jack the most doesn’t have it! All ringers sound alike. Yes, you can choose between multiple ring tones, but they are all quite similar and are very hard to tell apart. Funky answering machine. The first time you press the “mailbox” button, you only get the new messages. If there are any old messages, they won’t play until you’ve listened to all the new ones and pressed the “mailbox” button a second time. Some people might prefer it this way; I don’t. Funky call holding operation (handset). You would think that pressing the speakerphone button when a call is on hold would return you to that call. It doesn’t…instead, you get fresh dial tone on the unused line. Now the pros: Speakerphone. Speakerphone is nice and loud. Address book sync. It’s nice to have address book changes propagate through to all handsets automatically. Good call timer. On the V-Tech, the call time displays for about five seconds after you’ve hung up. I’ve seen too many phones where the timer disappears as soon as you hang up. On/off for answering machine on each line. It’s amazing how many two line phones don’t have this simple feature. In summary, I am less than impressed. Many single line cordless phones have much nicer features and more reliable, more intuitive operation. It’s a shame that more manufacturers don’t see the market for a really good SOHO system. Update 6/2017: I'm ready to toss this phone in the trash, if I could only find a better one with the features I need. It regularly loses sync with the base...you hear the phone ringing, pick up the handset, press the appropriate line button, and absolutely nothing happens - the phone in the other room just keeps ringing. So you make the mad dash to a working phone, take your call, and reboot the handset by removing/replacing its battery - after which it goes back to working, but only heaven knows for how long. Infuriating garbage, DO NOT BUY! Update 7/2023: The base unit for my system completely died. Unfortunately, with some decent cash invested in extra handsets, and being unable to find anything better, I replaced it with an identical DS6151. My extra handsets refused to register with the new base without "de-registering" them from the old one! This is terrible coding, what happens if the old base won't power up at all, or was discarded? Thankfully, mine was still available. After some "switch the handset" gymnastics and a near loss of sanctification, all handsets are now working. However...the stupid thing is showing one call missed on Line 2, even though THE CALL LOG IS EMPTY. VTech strikes again! As is typical, rebooting fixed the issue, of course. They might as well just install a "reset" button on the back of the base...and for that matter, on each handset as well! Arrgh!

This review is for the VTech model 2-Line Phones ... VTech DS6151 compared to AT&T 88002 Jan 2022: We purchased both VTech DS6151 and AT&T 88022 2-line phone equipment. Based on descriptions we could not decide what to use in our company, so we purchased both. We decided that AT&T 88002 was preferred. Here's why: * Overall - both models are essentially the same phone, in fact we wondered if they were both manufactured by the same enterprise and just labeled differently. * Functions - EQUAL: both models are essentially the same, a few tweaks or different approaches, but essentially the same functions. * Base, Durability - VTech: winner by a slight margin, a bit 'heavier' (slightly) model, AT&T felt 'light' and not to solid. * Base, Appearance and Functions - AT&T: winner because appearance is more business like, and functions were more 'quick set up' user friendly. New/unoriented employee quickly understood the phone, more trouble grasping the VTech functions. * Handset, Durability - Neither: both handsets felt lightweight and somewhat 'cheap.' Not a good solid feel in your hands. * Handset, Appearance and Functions - AT&T: handset has easier to read functions, clearer line1 and line2 distinction, and buttons are larger and raised higher on AT&T. VTech has smaller dialing buttons and not raised high at all - one employee said 'I cannot get this handset to dial' (really have to push hard to get VTech to register/dial * Display Screen - AT&T: much brighter and clearer display screens on both base and handset, more contrast between text/numbers and background * Power and Charging - VTech slight edge. Handsets take 'overnight' to fully charge up. When handset is removed from base for longer than a few hours the AT&T handset showed 'no power' and message was 'place handset in base charger.' Not sure if we are operating appropriately; however, we certainly need to leave a handset out of its charging cradle for longer than 2-3 hours. * Range - Equal: Both models had very good range, long distance. Tested both models with handsets two floors away from base and they worked quite well, clear and loud, uninterrupted signal. Also test handsets by leaving the building - with base on 2nd floor of office, user could walk 50+ feet outside building and still get a clear and loud, uninterrupted signal. We do not anticipate use beyond a 50' distance from office; therefore, did not test signal from farther away. However, based on actual use we are confident the range could be farther. * Set Up - Equal: both models were quite user friendly for set up. Basically 'plug and play' and functioned well first time out of the box. In sum - we chose AT&T based on ease of use, clarity of screens, and business-like appearance.

Works perfectly as described. Easy to set up.

These guys are great. I have a couple offices that only need two lines and 4 or 5 handsets. The local telcoms charged $3,500 for a small system in 3 of my locations. Then I came across these. Two lines and 3 handsets are less than $200. The list of features is good: Voicemail, paging, Caller ID, more... If I need another handset, it's $40 and silly simple to set up in about 30 seconds. How does it work? I put these into two 50+ year old elementary schools. The kind of places that are made of real concrete blocks. With the base station at the top of the hallway, I can reach every classroom with the cordless handset.