BT 32116 Paragon 650 Corded Phone with Answering Machine, Black

I am generally very pleased with this product and cannot report any serious faults or failings. Minor gripes- 1. the poor choice of ringtones, as posted by other users. A standard ring tone should be included. 2. The handbook should state that the volume level maximum is 8 bars, as displayed on the LCD, and that the incremental levels are made by tapping the "up arrow" in the centre of the set and not by holding it down. The default volume setting is 3 bars and this setting remains after hanging up. The selected volume setting should be as selected, ready for the next call. 3. The time out setting when keying in numbers to be dialled or entered into the memory is too short. After less than two years use I now have the following comments- 1. The received call log no longer works. 2. The ring is far too quiet. 3. The conference call feature no longer works satisfactorily. 4. The call screening feature is inaudible. Very poor build quality- I would much rather pay more for a phone that works! I am surprised that BT sponsor such a poor quality product.

I work from home and the spend a lot of time on the phone so i needed a phone with a large phone directory and one that i could plug a headset into. I also wanted a corded phone so it didn't interfere with the cordless phones I have plugged into my other home phone line. This phone according to its spec does all of these things but has a number of bad reviews. However because i couldn't find another phone with all of the features I needed i bit the bullet and bought it. I've been using it for a coupleof months now so I thought I could give a fairly accurate response to the shortcomings mentioned by other reviewers. The phone doesn't ring straightaway, this is true, the display lights up and if you have caller Id says whose calling. Because the phone is on my desk the display lighting up attracts my attention and gives me chance to hit the 'silence' button if I'm on my mobile phone so it's not ringing in the background. You can also answer the phone before the ringtone actually starts. So i actually like this feature. The ringtones, they aren't the greatest, I found one that isnt too bad, but again it's on my desk so a lot of the time i answer it before the ringtone starts so it's not the end of the world. Wobbly stand, this is odd, the stand clips onto the phone and clicks firmly into place, but it isnt quite level when in place. So its a bit like the wobbly table in the pub, stick a bit of something under a corner and its fine. listening to and deleting answer phone messages, this is easy, listen to the message if you decide you want to delete it press the delete button and it deletes the one message. Or you can listen to them all and delete them all at once. If you do it this way it does ask you to confirm that you want to delete all messages before you do it so you shouldn't inadvertantly delete all messages if you just wanted to delete one. When using the address book and you enter a letter to bring up the name there is a delay which if you're used to a smart phone is a bit annoying but after a bit you get used to it. The backlight does go out whilst you are on a call but if you press any button it does come back on. You do have to press the answer button twice if you are using a headset otherwise it answers the call 'handsfree' The handsfree function is really good but as i said i do use a headset so don't use this very often. You do dial a number and then press the call button this is akin to using a mobile where you select the number and then press to call the number so isn't really an issue once you get into the habit of picking up the handset after you have dialed the number. Again this is a useful feature because you can allow it to ring handsfrees and then just pick up the reciever when the call has been answered by the person you are calling. Overall I think this is a great phone for anyone working from home. It has a few little querks but you quickly get used to them. I would recommend this product to other people who work from home

I was recommended to buy this phone by the company who supplied my hands free equipment. I needed a reliable phone with a decent answer machine, and my existing machine was failing, so I took a gamble to follow their recommendation (after all, they are an office phone specialist) and ignore the very negative nature of some of the reviews here on Amazon. Phone arrived, set up quickly and intuitively, and is working perfectly. Here is my response to the criticisms of some reviews: 1. Ring tones - plenty loud enough. 2. choice of ring tones - there's a wide variety, but they are the polyphonic and musical types, which is weird after you've had a bell sound for a long time. I don't like them, but I also don't like the ring tones on my mobile. The current vogue is for musical tones and I don't like it, but it's not a problem. I'm getting used to the musical tone rather than my previous ring sound 3. clarity of calls in and out is good 4. the phone rings when the call comes through, and stops ringing when call is cancelled - I don't see any delay 5. the answer machine is a lot clearer than my outgoing machine, which tended towards blurring and distortion I don't intend to use the Sim interface or the caller ID functions or the memory or the text function, so can't comment here. I keep my numbers on my computer Outlook, so don't need them on the phone. I've got way more than 200 anyway, so no point in trying to load them to the phone. I'm very happy with the phone. It works perfectly, looks smart and professional, and the menu interface works well

I've been using cordless phones for years, but they recently started eating batteries, so I decided to revert to corded. I wanted a desk phone for my study (aka one half of my dining room), preferably in black (to match my PC monitor and speakers), with an answering machine, which meant only two contenders: this phone and the snappily-titled Panasonic KX-TGF320E. Unfortunately, the Panasonic also comes with a second, cordless handset and, as already mentioned, I wanted to be free from the hassle of batteries. It also features an inbuilt call blocker, and I wasn't sure how (or even if) that would also work with the old, bog standard phone I recently reinstated on my living room extension. Obviously, I could simply do without the call blocking feature and leave the cordless handset in the box, but why pay for functionality and equipment you aren't going to use? Besides, I already have a stand-alone call blocker in the form of a CPR V108. So the BT Paragon 650 got my vote and, on the whole, I've been very pleased with it... despite its one or two minor, but nontheless irritating flaws. As other reviewers have mentioned, the available ringtones are extremely naff, and there is an inexplicable pause before the phone starts ringing... well after the one in the living room. Fortunately, I already had a Connected Essentials CEA-40 stand-alone ringer, so I'm using that instead of the phone's ringtones, which (mercifully) you can simply switch off. The CEA-40 also rings instantaneously and, being out of sight (blu-tacked to the back of my desk, which has a wall directly behind it), creates the illusion that the phone itself is ringing. Via a 'daisy chain' cabling arrangement, I have also been able to connect my V108 call blocker, and some simple experimentation has led to the happy discovery that it blocks calls to BOTH of my phones (the blocker can only be operated via my main phone, i.e. this BT Paragon 650, but that's a non-issue as far as I am concerned). You have to pick up the handset BEFORE dialling with the number pad, but AFTER selecting a number from the contacts memory, which I'm sure will trip me up many times before it becomes second nature! You also have to reset the date and time following any interruption to the power supply, but I find that a minor inconvenience. Potential buyers should be aware that, despite the detailed instructions provided in the full-blown manual (which is available to download), this phone does NOT have a SIM card slot for the import of contact details. However, in my experience, that kind of functionality rarely works precisely and usually leaves you with plenty of manual correction to carry out, so it would probably be just as well to enter your contacts manually, as I did. It's very straightforward, and though time consuming, only needs to be done once. Then again, I only had some two dozen contacts to enter. It would have been much more of a pain if I'd had over a hundred! All in all, then, basically a good phone, with a few vices that can be worked around and/or simply endured, and for which I ultimately docked a couple of stars. P.S. For potential buyers who, quite understandably, baulk at the prospect of adding a stand-alone ringer (as mentioned above, I already had one), and can live with the aforementioned pause before the phone starts ringing, I should probably add that Poly 1 is (just barely) acceptable. EDIT 1 Dec 2020: I raised this as a question yesterday, but as Amazon no longer allows you to amend your questions or respond to the answers you receive, I'm providing the details here of yet another design flaw I've discovered with the phone, and how you work around it. Yesterday, following a brief power outage four days earlier, I belatedly remembered that I would have to reset the date and time on the phone, which was now showing 4 January 2020. The phone stores the date in DDMMYYYY format, and you CANNOT freely scroll left-and-right to change only the necessary digit(s). Instead, you have to change (or re-enter) each number in turn (after which the phone automatically moves the cursor to the next one) until you have set the correct date. Unfortunately, when I tried to change the date to 30112020, the phone simply ignored every press of the 3 key! The 'solution' I adopted was to change the date to 29112020, with the intention of changing it again to 01122020 the following day... only to encounter the same lack of response to my first press of the 0 key! Eventually, the penny dropped with me that the phone validates the ENTIRE date with EVERY keystroke, and so wouldn't let me change 04012020 to 34012020, nor 30112020 to 00112020! From a starting value of 04012020, and entering each digit in turn, I could have changed 04012020 to 30112020 as follows... 04012020 24012020 (change the first digit to 2) 20012020 (change the second digit to 0, save, then start again) 30012020 (change the first digit to 3) 30012020 (re-enter the second digit as 0) 30112020 (change the third digit to 1, then save) Obviously, any intermediate entries will do so long as you always have a valid date. Very clunky and non-intuitive. It caught me out, and I worked in IT for over thirty years! EDIT 1 July 2021: This morning, I decided to try and simplify the cat's cradle of wires behind my desk by removing my Connected Essentials CEA-40 ringer and using Poly 1, the least naff of the Paragon 650's built-in ringtones. The ringtone was very easy to change and test via the settings menu, BUT... Unfortunately, when I then attempted a further test with a call from my smartphone, the Paragon 650 responded with the cheesy Melody 1 ringtone, the factory default, which wouldn't sound out of place if used as incidental music in an episode of Bill & Ben... showing my age, here! All my subsequent attempts to change the ringtone have likewise failed despite 'succeeding' via the settings menu... ...and I have reconnected the CEA-40!

I see a lot of people panning this phone and that's not unusual because you can't find a corded phone with a decent review. Here is my experience. Turned up undamaged plugged in handset and phone line. Bit disappointed it needed a power plug but that's the way it goes. If you need screen illumination etc. it isn't going to run from the 70V and limited current BT can supply. That's just life. That said I am delighted, Imported contacts from my Mobile SIM. Good idea and worked well Yeah sure the ringtones are a bit silly but I found something reasonably business-like. Voice quality on hands free and headset is great. As for the build quality. Sure it's plastic (what isn't nowadays) But its quite a good execution in the material and feels robust in the hand. Maybe BT have fixed some things. Maybe the other peeps got a Friday Afternoon Job

I'm normally very tolerant of minor issues with technology products, but this phone has so many issues, I've taken the very unusual step (for me) of returning it to Amazon. I guess I should have believed all the other negative reviews. I bought this to replace a broken Paragon 500, which was a brilliant phone - ringtones assignable to each directory entry, loud ring, clear calls, sensible answer machine and menu system, clear LCD display: pretty much everything its so-called replacement isn't. The ring (once you can find a ringtone that isn't hideously embarrassing, which isn't easy given the appalling choice on this phone) is so quiet, even on full volume, that I can barely hear it even on my desk, with no chance in another room. The ringtones are only assignable by category, which is much less flexible than by directory entry, and you don't get to choose the ringtone for each category. Also, it starts ringing over a second after the other phones in the house, which is stupid, as it's plugged in to the main socket. The answer machine and menu system is incredibly counter-intuitive, and the reverse LCD display looks like it was drawn with a crayon. Call quality is very poor - I can hear myself breathing through the handset louder than the caller I am trying to listen to. And yes, I have the call volume turned right up. The build quality is very poor as well. Assuming it survived violent attack (quite likely if I'd kept it) I doubt this phone would last very long in normal home office use. I've always bought BT branded phone products in the past, because the design and build quality was a step above anything else on the market. No longer, it would seem. Ashamed, BT? You should be.

I was looking for a good old fashioned phone. Something that didn't have radiation issues. This fittted the bill perfectly. If you are looking for a phone for avoiding radiation from cordless phones or for yourself or an elderly relative, the phone has large dial buttons, is clear and loud, has hands free and you can plug in a headset. Overall, a great phone which I am very happy with. Also the phone has an answer phone message function, which is another plus.

I did a lot of research before buying this phone a I essentially wanted a desk phone for my home/office situation, one that had a good handset volume ( so many phones I've had with mediocre earpiece volume ) and one that would take a decent plug in headset for when I needed to have involved phone discussions leaving me handsfree to make notes etc. On installing the phone, my initial thoughts were that the phone looks the part, looks chunky and robust but without any overbearing footprint on the desk. The receiver is a pleasing design and comfortable in the hand. And the earpiece volume is excellent and makes 'difficult' phone calls so much easier ( liked the variable volume control as well ). There are some downsides, notably not very user friendly when getting to grips with the controls etc, but time and patience will improve that. There is no 'answerphone on' light and you have to illuminate the LCD screen to see a small marker that does indeed confirm that. Moving through the various menus can be tedious until you master it all. And the answerphone volume could be better I guess. I purchased this phone from Amazon together with a JPL Headset and Plantronics compatible lead for the RJ11 phone socket and it all fitted together beautifully and made a great combo in convenience with sound and volume quality to match. If you are prepared to learn the menus with patience and application, this is a great home/office desk phone. I have put the headset and connection lead Amazon links below for reference should anyone need a recommended headset combo although I appreciate it's personal choice. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N4GBXPM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09Y13VX8N?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details