Vtech tz 2551: lots of bells & whistles, not worth the price

My old trusty cordless phone of the last 5 years finally gave up the ghost about 6 months ago so off to the stores I went.

I had a loose idea of what I wanted but not exactly.
I was looking for a reasonably priced, cordless phone with built in answering machine.

I looked at Wally World and the Base exchange and decided finally on the VTECH TZ 2551.

I got it on sale for $46.50 down from $57.00 and took it home to charge.

Statistics and features
The TZ 2551 comes with
-a memo record feature
-three separate voice mail box digital answering machine (good for family use)
-the Telezaper built in
- caller ID (when service purchased from phone company)
- Call waiting(when service purchased from phone company)
- "enhanced 2.4 GHz technology"
- 30 channel operation
- 40 name and number phone book directory
- any key answer
- headset compatible (2.5mm) with belt clip included

Ease of use
The phone comes with an extensive users manual that is not very easy to follow but after leaving it plugged in to charge for 24 hours, I didn't have to call in the neighbor's 8 year old son to do it for me either.

The answering machine comes pre-programmed with a standard computerized voice message but you can change it if you desire with the simple push of about a dozen buttons and a QUIET recording studio.

The Mic. for the memo and answering machine message function will pick up the least noise in the background while garbling your voice unless you position yourself in JUST the right spot.

Setting the date and time is fairly straight forward but once more requires multiple button pushing.

The answering machine can be turned on or off with a single push of a button and you can set the pick up for 2-6 rings.

Use bad experiences post set-up

Once I got it set up, I waited patiently for the calls to come in so I could see how it worked.

Soon, the calls started and I found the first MAJOR problem with this phone.
A neighbor called to chat but I was almost completely unable to hear her because of the background interference on the line. It had to be from my phone because she was using a land line with a corded phone.

The hand set was picking up what sounded like 3 separate radio stations and garbling them all together with one or two other people's phone calls at nearly the same volume as the caller.

I hit the program button to try for a clearer signal and it got no better. After 4 more tries, I finally told her that I'd call her back in a moment on my mobile phone.

The Telezaper does not work. I have received solicitation calls from telemarketers at least 3 times a week and they have not been deterred at all.

Good features of this phone
The hand set is light weight and for my large hands fits comfortably.

If you or someone else in the house "misplaces" t hand set, there is a paging button on the base that will activate the hand set's ringer which will sound until the hand set is located and a button is pushed (or the battery runs down)


Range seems to be fairly good. I have used the phone in the basement laundry room while the base was in the living room upstairs and on he other end of the house and in the yard out to the mail box (about 100-125 feet through stucco walls) with no further loss of quality, which as noted above, was not good to start off with.

I ended up giving up on this (string of caustic expletives deleted) phone after a month but kept it hooked up in the basement as a back up since I needed one there as well when I'm doing laundry or sorting through my pack rat treasures.