Uniden CellLink ELBT595 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Flip Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, and Bluetooth Capability (Titanium)
Uniden CellLink ELBT595 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Flip Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, and Bluetooth Capability (Titanium)
- 5.8 GHz digital signal; expandable up to 10 handsets, 1 included
- Digital answering machine, 15-minute maximum recording time
- Bluetooth enabled for wireless headsets and compatible mobile handsets
- Recordable ringtones; full-color LCD on handset
- Caller ID/call waiting; dual keypads, base and handset speakerphones
The Uniden ELBT595 is a 5.8GHz digital expandable system with Bluetooth capability.PRODUCT FEATURES:Bluetooth capable – compatible with Bluetooth enabled mobile handsets and wireless Bluetooth headsets;10 handset expandability per system;4,096 color handset LCD screen;Digital answering system – The product utilizes microchip technology (no more tapes or moving parts). This ensures clearer recordings and longer life;Caller ID with call waiting deluxe options;100 caller ID / 100 phonebook names /
Rating: 
(out of 47 reviews)
List Price: $ 349.99
Price: $ 48.88
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Review by Joshua Liste for Uniden CellLink ELBT595 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Flip Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, and Bluetooth Capability (Titanium)
Rating:
I was all hyped up about getting this phone and that feeling faded after only 24hrs of owning it. This phone represents a good try by Uniden, but I feel that it needs to go back for a version 2. First, for me, the ringers on this phone do not ring loud enough (with a few expectations)….Uniden does allow you to set the base station to ring, and it does ring loudly (too loudly at night) but that defeats the reason to have a cordless phone if you are attached to the base station all day. The LCD on the closed clamshell isn’t very good. It is easier to read when the backlighting is off then when on. The hinge on my phone squeaked when opening and closing and the keys on the handset feel cheap, not what you should expect from at $250 phone. The software to program the phone is nice, easy to use, and made it really convenient to program in over 50 names and reminder dates, but it would have been nice if Uniden would have allowed you to download ringtones into the phone via the software and USB cable, rather then having to record it into the phone via a mic or a line setup. The color screen is nice and bright, but too small…its like 150 pixels X 150 pixels and the images you can download for your contacts become the size of a postage stamp CUT IN HALF!! Overall it is an average phone, not worth $250, maybe $160….all I know is mine is going back to the store for a refund. See you next time Uniden.
Review by ThomasN for Uniden CellLink ELBT595 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Flip Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, and Bluetooth Capability (Titanium)
Rating:
Just gotten this phone with an extra handset for only few days and so far, I’ve been somewhat pleased with the performance. The system has a wealth of features, yet relatively easy to setup & operate. The main highlight is the cell phone-like function & design with Bluetooth technology. The sound quality on both ends is loud and clear. My Motorola HS850 bluetooth headset links up without a hitch. However, its shortcomings are the buttons on the handset which feels too plastic, and the LCD on the front side of the handset is difficult to read, even more so when lit. A friend had commented that the handset’s LCD screen is small and OS software looks primitive. He also added that the handset’s plastic housing doesn’t have a solid feel to it. By the way, when opening/closing the handset, the hinge squeaks. For that price, one expects higher quality materials used and have good, solid construction. Also a concern is the battery charge/life. So far, I noticed that a charge yields about the same as a typical cell phone talk time, which is relatively short for a cordless phone. All said, I have until the end of the month to put it thru a thorough test before having the option of returning it.
UPDATE – Had the phone for a week now… and it’s going back to the store. Guess it didn’t make it to the end of the month. Too expensive of a phone system that has too many shortcomings. I’ll hold off for a 2nd generation. This should have been a 2-star rating (maybe 3-star), but definitely not a 5-star.
Review by OA for Uniden CellLink ELBT595 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Flip Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, and Bluetooth Capability (Titanium)
Rating:
This is a marvellous toy for a tech-savvy person. I give it a 5-star rating from this perspective: this is the most innovative land-line phone available in North America at the moment.
The color screen is amazing. It works pretty much like a cell phone (think early color-LCD Motorola cell phones two or three generations ago). Those with modern color cell phones will be disappointed with both size and quality of this screen: it is small, and it is STN rather than a TFT (means that colors get inverted the very moment you look at it at an angle).
Flip-phone form factor is intuitive, and ergonomically is very comfortable to use. My wife loved it.
Buttons are mostly OK. Some cell phones do offer buttons that are both more convenient and better backlit, but again, think of a Motorola clam shell a couple of generations ago.
Menus are fairly accessible. The only counter-intuitive thing that I encountered was Bluetooth setup. This has to be done from the base, and it is not duplicated on the handset, which was confusing to the degree of havnig to refer to the manual. Everything else is pretty intuitive.
Some reviews mentioned squeaks when opening handset; mine does not have that. Build quality is OK to me, but it does not match even the Uniden’s own TRU8885. It just feels too “plasticky” compared to the 8885.
Sound quality is great. It even has sound adjustment (two settings allowing to boost low or high frequencies, and one flat setting), which I didn’t really care for. In this aspect, Uniden is the king: their 5.8 GHz phones just do sound better than anything else that I used.
Other things are pretty standard; not much I can say about the answering machine, intercom, and the rest. They are here, and they work.
This is a great tech toy highly recommended for enthusiasts. For all the rest, check out the TRU8885, as it provides most of the features, same sound quality, and better build quality.
Review by D. Keh for Uniden CellLink ELBT595 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Flip Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, and Bluetooth Capability (Titanium)
Rating:
Since I rarely make calls from my home phone, I got rid of my land line and my Panasonic 2.4Ghz expandable phone system (total 5 handsets). To simplify my life even further, I am using my Cell phone as my home phone. With all the free weekend and nights minutes, I really don’t need any land line phone.
However, there are times when someone calls me and my cell phone is not around me, say upstair in the bedroom, and I am downstair. This is the time where I missed the cordless handsets the most, because I used to have them in every room.
I read about this Uniden phone back in January, and found it is probably what I need, so I pre-order it last month. It was finally available last Thursday and I received it today with an extra handset just to try it out.
I am not disappointed! This is a very well designed phone system. The menu is intuitive and easy to use, plus all the lights are my favorite blue
. The handset is just like a clamshell motorola cellphone, even the icons in the menu. Probably a 256-color LCD, but it is a first for a cordless phone! Wallpaper and ringtone and even individual phonebook entry are configurable. You can even customize the handset from your PC using the included software and USB cable. It even has some PDA feature like calendar and appointment reminder in the handset. If I don’t tell you, you might think I am talking about a new cellphone from Uniden.
Besides the very functional handset, and of course, you can plug a regular phone wire and use it as a regular expandable phone system with ansering machine. But the feature that attracted me buying this phone system is the bluetooth connection. I was wondering why no one has thought about this when bluetooth made popular a couple of years ago. I paired my Sony Ericsson S710i to the base unit, just like one will do with the cellphone to the headset, it found the device and paired it with no problem. I set the base unit to connect to S710i automatically, and viola! Just so happen my friend called me on my cellphone, all 2 handsets were ringing (so did the S710i). I pressed the “mobile” button, and pressed “Enter” to confirmed using S710i, and I was answering using the Uniden’s headset. It even display caller ID on all the LCDs! Basically, my S710i is now my phone jack, and the whole Uniden system is plugged into it “wirelessly”. Cordless + Wireless, what a wonderful solution!
Bluetooth cell phone is getting very popular recently, even the stubborn Samsung is making new phone with bluetooth capability. If you have a land line and a bluetooth-enabled cellphone, you could now switch between the regular phone line and your free cellphone minutes at will. Talking about the convenience of answering both using just one handset(and you can tell which one is ringing by the different ringtone you assigned them)!
The only thing on my wishlist for this phone is to be able to transfer phonebook from my cell phone to it via bluetooth. Since most bluetooth devices have this function, I can see a firmware update coming for this already great phone.
May be it is too early to review the quality and reliability of this phone system; may be I will add to my review later. For now, I like it… A LOT!
Review by Gaz Rendar for Uniden CellLink ELBT595 5.8 GHz Digital Expandable Cordless Flip Phone with Color LCD, Answering System, and Bluetooth Capability (Titanium)
Rating:
Uniden’s ELBT595 and 585 are the only home cordless phones that I know of that will work with a Bluetooth headset. This is the real reason I got this phone (through Amazon), and the reason you would potentially buy this phone. The 595 also Bluetooth pairs with most Bluetooth compatible cell phones.
SETUP/INSTALLATION
It’s simple, I just hooked it up like a regular phone to my regular home phone line. You can also hook up the headset via a USB cord to your computer to sync an addressbook, but I didn’t try that. It seems simple enough though, if you wanted to. I can enter in all my numbers via the handset and don’t have to worry about the computer stuff. Setting up the answering machine is straight-forward and works just like every other answering machine I’ve ever used.
BLUETOOTH PAIRING
I found this to also be pretty simple. You just goto the menu screen on the Uniden handset, activate Bluetooth, and have it search for a Bluetooth headset. This took me 2 minutes to do, and I didn’t even look in the manual for directions. If you want to pair up your actual cell phone, you pair it to the Uniden 595 base. Again, pretty easy to accomplish and I was able to do it in 3 minutes without the manual. This way when I come home everyday, I just leave my cell phone next to the base, and keep the Uniden handset near me. Now the handset lets me answer my landline calls and cell phone calls.
USEABILITY
The phone does everything I want it to. I can use my Plantronics Bluetooth headset with the Uniden handset, and I can answer all my calls with just one handset while I’m home. The answering machine works just like every other answering machine in the world, no problems there. The 595 handset itself works rather well too. When you get a landline or cell phone call, or want to make a call, just open the handset and hit one of the two buttons at the top “land” or “mobile.” I think the buttons are tactile and easy to push. The color screen is clear, but not huge, so don’t expect a post 2003 cell phone’s color screen quality. But it’s still a better color screen than most home phones out there. I’ve seen many people complain about the durability of the handset’s hinge. What? I don’t have kids at home, so maybe that’s their problem. However, I also do not open my cell phone hinge like a barbarian would either. I’d say it’s not as durable as my RAZR cell phone’s hinge, but I don’t have any reason to believe it will break within 5 years of normal use. It feels the same as opening a Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP, for those of you who can understand that analogy.
PROBLEMS
There are just two minor issues. First, the handset has a dimly-lit exterior screen to display the CallerID phone number. And it doesn’t display the name. You can just open the phone and see all that info on the bigger internal screen, though. Just goto the menu and switch off the option to answer an incoming call by just opening the handset and you’ll have no problem. The second thing I’d like to see is have the corresponding CallerID info come up on the base screen when you’re playing back a message someone left. Surprisingly, very few answering machines do this.
Other than that, the phone works great. The only real reason to get this phone is to be able to use your Bluetooth headset with it(and maybe cell phone too). If that’s important to you, then this phone works great. Otherwise this phone just works as well as most good cordless phones out there.