Reviews for Panasonic KX-TH1212 Cordless Phone

Great Product, But Dropped Calls Are A Concern

Strengths: Bluetooth to connect to 2 cell phones at a time, different ring tones for the landline and each cell phone, DECT 6.0 (1.9GHz), central phone book in the base, talking caller ID

Weakness: Dropped calls on the landline (on my second set of phones hoping this set does not drop calls), only one line or cell phone can be used at a time, dialing tones are way to loud

I have been waiting for a decent home phone system with Bluetooth for a long time. The other phone companies could never get it right, according to reviews, and the first generation Panasonic was 2.4GHz. With Bluetooth using 2.4GHz and streaming video over my Wifi network, I didn't need to crowd the 2.4GHz spectrum any more.

I purchased this phone, took it out of the box and let the phones charge for 7 hours. While the handsets were charging, I linked my and my wife's cell phones. Piece of cake. After the phones were charged, I put in phone numbers into the phone book (too bad you can't transfer them from your cell phone) and all of the numbers were saved in the base so every handset accesses (one at a time) the same phone book with the same numbers.

Using it over the past 30 days, phone calls are very clear even over a cell phone. The handsets are light and use normal NiMH AAA rechargeable batteries that can be easily replaced. The handsets look nice and have a piano black finish on some of the face. Looks nice, but is easily smudged with face grease or make up. The talking caller ID is great and will even say the "Nicknames" of people that you put in your phone book. The handsets will also show the caller ID of the cell phones too, if your cell phone supports it.

The Bluetooth works great with my Nokia E50, and fairly well with my wife's LG Shine, but LG does not implement very good Bluetooth so sometimes the phone will disconnect and reconnect (the cell phone lets you know with an annoying sound). Most Nokia, Samsung, and probably Motorola phones will work well.

The biggest problem I had with my first set of handsets was that they would randomly drop a call and all I would get is silence. I use my home phone for work conference calls because of the speaker phone and the dependable landline, and I would get my call dropped during the conference call and have to call back. This is not good when I am the leading the conference call. The drops only happened randomly and then twice a day before I called Panasonic. Support said they had heard of the issue, gave me a reference number, and told me they would call back the next week. I got impatient and called them back that next week and the support rep. said that they had not heard of an issue like mine before. They asked me to send it in to have it repaired or replaced. I took it back to the store instead (30-day return policy still in effect) and exchanged it for another, telling them mine was defective. I hope to have better luck with my new one and, fingers crossed, so far no dropped calls.

I want this phone to work, because it is a great idea and I think that Panasonic might have pulled it off, if they can fix the dropped calls.

UPDATE: I have had the second set of this phone for over 30 days now and no dropped calls! The bluetooth is working wonderfully and the calls are still coming in clearly! Hopefully this issue is touch-and-go and the solution would be to replace the phone before the 30-day return is over and it would not be likely for every phone to have this issue.

One nit-pick, the face of the phones scratches a little too easily. My wife puts the phones face down on on the coffee table, I am trying to get her to stop, but I have noticed some scratches on the face of the phones due to this. The scratches are not that bad, and I know I am nit-picking, but the previous Panasonic phones had no problems with my wife's positioning of them.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

We love it - almost.

Strengths: Being able to receive cell phone calls on your regular home phone is great. It automatically connects via Bluetooth whenever you're near.

Weakness: Being able to use it on your regular home phone line is spotty. Panasonic has non-existent customer service, they just expect you to mail them the unit.

We love this phone - almost. Let me explain. Build quality seems to be good. Volume is great and very clear. Automatically connects via Bluetooth. It also has some really nice unique features. It's got a nice bright white LED screen. Our only beef with it is that sometimes it won't let you receive calls on your regular phone line. It seems to get stuck on cell phone mode. This is the second unit that this has happened to, but we'll exchange it for another because it really is a nice phone. Panasonic has no phone number to call so that you can talk to a tech, they just want you to mail the unit to their repair center. I'm sure a lot of the units they receive are not defective, and the people just didn't set them up correctly but unfortunately you as a customer have no way of checking if it's setup correct by talking to anyone there. While I love Panasonic products, they really should address not having any customer service. This is a great phone if you can get all the features working.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Worked exactly as advertised, surprised by other...

Strengths: Ease of use Distance handsets work from base Distance bluetooth cell links works from base. Device styling

Weakness: Could use a few little additional features.

The KX-TH1212B works exactly as advertised for me. I was able to link my wife's old Moto Razr and my Palm Treo 680 with a simple push of the button and scan with the phone. The phones link up when moved into range and stay linked reliably. I can understand if some phones aren't up to the task but these two phones worked great. I'm able to leave my cell phones easily on the other side of a wall and they still offer good bluetooth cell phone quality calls.

I'm using this with Vonage right now but I'm considering going cell phone only. Which leads me to my only wish for this phone system. When you go to use one of the cell phones it's like selecting another phone line, which makes sense. However, instead of giving you a nice button for cell 1 or cell 2 to select them as line. You must dial the number, click a button labeled cell and then press #1 or #2. They are labeled on the screen but I'd much rather just have a simple physical button. Also, related directly to this, if no "phone line" is connected it would be nice if the talk button just picked up the first available cell phone.

This is hardly a reason not to consider this product because it's worked really well for us and gives you a handy way to handle cell and "landline" calls from one phone system. I hope in version 2 Panasonic will ask some customers for feedback and make minor tweaks to how the cell phones are handled.

I highly recommend this product.

Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

ReviewGist for Panasonic KX-TH1212B Cordless Phone

Reception is Average according to 3 Phone experts. -- "good reception"-tigerdirect.com Read more to find expert opinions on more features like Usability, etc.

Read Full Review