When Alex asked if I would review the Doro outdoor Dect cordless phone, my first thought was ‘Oh crumbs’, or words to that effect. I was due to move house the following week and had much to do. One of the things I did want to do was spend some time gardening. We were moving house but not selling, so I wanted to leave my lovely garden spruced up as much as possible before leaving it untouched for two or three weeks. My garden is hard work!! It is quite long but is also steeply terraced. So when I am ‘down’ the garden I cannot hear the phone. You may think, well use a mobile, but my closest and dearest friend is a bit of a luddite and refuses to use one. We will, on average, spend at least 2 hrs a week on the phone to each other. I knew that in those last few days before moving this friend would be ringing constantly, so I thought I would try the Doro in the hope that I would get that last minute gardening done and not miss my friend.

The Doro 750x was neatly packaged in its box and it was soon plugged in and the battery was charged overnight.
On first inspection I was impressed with the solid feel of the phone with its rubber grip. I am informed by the blurb that accompanies it, that it is shock resistant and is weatherproofed having an IP54-certified handset. Setting it up was all very simple and the instructions are clear and straight forward, so I had it down the garden with me pretty quickly. It is claimed to have coverage of between 50 and 300 metres. There is a proviso that this does depend on whether there are obstacles blocking the radio waves between the handset and the base unit. I did wonder whether the fact that my garden is so steeply terraced might cause problems. My close friend did indeed ring whilst I was right at the bottom of the garden and I did receive her call. The conversation was a bit ‘broken’ at the very bottom, a distance of some 100metres from the base unit, but moving up to the next level I found it perfectly clear.

The weatherproof quality of the handset is a huge bonus for all gardeners or outdoor workers. It has the ability to store up to 100 names and numbers, which are quickly found by scrolling through the LCD screen and easy to read by the back light. You can also choose different ring tones for different groups of numbers stored in the phonebook. Useful for ignoring those you don’t want to talk to.

Other features include a hands free speaker for when you need to be using both hands whilst talking, a redial button which enables you to scroll through the 20 most recently dialled numbers, call timer (showing how long you have been talking….bit of a shock for me when I see how long I’ve been chatting with my friend!), microphone mute option, one press alarm dial –up, and a keylock.

It’s a shame I didn’t get to use the Doro for very long in my garden and am now staying in a flat, however I will be returning home in a week and will be taking the phone home with me for more calls to distract me whilst digging!

RRP: £49.98 - Available from www.onltech.co.uk