Before we start, I'll own up to the fact that, when Alex said she had a house phone for me to review, I wasn't exactly filled with excitement at the prospect. After all, it's a house phone right? It has none of the fun features of a mobile, it just sits on the side and waits for you to need it, occasionally ringing to offer you double glazing or something equalling irritating and un-wanted! At least that's what the phone does around here.
However my house phone is getting on a bit (like much of my "functional" household stuff), so I agreed.

And so, I took home a box, quite a small one; it really didn't look big enough to hold what I was assured was inside – 2 cordless phone handsets and base stations, with built in digital answer phone. When I came to unpack though, I was delighted, everything promised was neatly slotted into the box - it seems some companies are getting to grips with the concept of minimal packaging. Big thumbs up for Doro!

So to the units themselves - ok, I admit, they're far cuter than I expected, a stylish black and silver, and curved nicely to fit comfortably in your hand, and by your ear. They're very light too, noticeably lighter than my current mobile. The screen is clear, with good sized letters, and a gentle blue display backlight.

Installation was as simple as plugging into the mains and the phone jack, both handsets identified themselves (Handset 1 & Handset 2) with no issue, so it was time to leave them alone and let them charge overnight.

Next day, I started to fiddle – the buttons to access menu functions are self explanatory, as are the menu options, which meant I got used to it really easy, and had soon adjusted the set up, date, time etc and set some ring tones – there are 5 polyphonic & 5 monophonic tones to choose from, though nothing there that really grabbed me, still the variety is welcome, and it does mean you can have different rings on each handset.

I moved swiftly on to programming some numbers in to the 50 space address book – easy as can be, and with the rather nice option to set a different ring tone for different people, for a bit of advance warning! Unfortunately as my phone line doesn't support caller id, I wasn't able to make use of it. The other thing I found was the the address books are separate in each handset - useful if your household has different people they contact regularly, but potentially frustrating if the number you need is in the other handset!

Next I made a couple of calls (the first from the land line in months - my phone bill won't know what's hit it!). It was great to be able to wander about whist chatting, definitely an improvement on the old phone and there seemed no problem with sound quality or signal no matter how far from the base I wandered, not that I got anywhere the 50m indoors (300m outdoors) the blub says it will manage.

With 2 handsets & bases, I opted to position one upstairs and one down and was delighted to find that one button is set up to initiate a call the other handset , perfect – "Could you bring me a cup of coffee please" was the test call I made... "No, fetch your own" was the answer! *hurumph*

And, if you're using them somewhere bigger than I am, or you have a number of people to share them with, you can also 'page' both handsets from the primary base unit – which could prove handy for tracking them down if someone has wandered off with a handset!

The next function to try was the answer phone – all easy enough to control through the handset menus, with a clear recording (it boasts a record time of up to 30mins, though luckily none of my callers spoke for that long), and has the very useful capability of listening to messages from either handset. Playback and deletion of messages proved just as straightforward as all the other features.

Unfortunately, for something that works so well, the answer phone is the source of my one big gripe about the units – There is no external indicator when you have a message, no bleeps or obvious flashing lights, just a little tape symbol which flashes on the handsets. This means you have to actually check to see if anyone's called. Not the end of the world, but a new habit for me, who's used to a big red number and flashing lights! We missed two messages before we got used looking on arrival home – both calls were from parents, so we weren't very popular!

Over all though, the phones are great, I haven't missed a message in over 2 weeks, and I've just about got used to the ring tones enough to have stopped looking around saying "what's that" every time they ring! I'd certainly say they're worth a look if your in the market for a new house phone.

Pricing and retailers info' coming soon.