14 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Poor outdoor range.
Date of Review: Oct 24, 2006
The Bottom Line: Just doesn't have the range our family needs.
I've been using the Uniden TRU8888 for about six months now and though it was pricey and works fine as long as I'm inside my house, I'm ready to try something else. I literally cannot step one foot outside any of my doors without affecting the quality of the signal. As long as I'm indoors, I'm fine. But if I try to walk to the mailbox, sit down on the deck, or even just step into the garage to get something out of the freezer, the person on the other end of the phone can't hear me at all. It doesn't actually drop the call, but the signal is so weak it's useless as a roaming phone. At first I thought it was the fault of the location of my base set -- it's in a bedroom, at the farthest end of the (ranch-style) house probably 70 feet from where the handset is located and even further from the door leading out to the garage. But I tried stepping outside my front door, which is probably only 30 feet from the base set, and had the same problem. As soon as I closed the door behind me, the signal dropped.
On the plus side, the base set is corded, which means you have a landline during power outages. The handset can be plugged in to any outlet and doesn't require a phone jack. This and the 5.8GHz technology (which did deliver the promised greater call clarity in my wireless-networked house) were what sold me the phone in the first place.
This would be a great phone for someone like my mom, who wants a corded base set next to her bed for power outages, carries the handset with her during the day and doesn't want to go outside with it. In fact, I may give it to her. But for our family it just doesn't really work. I'll keep it only until I find something better.
