iDect M5i Twin Digital Cordless Telephone with Bluetooth and Answer Machine

Don't buy this item.

Caller ID does not work most of the time.
Outgoing calls from this phone kill my ADSL line - even with high quality microfilter fitted.
Answering machine misses the first few seconds of each call.
Answering machine sometimes does not pick up an incoming call.
The basestation resets itself at random intervals.
Sound quality is extermely poor.
The bluetooth feature is completely useless - your mobile has to be no more than a few feet away from the base station.
There is no way to synch your mobile phonebook with the one in this phone.

Outdated piece of badly programmed oriental junk. Stay clear !

This is a pretty good looking base-station and handset but not great quality plastics.
The handset buttons are reasonable and the handset is menu driven. Base-station is well laid out and easy to use. I like the black look screen that illuminates when you start to use the keypad and I like the "ECO"mode that turns down the power linking the handset and base if you don't use the phone at a real distance from each other.

What I find a real let down is the Bluetooth capability.

Basically the M5i acts like a headset when linked to your mobile (cell) phone. This allows you to use the M5i handset instead of your mobile handset - so I suppose its probably good for the grey matter between your ears. But this is a dubious benefit and only if you have free call plan minutes is it worth using your mobile instead of your fixed line. It gets a bit complicated too if you already use a Bluetooth headset with your mobile anyway.

Because I my fixed line for work, I easily have over 100 contacts. What I had really hoped for was for the M5i to link to my mobile and allow me to exchange data from my mobile contacts list to the M5i list. But no - it simply links as a hands free device and has no data exchange functionality. The M5i will hold 100 simple contacts with one telephone number per name and limitations on the number of characters. I have not tried this - but I bet that if the battery is removed or fails the phone book will also go. Imagine having to re-input 100 numbers again manually because you left it off the charger! I may be wrong on this point of course. Anyway it felt like going back 5 years in terms of contact handling.

Another Bluetooth limitation is that the M5i has no way of removing devices from its internal paired device list. If you have a more intelligent device (i.e. mobile) paired you have to reject the pairing from at the mobile end by deleting it on the mobile's device list. The M5i eventually gets the message....after a number of rejections and a couple of re-sets. You can replace the original pairing - but you can't delete the pairing. So if you pair with a headset, they always try to pair even if you don't want them to. I decided I only want my headset to pair with my mobile. So tried to rid myself of the automatic link to the M5i. Eventually by trying to pair with something that doesn't exist or with a phone from where you can reject the new pairing - I managed to rid myself of the link somehow but now its back again and I have to try it again. The manual does not help...
My view is that it is a just reasonable handset /Base-station / answer machine combo - but it does not make the best use of Bluetooth technology. It allows you the most basic facilities linking haNdset to heAdset or using the handset instead of a mobile handset - but that's not much use in the real world.
The lack of ability to read a SIM or synchronise mobile contacts is a real pain.
**********UPDATE*************
After a week of further use - I find that even when you pair a Bluetooth headset with the phone, it only allows you to "pick up" incoming calls - you can't make an outgoing call and use the headset to work hands-free :-( you always have to use the handset for outgoing calls....pretty useless then!