Swissvoice Epure Full Eco Cordless Single DECT Telephone - Black

After living with this phone for 2 months now I can say that it works great. It has to be the easiest phone to use because of the handset design. It's sometimes had a small issue with the base unit but this is soon sorted with a quick restart. Easy menu's to navigate and the speed dial works perfectly. It's no smartphone interface but as a house phone this really has been a good buy. It would get 5 stars if it wasn't for the base unit small issue.

Design and the telephone parted company in the 1980's. At this time, the mobile phone was on its march to ubiquity and its current form was that of a house brick. The hordes of bowed businessmen, dragging briefcases the size of an average family suitcase, were ample evidence of the need for miniaturisation. There is less reason for the mobile's land-line cousin to have followed suit.

In the ensuing thirty years, design has been sacrificed for smaller and smaller packaging until, we have reached the stage where a household communication system can be lost behind a misplaced paper-clip or worse still, swept from the desk by a flailing arm and devoured by an over enthusiastic vacuum cleaner. Perhaps of a more serious nature is the failure of human physiognomy to keep abreast of these changes. The distance from mouth to ear has remained constant, at roughly 4-5 inches. This leads the telephone user to vacillate the instrument at some point equidistant from both orifices, ensuring that both speech and hearing facilities are impaired.

I like to think that the designers at ePure studied this problem from all angles. One possibility would be to engage genetic engineers to re-design the human face. Were the ear to be balanced, precariously, on the lip, the modern nanophone would function admirably. There would, of course, be detrimental effects upon spectacle wearers and so, perhaps the eyes should undertake a similar migration to the labia: the danger being that the face might implode into the mouth rather as defunct solar systems slip into a blackhole. The problems thus caused to the human race are obvious but, more importantly to a telephone manufacturer, the lack of auditory apparatus would render their technology redundant. Another solution was required.

The chaps at ePure went back to the telephone of the 1950's; that reassuringly telephone shaped instrument created in relationship to human aspect. Naturally, there was no desire to return to the time when the office gossip could be discovered by their rippling muscles, built up by the constant lifting of a telephone to one's ear; but they did retain the pleasing shape that wraps itself around one's face, putting the mouthpiece near the mouth and the speaker next to the ear.

The final design resembles the image used to indicate the presence of a telephone upon a sign meant for people of many races. It is of sturdy enough construction that if, like me, the user is occasionally driven to the act of hurtling the telephone against the nearest wall, in protest at a particularly banal conversation, it stands a fair chance of surviving the experience (although, I bet this is not mentioned in their manual). It is sufficiently trendy as to fit into the most up to date room, whilst still looking elegant in more traditional surrounds and works amazingly well. I refuse to wander around with a tape measure, but, I was persuaded to hack my way into the jungle that passes for my garden, with no other contact to the outside world than this telephone. I was chatting happily well beyond the point at which its predecessor had issued its last crackle and died.

The final paean of praise for this instrument relates to the instruction manual: I am of the male variety and so am hard wired to hurtle this document into the furthest corner of the room upon unpacking any new equipment. This can have adverse consequences - I once spent three months trying to tune a toaster in to Radio 4 - but I cannot fight nature. The Swissvoice is so easy to set up that I meandered down not a single cul de sac: although I will check, at some time, whether it makes toast - it is so well made, I wouldn't be surprised!

I am content.

Excellent service, item arrived as promised and in very good condition. Its a brlliant phone, will recomend to anyone. easy to use and easy to install, no issue with performance.