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BT Granite slimline DECT cordless phone

Making a cordless more like a mobile

Battery weirdness is compounded by the need to connect the cell in place by pushing a tiny plug into a slot within the battery bay. Folk who build their own PCs will be used to these tiny jumper-switch sized connectors, but others will wonder - as we did - why the heck the battery unit doesn't just have a set of metal plates that connect to another set, as they do in mobile phones?

BT Granite

Solid basestation/handset combo

Because it's not a battery pack - this is literally just the battery. Woe betide anyone who connects it up incorrectly, because it'll undoubtedly break the phone. Fortunately, a monochrome picture's been placed in the battery bay to ensure you fix the red wire at the right end.

The basestation feels altogether more robust than the phone, but it comes with an AC adaptor with a cable that terminates in a RJ45-style connector that's almost identical to the one on the cord for linking the base to the phone socket. The basestation's power and line sockets are right next to each other and distinguishable only by a small power brick icon next to one, and the word 'Line' adjacent to the other.

Thankfully, the power connector's restraint clip is different from the one on the phone cable, so you can't easily plug them in incorrectly, but we can see folk who've rushed to get their Granite set up - 24 hours is a long time to wait to use a new phone - wondering why the wretched cable won't go in.

At this point, we have to say we'll be back in a day to see how the thing actually works...

BT Granite

Make sure you wire up the battery correctly...

It's 24 hours later, and we have the charged Granite in our hand. It feels a little light, as we said, but it's comfortable to hold and use. Much better than the chunky cordless phones of yore - much more like a mobile.

If the Granite's look and feel is of a modern mobile phone, its UI harks back to an earlier, monochrome era. The menu's a one-icon-at-a-time affair that you cycle through using the large, oval navpad, using the left soft-menu key to select entries. Pick one and you get a list of textual options. It could be a late 1990s Nokia you're using.

Next page: Verdict

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