Oh, man... I should have checked these things out sooner. They took about TWO WEEKS to arrive here, and then, sat for a few days before I could devote some quality time to figuring out the documentation (these are a LOT more complex than my earlier generation Unidens).
Net-net:
Two phones (one on my account, one on my wife's account -- we originally ordered one, asked them two change it to two, they told us to use our other account -- so, instead of using our remaining $5 coupon code, we got to pay an EXTRA five bucks freight. But, it seemed like a good enough deal that I wasn't going to give myself heartburn over it.
Of the two phones, we have two bases, four handsets, ONE wall mount, one GOOD battery, and THREE bad batteries.
Damn....
But wait, it gets better!
Of the four handsets, TWO of them registered OK, but the OTHER two would not register -- would not UNregister -- and, one base had "phantom" reserved entries for handsets that could not be cleared.
To unregister a handset from a base, you FIRST need to have them registered TO that base.
After MANY hours of intensive (and near-desperate) web searches I found the two-key mambo to do a forced-unregister of the handsets, and, another maneuver to clear the phantom entries from the base (it was something to do with holding down one button while plugging in the power and then... I forget. But, it worked.)
So, I now have one good handset, and three that take forever to charge, but DISCHARGE like a racehorse.
Maybe I wouldn't be so aggravated had not my Kodak z1275 12MP camera that I got here a while back suddenly develop a problem that *more* web searching shows to be VERY common to the product line -- the time/date is lost and MUST be re-entered EVERY time the batteries are changed.
It did NOT exhibit this until now. Apparently there is an internal battery -- or capacitor (I've read both stories originating from Kodak sources) -- that was not quite decent quality.
Making for even more happytime, instead of issuing a recall, or repairing them when people contact them, the web is full of posts by people who were told this is NORMAL behavior! Some of them never worked right, out of the box, and people BELIEVED this was normal behavior. Most, though, are like my experience -- works fine for a while, then all of a sudden can no longer retain the clock. The official word from Kodak (to SOME people -- the people they don't tell "it's normal") is that it's supposed to be able to keep the clock running for something like ten to twenty four hours between battery changes (or if your battery dies before you can change it).
I think I've got Squaretrade on that camera, but if Kodak is NOT doing repairs on that -- if they've declared that the malfunction is NORMAL -- then I can't see Squaretrade being able to do anything other than refund my money and scrap the camera.
Damn, damn, damn... I'm scared to ask "what next?"
