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The paint and finish are very professional. I didn't need a lot of gee-whiz features. The LCD displays all the relevant information. My criteria were price, quality and ease-of-use.
I do a lot of multi-tasking so being able to carry on a conversation on the speakerphone while working on the computer was absolutely necessary. No digital answering system, no flashing LEDs, nothing. The money was spent on the sound hardware and the production (and of course Polycom's profits). So, as the title implies, it all depends on what you want from a phone. I use this phone for my home office. Over the years, I've used everything from Panasonic to ATT to BT phones. I also didn't want something that felt like it was made out of cardboard.The Polycom has delivered. If there is some way to focus sound waves like a laser beam at the microphone, I haven't found it.
There is absolutely no way that moving air (with your voice) 2-4 feet from a microphone is going to sound the same as moving air inches from a microphone. Everythig feels solid, buttons are a good size and everything is clearly marked. It's worked well enough for my purposes that I have bought 3 more units. No, this doesn't have anywhere near as many features as other $150-$200 phones. The voice quality is excellent on both the handset and the speakerphone. The unit itself looks better in person than it does in the pictures.
Like many people, I knew Polycom because of their exceptional conferencing/speakerphone products. The volume is adjustable in small increments, unlike many phones which seem to only have "silent" and "foghorn" levels.Build quality is excellent. Yes, people can tell they're on a speakerphone but that's just physics at work. I've had phones with enough features and gadgetry to run the space station if you wanted, but all I ever did was use them to dial numbers and make phone calls. Conversations are clear and free of phantom noise/echo.
When I bought this phone for a home office about 8 years ago it had the features I needed at an acceptable if relatively high price. Best keyboard touch I've found in a landline phone, ergonomically superior to Panasonic, etc., but directory and caller ID interface is convoluted. Voice seemed to be breaking up occasionally, sometimes a bit staticky. Speaker tone was clear and loud.
I would not buy again, even though 8+ years of use might be acceptable to some people. Now it has developed loud buzzing noises and I've been quoted (by a third-party shop) about as much for a repair as a new unit costs. The reliability of this phone does not match the price. I'd look for newer technology from other makers, unless speakerphone function is really paramount. It should have been developed and improved. True, the voice quality was a bit uneven.
Like other landline phones, it should really have a backlight or other alternative for more legible display. Too bad, design and concept were unique and on the right track. But the speaker phone feature was excellent and especially good for waiting on hold then talking with customer service, etc. Unfortunately it had a recurring problem of keyboard failure that required plugging and unplugging.
Don't buy this product if you need a business phone. The handset is very bad and not ergonomic. The microphone must be terrible. Others can not hear me very well as I've tried the phone on three different phone lines.
Only one Polycom SE 225 was under warranty - others over one year old were not covered. A responsible company would quickly determine the failure (since the problem can be fixed for a price the cause must be known) and be transparent about it with customers - and fix the customer's phone without charge when the product itself is the cause of failure. All our other phones ATT, Uniden, etc.
The sudden death and lack of response to the clear product fault from Polycom has caused us to give up on the Polycom brand entirely. At $250 per phone that is the least that you would expect. It is hard to believe that Polycom has not determined the cause - the company certainly must have a vast number of returned phones to test, given the number of refurbished phones that are available on the market.
We have had four Polycom SE 225s and all four have died a sudden and unexplainable death. We like the phone when it works, which is why we had four. This looks like a class action suit waiting to be filed.
have had no problems - just our 4 Polycoms. The replacement phone that we received under warranty also died.
They offer an alternative: pay $106 up front, they'll send a refurbished (not new) unit via expedited delivery and include a pre-paid shipping label to use to ship the defective unit back to them. the so-called "advanced exchange" is what I'm stuck with. The unit functioned fine (very good audio quality on my end and on caller end), until the phone's "line 2" stopped working (purchased less than 90 days ago). Since I can't do without my phone (hard to run a business wihtout one.). I'm quite disappointed to have to pay 50% of the original purchase price to replace a new product - that would be a "negative discount". Once I determined that the problem was with the phone and not the phone line, Polycom's support response (via website) was relatively quick, and they acknowledged the problem and agreed to replace the defective unit (still under warranty). BE AWARE: Polycom will replace / repair units under warranty for no cost, but you have to send the defective product to them at your expense, then wait up to 30 days to receive the replacement.
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