Helpful Hint

I bought new fancy schmancy landline phones last week. The reviews I read online described the phone as being "easy to use and intuitive". The reviewers must have been way more technically savvy than I, and I don't think I'm a slouch in that department. I'm progressing, however, and I think I'll be fairly proficient in short order.

One of the cool features (maybe the main cool feature) is that it links with another Bluetooth device such as my cell phone or a headset. So if my cell phone rings, I can answer it using my house phone, thus reducing the radiation my poor brain is exposed to.

Once I had registered (paired) my cell phone to the house phone, I was able to transfer all my cell phone contacts to the house phone. The new house phone holds over 3000 numbers. The one it's replacing held only 100. It's still limited to only 16 characters in a name, though. That seems very restrictive to me, as well as puzzling.  One would think that technology had progressed way beyond the 16 character limit.  Maybe it has, but it isn't available for the $120 I paid for the base/answering/4 handset/bluetooth unit I bought. The limit means that while I might have three or four numbers for a contact, (they are all listed separately on the house phone, because that's the way the phone does it) but not enough room to indicate what device ("cell", "home", "work", "fax", etc.) the number calls.  Seriously? It will put the last few characters on a 2nd line and then the rest of the line is blank. Why can't I use the rest of the line?  Makes no sense to me.

I'm still reading the 98 page manual, but I wanted to
share the helpful instruction that might have been necessary in 1875. This could now be filed under the
"phone calls for dummies" section.