So someone on FW posted about a week ago that Costco was selling a Panasonic 5.8GHz cordless phone for $30. I couldn’t believe it. The past few times I dropped by Costco to check out the phones (needed a second one because I have 2 VoIP lines), all their Panasonic 5.8GHz cordless phones were over $100. In fact I’ve checked every single time (maybe not the last time I went).
But I was due for a Costco run this week. My snacks in my office had run out and decided to spin over the phone section to check it out. Apparently they’ve moved the phone section right next to the entrace (the unpopular side). Guess not that many people were looking for phones. The funny thing is that, they now carry 2 Panasonic 5.8GHz Cordless phones less than $100. One for $29.99 and another for $59.99. The $59.99 I believe was expandable to x number of handsets. I don’t remember the model number, but it’s not on Costco.com.
The one I purchased was the Panasonic KX-TG5421S 5.8GHz Digital Cordless Phone for $29.99. I had some requirements for the phone I was going to purchase:
- It had to be 5.8GHz – I already have a 900MHz phone and the quality gets pretty bad when I start walking around room to room. I also didn’t want a 2.4GHz so it’ll conflict with my WiFi.
- I was hoping for Panasonic – Uniden and others may have worked, but I was only willing to pay a premium for Panasonic.
- I was hoping to purchase at Costco – Having several Uniden cordless phones die on me over the past years, I wanted to purchase one from somewhere with a good return policy
- It had to be cheaper than $10 (non-panasonic) or cheaper than $50 (panasonic).
Welp, I guess my patience have been worthwhile:
Some things that are lacking in this model is an answering machine. However, both my VoIP service come with voicemail which emails me the messages directly, so I wasn’t looking for one with an answering machine in the 1st place. I haven’t played with it’s features that much yet, but there is this neat speakerphone on the handset itself. I was speaking to my dad for almost 2 hours through it today and it was fine. I haven’t tested it’s range yet, but when I do, I’ll post an update.
This model doesn’t seem that popular online: PriceGrabber, but as you can see, all of them are selling for at least $40. Amazon.com has the item page, but isn’t selling it personally. There might even be profit to be made reselling them.
//krunk (^_^x)