Inside CES 2005

Yes, we know land-line phones are so 20th century. Phone maker Uniden is trying to drag those old copper wires into the present day with a new array of cordless land-line phones that look and act like cell phones, but with the superior reception and sound quality you get at home.

Uniden's 5.8 Ghz ELT560 looks like a large flip cell phone, but plugs into a base: it's really a home phone. The handset tries to mix the best of cellular and home-phone features—5 recordable ring tones as well as 15 regular ringers and 10 MIDI melody ringers, picture caller ID for 10 callers, handset-to-handset call transfers and even a USB connection so you can upload pictures for caller ID. It'll cost $149.99.

Uniden cordless phones The ELT560's big brother, the ELBT595 adds a digital answering machine and Bluetooth. It supports Bluetooth headsets and links up to Bluetooth cell phones to let you make calls on your cellular line using your landline handset. It'll cost $249.

Both EL systems are expandable with up to 10 handsets; you can use additional 560s or 595s, or use the cheaper ELX500 ($129.99), which supports Bluetooth headsets but not the fancy ringer/caller ID features.

Uniden is also introducing some cheaper, 2.4 Ghz cell-phone-like handsets. The DMX776 ($79.99) looks like a slider-style cell phone. You can link up 4 handsets for baby monitoring, text messaging or call transfers, and it even has a built-in two-way radio intercom for handset-to-handset communication.

The DMX778 ($99.99) adds a digital answering machine, and the DCX770 ($59.99) is an inexpensive add-on handset for either DMX model.

We may be cell geeks around here, but we were charmed by one old-school phone: Uniden's Weather Phone. The $59.99, 900-Mhz cordless home phone shows indoor and outdoor temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, tides, and the upcoming weather forecast. It figures out the outdoor temperature based on a sensor you plant outside your house... Sure, it doesn't look like a cell phone, but even our coolest cell phone can't do that.

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