I’ve had the Nortel Meridian M5208 for about a year now and I feel it is a good time to write a review on this phone. Prior to the installation of this phone, a “cost saving” attempt, we were using old AT&T phones with a real bell ringer. The thing was built like a tank, weighted a ton, and was analog. It didn’t have any lights, so the only way to tell if you had voice mail was to pick up the receiver and listen. Strangely enough in my desk was an old device that plugged into the phone and would blink if I had voicemail, this device no longer worked, but at $200 a phone I have a filling that the modern version of a voicemail detector would have been cheaper.

To transfer calls, we had to can you believe it, CLICK DIAL CLICK, now to transfer calls we have to PRESS dial PRESS. What a savings!

Caller ID
Everyone’s favorite new feature is the caller ID. I have to admit I don’t have caller ID at home and am not a big fan of it. Heck I am at work I need to answer the phone even if it says out of area. BTW my parents called me from China and the caller ID was 1234567890. But that is another story.

The problem with this caller ID is it displays only numbers, there are some people I work with that I know there number by heart but I say the same thing no matter who is calling, JOB TITLE followed by this is Joseph Katz speaking.

Another problem with caller ID on this phone is no history, once the person hangs up the information is lost to the ages.

VOIP
In an attempt to save money we purchased these phones retailing for $200+ each, the price has gone down since we made the purchase it was $249 when I first looked them up. Every month I am required to sign my phone bill declaring that the calls I made were work related, so I can tell you before going VOIP we paid $0.10 a minute, thanks to switching to VOIP we are now paying $0.06 a minute. If my information is correct each person will have to talk on the phone for 88 hours to pay for this phone.

Shoot I just sold myself on this phone. I hate when I do that.

But I still think $0.06 a minute is a ludicrous price to pay…

Msg Waiting
A big improvement is the msg waiting, while the unit does have a bright red light that flashes when the phone rings, this light doesn’t come into play for voicemail. There is a MSG WAIT button that has a dark black LCD arrow next to it when a message is of course waiting. I really wish this phone blinked because let’s admitted it, we sometimes forget to check messages when we get back from lunch are just want to pass out from eating too much at the Chinese buffet.

Intercom
This is a great improvement, when you are on the phone, people inside your office to Intercom you. It is also annoying because if you are NOT on the phone and someone intercom’s you, you can’t not just pick up the phone and talk, you have to pickup the phone and selected intercom. There is a different ring tone for Intercom, but still slightly annoying design.

Redial
Another new feature of these phones is redial, of course there is no button that says redial but I recently found out (only a year or so later) that if you press ## you call the last number dialed.

I wish I could say I found this out by reading the instruction book, but I did not. Yes I did read the instruction book, but this was not listed in the manual they gave us.

Problems

Unlike the old AT&T phones with a real bell, the digital chirp of these phones don’t travel was well, and I have a harder time tell what office it is coming from. Maybe it was age, that gave each “bell” a distinctive ring, maybe it was the way the sound waves bounced off walls, but people really could tell their phones apart. Now with digital “tones” all phones sound exactly alike and picking up someone else’s call is all to common.

In addition the ring, these phones have been known the drop calls, just like cell phones. As with anything digital you either have 100% or 0, and zero equal your call is over. This doesn’t have a lot but it does happen, and unlike cell phones people on the other end aren’t use to drop calls, they might think you hung up on them.

Recommended: Yes