BT Calypso 1100 review

Full Review

With more and more of us using our mobile phones to make calls, landline manufacturers have to try everything and anything to get us to use the landline over that mobile network. Obviously feeling the crunch more that perhaps most, BT has released a coloured screen number to entice users.

The BT Calypso 1100 therefore comes across as more mobile phone than you'd would expect from a landline manufacturer. DECT enabled, (standing for Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications), the phone is truly portable around not only through its cordless abilities, but also through its quality capabilities. DECT isn't new to the block, but for users still relying on an extendable aerial to receive their calls it's much, much better.

The other element of portability of this phone is its size. Styled and designed like a mobile phone, users trying to get away from the old clunky phones of yesteryear will be happy with the results. Adding theargish colour screen means BT has mobile styling down to a tee. For that extra push, this is for all intents and purposes a mobile phone. You can even transfer your mobile phone's Sim card data across to the new device with a couple of presses of a button.

While the phone doesn't go as far as the new Siemens and add a digital camera alongside texting capabilities, it's really the only tale-tale sign that this is a landline phone.

Trying to even more mobile-styled, BT has even included two games. Why you'd choose to play a game on your phone over all the other entertainment choices in your house is beyond us, but it just shows how keen this phone is to sell itself as more than your standard bakelite model.

Verdict

With Polyphonic ringtones, colour screen and interactive interface similar to every mobile phone we've reviewed you might get confused and take this model to the pub instead of your usual mobile by mistake. Whether that's a good thing or not is a difficult decision, however what we do like is the SIM card support.

I am sure that like many people, I use my mobile rather than the landline simply because it has the numbers pre-programmed in, during the tests we transferred those numbers to the Calypso 1100, by the end of the month, the mobile became the phone while away from the house, but not in it. This is obviously BT's master plan, and for the month we've been testing this phone it's clearly working the way BT would hope. Should we be concerned? Certainly not when call charges are cheaper than our mobile operators.

• Comment on this story for your chance to win a TomTom XL Live IQ Routes Europe