This is more like it. While the BT Stratus 1500 is a horrible DECT phones for all kinds of reasons, the BT Granite is something of a coup. True, it has the same white text on a black background UI, but this time it makes more sense. You'll find out why in a bit.

First to the handset and base station itself. The BT Granite eschews the elongated, bulky design of its sibling in favour of something a good deal more compact. The handset is a rectangular slip of a thing, not as slim as the Philips ID555 certainly, but it almost feels mobile phone-like in your hand.

It looks the part too, thanks to a gloss black fascia with white text keypad, a tasty chrome oval that gives you access to various phone functions. The back is finished in silver-coloured plastic, and it also has a chrome bezel that enhances the rest of its minimalist looks. Designed to fit in with other high tech chrome gadgets, you can easily see it sitting alongside a Sony Bravia TV, for example. Just what the tech doctor ordered then.

A better base station

Its accompanying base station is something of a novelty. Its shallow, square shape leans back almost towards the horizontal, enabling the handset to drop easily and securely into a hollowed out section in the middle, which is also scooped to enable you to easily pick the handset up again.

Delve into the white-on-black UI, and you'll find all of the features of its unloved Stratus 1500 sibling. You get the same mixture of spindly text and splodgy icons that give you access to various phone functions. But the execution feels more accomplished this time around: the small LCD actually fits the BT Granite handset's dimensions much better, while the chrome oval ring is actually a 4-way cursor type that enables you navigate around the otherwise uninspiring UI with ease.

Functionally, the BT Granite has a 100 name-and-number address book, a 12-minute digital answer phone and gives you the opportunity to send and receive text messages (provided you sign up to the appropriate BT services). Plus you can also run up to five handsets from the same base station. The base station and handset both have 15 ringtones - chances are you won't be enamoured with any of them.

Build quality

Unfortunately the BT Granite doesn't only share the same UI as its BT Stratus 1500 sibling, it also suffers from the same creaky build. Tapping the nicely spaced keypad buttons is fine, but push the whole keypad as a whole and that galleon of goths start being tossed about on the stormy seas again.

Luckily, the BT Granite also offers reasonable speech quality, while messages left on the digital answering machine are clear - you won't struggle to understand what's being said that's for sure.

All-in-all then a decent result for the BT Granite. It's not the best DECT phone we've ever played with, but after the BT Stratus 1500, it's arguably better than we had any right to expect.

You have to feel a little sorry for Panasonic's DECT phone engineers. While their compatriots are beavering away on Blu-ray players and Viera TVs, they're undoubtedly stuck in a dark, dusty corner somewhere, only being let out for their annual 'will this do?'.

One look at the Panasonic KX-TG7321EG should confirm your suspicions. Comprising a bulky, but curved handset and an uninspiring base station, it seems to scream afterthought. Only its orange backlit LCD display and keypad seem to shed any light.

Actually it's not quite as bad as all that. Given the asking price, the Panasonic KX-TG7321EG feels solid, weighty and reassuringly comfortable, its ergonomic curves ensuring that the handset sits snugly in your hand.

Look and feel

Its design harks back to early Nokia phones like the 3110. Heck there's even a flash of amber light at the top to tell you when the phone is charging. But then the Nokia 3110 was one of the best, most reliable mobile phones ever made.

The ergonomics stretch right over to the keypad itself - its big, comfortably spaced buttons sit proud of the fascia, while the backlight also makes it easy to dial in the dark.

The whole thing's uninspiringly finished in silver and mid-grey plastic, but the call buttons and 4-way D-pad at least make using the Panasonic KX-TG7321EG UI straight forward. Here Panasonic has made some incremental steps forward too.

The UI is still unashamedly retro, with its blocky black text and complete absence of gimmicky icons, but it's also a lot less cryptic than Panasonic DECT phones of yore. Press one of the three soft keys below the LCD now now and you actually get a real sense or what it might do, or where in the menu system it will take you - something that couldn't be said from previous generation DECT 'sets from Panasonic that we've tried.

Features and call quality

The Panasonic KX-TG7321EG is reassuringly solid when it comes to features too. The digital answering machine can store up to 30 minutes of messages, the name-and-number contact book can hold 100 contacts; while you also get slightly modern niceties like Caller ID (provided you've signed up to the appropriate service). The base station even offers support for up to six handsets.

Call and answer machine voice quality is good, while the rechargeable NiMH cells take only seven hours to fully charge - a good deal less than the 24-hour average more modern DECT phones seem to muster.

So the Panasonic KX-TG7321EG is solid, reliable, unpretentious performer. You wouldn't want to boast about it down the pub to your friends, but it actually gets very little really wrong, and does quite a few things right. Maybe being a Panasonic DECT phone engineer isn't quite so bad after all.

You'd like to think that modern home phones would be as smart and as functional as their mobile phone equivalents, but that's rarely the case. Coming closer than most though is the Motorola D1100 - a smart, stylish DECT phone finished in black with blue piping that also comes with a 4cm full colour display.

The colour display's important because the Motorola D1100 is one of the most mobile phone-like phones here to use. Access the menu button and you're presented with a series of big, colourful icons that represent phone's main functions including Text Messaging, Reminder, Clock and Alarm and, of course, Phone Settings.

The whole thing is pretty intuitive and DECT phones go, although you may find the large button that dominates the fascia a bit frustrating - it's really just an up/down rocker switch, which is fine if you want to scroll through the menus, but the phone keeps forcing you to use another button to actually make your chosen settings stick. It's mobile phone-like then, but only in a very 20th Century sense.

Blue-backlit keypad

The other slight problem you'll find is with the alphanumeric keypad, which has very rubbery buttons that can be hard to press: your fingers won't so much glide across the keypad as clunk down onto it, but the rubbery coating does make the phone feel robust.

You'll also like the fact that the alphanumeric keys are blue-backlit, making them easy to read in low light, while the cursor also has a blue 'glow ring' that lights up to to whenever it detects incoming calls, messages, etc. With its rounded corners and slim profile, the Motorola is also easy and comfortable to hold in your hand. Call quality is excellent.

Room Monitoring

When it comes to features, the Motorola D1100 is fairly blessed: as well as the ability to send and receive text messages - as we hinted above - the phone also includes Room Monitoring, enabling you to listen into baby while you're in another room.

The 100 name-and-number address book is easy to use, and you can also do stuff like make three-way conference calls, screen incoming calls and access recently dialled numbers (up to 20). You can also extend your phone network to accommodate up to four different base stations and five handsets.

The Motorola D1100 may even salve your carbon conscience. It's made from 20 per cent recycled materials and in Eco mode cleverly adjusts the signal strength to help reduce to help reduce the amount of power consumed and extend battery life. The only thing that's obviously missing is any kind of answer phone - but you'll have to stump up £90 for the D1110 model to get that.

This trio of handsets from Sagem Communications is an absolute bargain at £36.99. It's also environmentally-friendly, positively sipping power from the mains to keep the handsets charged; Sagem says its even cut the amount of radiation emitted by each handset.

Cheap as the Sagem D16T trio is, it certainly doesn't look it. All the handsets are finished in matt black and silver, with large rubberised buttons giving you access to the phones' features. The rounded shape also enables each handset to sit comfortably in your hand - although you do notice then that the handset feels a little light, while the plastics used are obviously not of the highest quality.

Accompanying the three handsets are the base stations: lead base station is also finished in black and silver and is obviously the one you hook up to your phone line. The other two are essentially chargers for the second and third handsets, but they're rounded matt black look makes them unobtrusive. All three handsets sit comfortably and securely their bases, and the bases are equally sure-footed in turn.

Features

It's when you come to set up the Sagem D16T handsets that you really notice where the corners have been cut: The mono 3 line LCD is decidedly old-fashioned and offers the bare minimum of features: you certainly won't be able to send and receive text messages, for example, while the 10 included 'melodies' are of the execrable chip music variety. Ugh.

Entering contacts into the address book is a bit long-winded too, and you can't share details between handsets: you have to enter them all again for each one. At least the Sagem D16T won't give you hand cramp thanks to those big buttons, while accessing the different menu options is straightforward given the limited number of options available.

Ease of use

In use the Sagem D16T proves very easy to use. It's obvious where the call buttons are (they're the big ones with green and red telephones on them); while call quality is clear and comprehensible, even if the built-in speaker lacks a little presence and bass weight.

If you're on a tight budget or just want a trio of basic handsets, the Sagem D16T offer excellent value for money. But for fancy features or more eye-catching designs you'll really need to look elsewhere.

When you think about it, Philips is a Bang & Olufsen for the rest of us. It produces great-looking tech products almost anyone can afford. But sometimes the execution is less than the sum of its parts.

Take the Philips ID555. It's a very slim, very stylish DECT phone and answering machine with a high gloss black fascia, a dash of silver and some tasty blue-backlighting that lights up its 5-line LCD display and keypad. It all looks incredibly stylish and sophisticated - a 'bit of posh' your gran might say.

Truthfully the Philips ID555 has a lot going for it too - it has a 200 name-and-number keypad, 30-minute digital answerphone, hands-free speakerphone and all the usual DECT goodies like the ability to add extra base stations, handsets, excellent call quality, yada yada.

It even has some eco credentials: Like the Motorola D1100, the Philips ID555 comes with some clever power management that ensures it uses the minimum amount of power possible when the handset is away from the base station (the closer you get, the less power it uses), and Philips says the whole shebang uses 50 per cent less energy than a conventional DECT phone anyway. All to the good.

The rub comes with its interface: The Philips ID555 has a mono LCD for a kick off, while the on-screen text seems particularly spindly - it's almost as if Philips' designers have deliberately slimmed down the typeface to mirror the phone's sylph-like dimensions.

What you really want - and expect - from Philips though is something with a bit of 'wow' - a cool GUI with some fancy icons or something that match the cool exterior - you know like Apple would do, or what Motorola has (almost) achieved with the D1100.

Instead you get spindly text laid out in a series of uninspiring lists and the omnipresent sight of an hour glass with the word 'waiting' underneath it. Waiting for what? A decent UI?

To be fair, there's nothing Philips is really doing wrong here - its interface is certainly no worse than what you see on most DECT phones: it's basic, functional, it's gets the job done. You just kinda what more, you know?

The physical UI is actually much better: although the keypad keys are quite small and close together, making and taking a call shouldn't be a problem for even the most sausage-fingered. Both the Philips ID555's handset and remote are comfortable to hold and have a reassuringly high quality feel. Making a call also banishes the spindly text momentarily, displaying the number you're calling at a reasonable size.

Don't get us wrong: there really, really is a lot to like about the Philips ID555. But a little UI inspiration would go a very long way indeed.

BT's home phones have always been a mixed bag - for every one you get that's a beaut, another's a bit of a clunker. Sadly the BT Stratus 1500 is the latter.

The problems start when you first fetch the BT Stratus 1500 out of its box. It's massive. Putting it side-by-side against Philips ID555 is like having a size content between Princess Leia and Darth Vader: the Stratus is very, very tall, very bulky and with its gloss-black finish and white-on-black LCD display, pretty intimidating too.

The gloom isn't relieved by any fancy lighting effects either. The BT Stratus 1500's LCD is very small and dim for a phone of this bulk and there's no keypad backlight. At least the numbers are big enough and white enough for you to see them in low light. The phone's a lot tackier-looking than the pictures suggest too.

Even the build quality's not great. Pressing down on the BT Stratus 1500's keypad moans, groans and creaks more than a galleon of goths awash on a stormy sea.

Features

On the positive side, the Stratus 1500 offers a reasonable range of features for your £63. It comes with two handsets, one main station with a 12-minute digital answerphone built in, and a second base station for charging. Both have the same gloss black finish as the handsets, although the answerphone does provide some relief thanks to blue charging status lights and 7-segment LCD which tells you how many messages you have.

Another key features is the 100 name-and-number contact book, although frustratingly you can't sync your contacts details across different handsets - you have to enter them over and over again for each one. Since the BT Stratus 1500 can support up to 5 different handsets, you could be in for lot of tedious data entry. You can also send and receive text messages.

The phone's UI is rather familiar too. In many ways reminiscent of the Philips ID555, it somehow manages to be worse by including the kind of mono icons any 3-year-old could draw, alongside some very spindly text which again is dim white / grey on a very black background. Eyestrain anyone?

At least you'll love the ringtones: Bach, Flight Of The Bumblee, and even Reggae get the polyphonic treatment, but the results are so shrill you don't so much want to answer the phone as throw the whole thing out of the window. Call quality is only average, sounding rather tinny and closed in. The Philips ID555 is a much better bet in this respect.

Sadly, the glam evaporates when you use the phone. The handset is too fat, the buttons feel nasty and cheap, and the polyphonic ringtones are horrendous.

On the bright side, call quality's reasonable, there's a slot for copying contacts from a mobile SIM, and you can assign different ringtones to different callers if you sign up to Caller ID.