Answer the cell phone on a land line
(Credit: Grace Digital)If you're an apartment dweller in Manhattan or San Francisco, you might as well skip this item because it'll probably seem utterly useless. But if you're in any other part of the country--with an abode that's more than a closet-sized studio--this device might actually come in handy.
The "Xlink Cellular Gateway" is a networking hub that lets you take your land-line calls on your mobile phone and vice-versa. That means if you leave your Vertu "Signature Cobra" in your library while retiring to the billiards parlor, you won't miss any important cell calls from the broker.
The $170 Xlink works with up to three mobile handsets as long as they have Bluetooth connections, according to Coolest-Gadgets. And if you misplace your cellie as often as we do, it'll save the cost of getting one of those remote locator devices.
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We moved into a a new house and I decided to drop our land line. I was able to get our old landline number transferred from Qwest to AT&T with the great support of a local AT&T store. This was no small feat as we now have a 206 area code phone working in the new 425 area code at the new place (only 10 miles away but we have 4 area codes in the greater seattle area). I got a free Nokia phone from AT&T but had to sign a 2 year contract on this new line, but it was only $10 a month since we were adding a line to an existing family plan.
I tried for 2 months to get the xlink to work but finally gave up. The recurring problem was the bluetooth link between the cell phone and xlink would break and I'd have to re-pair our phones to the xlink. The new cell phone we had for the house was permanently on the charger and stored right next to the xlink (this was the replacement for our our land line). This is the one that un-paired several times per week. When this happened, when people called they could not get through to the answering machine we had setup through the xlink since the nokia cell "home" phone was now disconnected from the xlink.
I had the xlink replaced and tried several other phones with bluetooth and all had the same problem. Every one would loose the BT pairing every day or so. Everyone blamed everyone else (phone manufacturers said the xlink was bad, xlink blamed the cell phones).
I would up out $170 for piece of junk that did not work as advertised. Xlink would not refund my money nor would the onliner retailer where I got it. When it worked it was cool - it worked as advertised but it consistenly lost connection to the phones which made it useless for me since we could not count on it working right
if you try this device, be sure to have a 60-90 day money back guarantee so you don't have the same crappy experience I had.
Now with the XLINK wired in all the phones throughout my house keep working even though I dont even have a telephone line. That is amazing!