Ever since I saw the BeoCom 2 on the Bang & Olufsen website, I knew I had to have it. It was just such a weird and yet really neat looking cordless phone. I’ve had the BeoCom 6000 for well over a year now and I’ve been pretty happy with it. But the BeoCom 2 - WOW it looks great.

I was walking by the B&O store the other day and I just happened to notice the BeoCom 2 in the window. It looked even better in real life than the pictures on the web. So when I went in and was told that they were having a discount on its launch, I was pretty much sold.

The BeoCom 2 is a very different looking cordless phone. As you can see the BeoCom 2 takes on a very unusual shape. It’s long, thin, and curved which, phallic humor aside, is a rather peculiar shape for a telephone. But hey, this is B&O and this is called art! I like it.

Form

It’s B&O. Enough said. Just exquisite.

Function

The BeoCom 2 comes off as just another cordless phone with some new bells and whistles. In fact, it’s nothing on the technology side that will get anyone excited. The fact is you’re buying this for its form more than anything else.

The BeoCom 2 lacks the sophistication of the BeoCom 6000. Handsets cannot be added on to the base station and so far, no handsets can communicate with each other. (The ‘Int’ button on the phone has no function at the moment.) The salesman at the store said that there is the likelihood that the phone would be upgraded later to offer functions like the 6000 but he didn’t know when, and more importantly, if old BeoCom 2 phones were upgradeable.

Gone is the jog dial wheel on the BeoCom 6000 and instead, a new track point replaces it. From the track point, you control all the usual aspects of adjustments by traversing the menus, which by the way are very good and user-friendly. You can store numbers on the phone with names but there’s no way at the moment to transfer any names from the BeoCom 6000 so this can be a bit frustrating as you have to do it all over again.

The BeoCom 2 is surprisingly light and holding the phone from the base feels very comfortable. It takes some time to get used to holding a phone with this unusual shape but once you get used to it, its perfectly normal.

Using the phone is a breeze. Placing/receiving calls are easily done by pushing on the big button at the bottom. The only thing unusual is the placement of the buttons so getting used to dialing numbers from two columns of buttons versus the usual three-column layout of regular phones takes a little getting used to.

You get about 20 hours of talk time per charge, which is more than enough for any of you that likes to talk for hours on the phone. The manual says it takes about 5 hours to fully charge the battery and the stand-by time per charge is said to be approximately 150 hours. The charger is also “smart” meaning that it just doesn’t continue to charge the phone indefinitely when placed on the charger. It only charges the battery if necessary. If the batteries are getting low, you get the words ‘Information’ on the screen, upon which when you scroll down, you will get the words ‘Battery need recharging’.

Reception and voice quality is excellent. The BeoCom 2 is based on the DECT digital cordless phone standard. The range of the phone is said to be about 50 meters indoors. It works very well in every room in my house so that’s all that matters to me. The ringing tone on the phone is a very unusual bell-like sound. It doesn’t have the normal dull ring of other cordless phones or even the regular ring of the BeoCom 6000. Instead, this is a high quality, speaker-like sound that is projected from the phone. Very neat.

Also, if you own any other B&O audio/video products, you can use the BeoCom 2 to control the volume of that product so you can turn down the music/TV while you’re talking on the phone.

Factor

Yes, this is a just a cordless phone, and for US$480 it is very expensive. But hey, it’s a B&O and you’re not just buying a cordless phone. You are in many ways buying a sort of art piece. It looks pretty stunning just sitting on the table and I think it’s worth every penny. This is one cool, ESSENTIAL phone to have if you are in the market for a cordless phone that doesn’t look like one of those ugly white square models that they sell today.