****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The Aastra 6869i is Aastra's flagship phone in its latest line of phones (the 6800i series). As the newest line, the 6800i series should be the best. Unfortunately, it's not, and here's why:1. Ringer volume won't go low enough: Earlier model Aastra phones, including the 6700 series, had a lot of variability in the ringer volume. You could easily set the ringer so that you could barely hear it when you're sitting right next to it, and there were a lot of steps above that. On the 68xx series, the lowest ringer volume is too loud, and it's impossible to make it quieter. If you have your phone in an open or cubicle work area, or just don't want to be bothered by the phone when you're away from your desk, this could be a problem.2. DTMF too loud. If you're using the speakerphone, and you have to press a touchtone key, the DTMF is played way too loud as well. On the 67xx series, the tone sound was pleasant. On the 6869, you have to turn the speakerphone volume way down, and then when you want to hear the person you're calling, you have to turn it back up.3. Headset volume too loud: When using a headset directly connected to the phone's headset jack, it is impossible to turn the volume down low enough so that it doesn't hurt your ears after being on the phone for a prolonged period of time. In prior phone models, Aastra included a configuration file option that would allow you to lower the headset, handset, microphone, and sidetone volumes. However, Mitel decided to take away those options from users for this model.4. Screen too small: The screen on this phone is smaller than the screen on the 6737i. While the 6869i has a color screen, the addition of color just makes it a bit harder to read the text. To make matters worse, since the screen is smaller, the text is smaller as well. The UI is also considerably hard to work with than the 67xx series as well.5. Only two hard buttons for lines: The 67xx series had FOUR line buttons. The 68xx series only has two. The phone includes replaceable key caps so you can reprogram the callers button and the redial button (both of which belong on softkeys anyway), but you then also have to manually configure Line3 and Line4 to match the Global SIP Settings in the phone settings. On the 67xx series, the Global settings applied to the first four lines. All in all, a lot of work to be able to handle 3 or 4 calls at once.There are a few advantages of the 6869i, but not enough to make me want to use it as my regular phone. The entire phone is black, which looks more modern and sleek than the 67xx series. The handset sound quality is considerably better as well, and is probably on par with Polycom phones. Since I use a Sennheiser headset most of the time, this benefit is of little consequence to me.IF they allow the ringer setting to be made lower and allow the headset volume to be set lower, I'd consider this phone for regular use. Until then, however, I'm going back to my 6757i and 6737i as my daily use phones.This phone is awesome when paired with an Asterisk server. The phone is visually very attractive. The features and customizability are great. The latest series of firmware works excellently. This is by far my favorite SIP phone for the reasons stated.
