The Grandstream WP836 is a Wifi^? phone meaning it completely bypasses the telephone jack to make and receive calls. Instead, it will use your wifi connection to the internet to make and receive calls. Your main limit will be the SIP providers that may or may not work with this phone depending on the carrier. For example, Callcentric will work but Vonage will not. Since there is no base station, the phone just needs the charging dock to charge the phone.

Good

This is new to me, but this will be the first phone I would have seen that would support 3 SIP accounts. This is pretty interesting, and offers more flexibility even though I personally do not have 3 SIP^? providers. Not only that, but I change the default account pretty easiliy, and conveniently. I would usually just use account 1 unless there was a need to use the other account. The default account will display on the phone’s screen and with a green dot will identify that the account is connected and ready

I don’t know how big the screen is, but it is bigger than any other home phone I used in the past. The screen is also 65k color which is vibrant and colorful enough to show everything. The screen is not really optimized for itself, and more relevant content can be provided on the Home Screen if Grandstream really wanted to. The screen nonetheless nice and roomy, and doesn’t have a claustrophobic feel to it. I just wished it used the real estate a little more rationally.

In a dark environment, the phone pad, and all respective keys will light up allowing you to see the keys in the dark. This back light will not light up if there is enough daylight. This is different from let’s say my iMac’s keyboard always having the backlight on. It’s not obtrusive, and fully functional. The function keys are not back lit though which is a little disappointing.

Once you set up the computer to connect with the phone, then you would have a login. You set the password, and the UID is always admin. You are able to provide for account information without having to try to use the keypad on the phone. You would also deactivate active accounts, and change which is default. Using your computer is much more simpler, and even quicker than trying to provide the information on phone’s pad. This encourages long and complex passwords which is good security.

The battery is good from the time I had it. I hadn’t received any long involved conversations on the phone since no one calls the home phone. However, it can go days on standby when close to a strong wifi connection. The battery is much bigger than my previous Grandstream WP series phone. I am not concern of running out of battery if I should happen to receive a long winded conversation on my phone.

While there is a charging dock which uses POGO pins to charge the phone, in between the pins is a USB-C port for charging. If for some reason, the cradle was to stop working, I would be able to use any standard USB-C charging cable to charge the phone – therefore increasing the lifespan. My previous phone used a micro-USB B port which I am sure there are some readers that might not have ever seen such a port.

Bad

While not a serious problem as the phone still fits comfortably in one hand, you might guess that the phone is designed for a commercial application. The phone is not the same phone, but think of a DECT^? from 5 years ago. I will give this phone a pass since it also support 5Ghz connections. However, one could get away with 1.9Ghz that most DECT phones would go for while still receiving High Definition phone calls.

Personally, I want my phones to sound like a phone. I don’t need some jingle to answer the phone. My iPhone 14 has 2 carriers which I will have unique ringtones for each line so I will know which line is calling me. I don’t see so many option for the WP836 especially since it can support 3 accounts, and therefore 3 lines. Again, I want my phones to sound like a phone, and there aren’t enough choices for such a desire.

There is a side button. It can be used as a Push to Talk with another WP836, so this feature makes no sense. The second option involves an alarm system that I don’t know how it would work with the phone. I would imagine that your need some server for this to work. However, these are the options, and nothing else. I wouldn’t have mind to set the phone to turn on DND which would have been nice. However, this is not a feature that I could set, and have to have a button that does me no good.

Ugly

It was pricey when I bought the phone at $150 from Amazon. While I obviously knew the price going in, I wouldn’t have mind if it was a little cheaper especially with the gripes I have with the phone. The phone is worth it, especially if you can assign 3 SIP providers to the phone.

There’s no audio port. I would have liked if my cordless wifi phone would have an audio port that I could plug in earphones when I am talking to someone on a long winded conversation. This is not an option, and you can’t software repair a hardware flaw. With that said, I am not really happy about the lack of an audio port, snd while there is bluetooth, I didn’t have a good experience with bluetooth on the last Grandstream WP series phone. When I can, I will acquire a pair of earphones exclusively for the phone – however, since I don’t receive calls on this phone – it might not make sense to acquire higher end earphones.

Verdict

I like the phone. I would have mind to not have anything bad to say about the phone, but this is an honest review of a phone I had for a couple of weeks. If I was to need a second phone connecting with the same account though – I would have to buy into Grandstream’s DP services DP is short for DECT Phone. I live in a simple 1B/1b/0l apartment. Again, my home phone does not get much in the way of action, so it going to the charger at night time instead at my bed is good enough.

If you need a real phone for your SIP based phone service, then this is a solid choice. However, keep in mind of the limitations of the phone as they are pretty significant. I don’t regret my purchase, and I wished I could have more services on the phone, but that does not seem to be an option right now.