I am the king of cordless phones. In my experience you should stay away from the following brands:

• Uniden - Poor range
• Sony - Poor reliability

Some of the brands I endorse:

• Panasonic
• Sanyo
• VTech - Poor build quality, but they do work and are very cheap
• Southwestern Bell and GE sometimes seem the same. They work but are nothing special.

Currently I use a Panasonic KX-TC1733B (900MHz) and Sanyo 900MHz DSS phone most often. The Panasonic is great if you call customer service lines because it has speakerphone on the handset. I don't have to hold the phone to my ear anymore while on hold. I think I bought it for $79. That feature makes it worth every penny.

The Sanyo phone is excellent. I bought it refurbished for $35. It can go farther than the Panasonic and a 2.4GHz phone I used to have. Battery lasts long.