Working from home today has really made me appreciate the equipment that my employer has invested in, especially when I started looking around to find something to duplicate that here.  I use a noise-cancelling binaural headset with an amplifier/adapter from Plantronics at work because I spend a lot of time on the phone.  Since we have to share an office, they won’t let us use speaker phones, and I’m not very fond of them anyway.  I spent a large portion of today using a speaker phone and it convinced me that I need a decent headset.  Together, the above products cost $240, so I guess I’ll have to settle for something a bit less. 

My main requirement is that it be a corded phone with a headset.  I have never had much luck with wireless phones, even ones with headsets.  My main problem is that I can’t hear very well on them.  I can never get the volume high enough to clearly hear the caller.

This product looks promising, since I found an online dealer selling it for $49.95, but I hate buying phones because you never know how they’re going to perform until you get them home (and returns are often a big hassle with some online retailers).