Convenient combination of phone and answering machine
Written: Sep 25 '03 (Updated Oct 07 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Digital recording, no tapes etc., battery backup
Cons: Not completely intuitive to set up and use.
The Bottom Line: If you want a cheap and decent combination speakerphone/phone/answering machine, this is it.
|
|
|
| balajithegreat's Full Review: (1818STK27) Digital Answering Machine |
When my old tape-based answering machine/phone combination died I knew that I wanted another answering machine/phone combination and I preferred digital machines to tape because of the obvious hassles involved with tape and the deteriorating quality of recordings it entails. When I walked into a store and saw this machine (which includes a speakerphone which is a bonus that wasn't in my requirements) for $40 with a $20 mail-in rebate, I picked it up immediately.
First off, it is a pretty decent machine for the price I paid for it after mail-in rebates. It is average-sized and the keypad for the phone is large and easy to use. The answering machine was not very intuitive to set up and required some references to the users' manual. The manual was quite clear, but I think an answering machine should not require outside help to set up!
The machine has upto 19 minutes of digital recording time. You can set the machine up so that it picks up after a certain number of rings and it has a tollsaver feature which will make it pick up after fewer rings when there are new messages on it. It has a bright red LED window to display the number of messages and this blinks if there are new messages.
I have never used the remote access features of the answering machine so far. Practically anything you can do sitting next to the answering machine, you can do from another phone (including switching the machine on and off!).
A couple of irritating "features" of the answering machine: when there are new messages on the phone, it beeps every 10 seconds or so to let you know that it needs to be checked. There is no way to turn off this beeping. Very often, my wife and I let our answering machine handle all calls when we go to sleep, but since the machine is in our bedroom, as soon as someone leaves a message on it, we have to get up and play it, otherwise it would drive us nuts beeping throughout the night. The other problem I have noticed with this machine is that it gives you no time at the end of the playback of a message to delete it. It goes on immediately to the next message. The only way to delete messages that have been played is to play the message again and press the delete key as it is playing or press the delete key for about 3 seconds to delete all messages. I think it would be a lot more convenient if it would give me a couple of seconds at the end of each message to give me time to press the delete key before going on to the next message.
I forgot to mention another issue with this answering machine that annoys me a little: it does not have the ability to answer a call immediately without waiting for a certain number of rings. I screen all my calls and I don't want to listen to the phone ring a few times before the answering machine picks up. And the product details says it has 24 minutes of recording time, but I think it is closer to 19 minutes.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
balajithegreat
|
|
Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 2 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.