Vtech 9151 Cordless Phone & Answering Machine - A Great Deal!
Nov 29 '00
The Vtech 9151 is a cordless phone and answering machine combo. It comes in wild colors that will definitely brighten up a room. The Vtech is sturdy and well built. It is definitely a great buy for those that are on a budget.
The Handset
The handset is a little bulky. It's not the smallest cordless phone out there, but it has nice curves to prevent it from looking like an outdated model. I actually like the fact that it is not tiny. I don't like to hold onto phones that are smaller than my hands like the new cellphones out there today. Cordless phones are not made to be put in pockets, so I see no reason to buy a tiny cordless phone.
The buttons are big and easily punched. They have a nice feel to them when you push them, however, they stick out a little too much. If you press on it a little too hard with your cheeks, you could accidentally hit the "off" button. I've hung up on people accidentally a couple of times because of this.
The handset has the usual buttons for redial, speed dial, channel selecting, and flash. However, it lacks a mute or hold button. I would really prefer a hold button because I have found it is really useful when the phone call is for someone else. Especially in a household, just hit hold so you don't have to listen for the person to pick up the phone in another room before hanging up. There aren't many cordless phones out there with a hold feature so I wasn't surprised this model didn't have it either. On the side of the handset there is a volume control slider. There are 3 volume settings. I think the lowest volume setting is very loud already. It is fine during the day time when I'm up and about, but at 3 AM it's just too loud. At the loudest setting you can actually pull the phone a foot away and hear a normal conversation just fine. That's way too loud!
On the other side of the volume control there is a headphone jack. I don't know of anyone that would use this, but I mention it only because maybe someone out there is looking for a phone with one? Either way, seems pretty useless to me.
The Base
The base is well designed. It has a second battery charger, but a second battery is not included. The digital answering machine is easy to use and I have found no problems with it. There are three mailboxes so you can keep your messages easily sorted. The default message is a woman's voice and sounds quite unusual. I would suggest you change it before you scare off your friends!
Performance
I use the cordless phone in my tiny dorm at UCLA so it doesn't need to cover too much distance. It is very clear for my uses and is not affected by all the cordless phones that are near me. Battery life is decent. I've never had it die out on me so it seems to offer a pretty decent talk time.
Would I Recommend It?
The Vtech 9151 is a good unit. There are definitely better cordless phones out there, but for much higher prices. For it's price it would be hard to find a better deal. The one type of people that I would not recommend this phone to are those that talk hours and hours through the night. The loud volume might get irritating after a long period of time. For me, however, it's not too big of an issue and I would still recommend it.
4/5 stars!
Sorry guys. This isn't in exactly the right topic section, but epinions does not have a section for this model. If they ever open up a section for it I will move it there promptly.
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Epinions.com ID:
lakers0340
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Reviews written: 17
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