The balance between price, quality, and functionality
Written: Oct 30 '01 (Updated Oct 30 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good digital quality, good aesthetics, reasonably intuitive to use, reliable
Cons: A little higher priced than other's in same category (but worth it)
The Bottom Line: Good digital sound, good design, good aesthetics; this answering machine has integrated itself into our daily lives.
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| kfgecko's Full Review: 1725 Answering Machine |
Although it was a little difficult to "splurge" $60 a couple years ago on this digital answering machine, I'm glad I did. This answering machine provides the 3 essentials I require in an answering machine: random access (tapeless), acceptible clarity, and multiple mail boxes.
I had stood in the answering machine section at Fry's Electronics for over 45 minutes reading the packages, and trying to deduce what the best match was. I didn't want to spend a whole lot (originally budgeted $40) but I didn't want to get something we'd be frustrated with either. It had to have random access (for example, the ability to erase message 2, and still have message 1 and 3 saved). There was a competing model by Casio that beat this AT&T model by price (and sale). However, after just one evening, the Casio was returned because of its unacceptable digital (lack of) clarity. I came back to the store and splurged the extra $20 (50% higher than budgeted) for the AT&T model.
FEATURE RICH:
This unit has all the basic ground covered. It's tapeless (digital), reasonable recording time, 4 separate mail boxes accessible (and messages can be moved around between them), date/time stamp, remote room monitor, call screen (via listening to live recording), remote access (not sure why the epinions spec says it doesn't), acceptible audio quality, battery backup, and memo.
DIGITAL, TAPELESS, RANDOM ACCESS, DIGITAL AUDIO:
Tapeless means that there's no moving parts to wear out, no tape to get tangled and worn, and no FF and REW through a "sequential" access tape. Recording both the greeting and the messages is all done digitally, which means messages can be accessed, moved around, and erased in any order. The most important thing to check is the sound quality of the digital audio. In order to save costs, some manufacturers reduce the quality of the digital audio (it saves memory). AT&T seems to have chosen a higher digital audio quality than most of the digital machines I have experienced. In fact, it seems to be the highest quality in its price range.
The audio quality is by no means CD quality, but it is acceptible to the human ear. Whereas other digital answering machines make you sound like a cyber-robot, this one is just on the bleeding edge of "normal sounding"; although if you listen closely you can hear the digital distortion.
USAGE AND INTERFACE:
The machine is reasonably intuitive to use and my wife was up and retrieving messages from it without any help from me. With a little more technical mode thought, doing things like setting the clock and such are also achievable without cracking the user's guide.
Which brings me to the user's guide. The instructions for use are printed on a "map folded" sheet of paper that are barely adequate for doing the basic functions. The instructions actually omit to tell you about some features that exist on the machine. I had to figure out myself how to move a message from one mail box to the other. Fortunately, the designers of the answering machine had enough foresight to make it fairy intuitive. (IE, moving a message from one box to the other means you: play the message, while it's playing push "change" and then the mail box you want to move it to.)
AESTHETICS:
The AT&T answering machine is in a clean white shell that is simple and elegant. It doesn't look overly bulky or take up an unreasonable amount of room. The buttons are arranged in a simple and pleasing matrix and don't give an impression of interface clutter.
PROUD OWNER FOR OVER TWO YEARS:
The longevity test is one of the hardest to come by. After owning this machine for over 2 years, I'm happy to say that this machine fits the "answering machine" role wonderfully. In fact, the entire time we've owned it, I've had no complaints from anyone in my household. We've never lost messages or were frustrated with the machine for mangling a message. It has effectively become integrated and invisible in our daily lives... a sign of a good machine.
Now that it's quite a bit later, the price of the unit will most likely have come down, or improved versions available.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kfgecko
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: San Jose, California
Reviews written: 165
Trusted by: 10 members
About Me:
30-something male, born/raised in Northern-California.
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