rosen@exit26.DEC (Barry Rosen) (03/07/86)
I am sorry that this summary of responses is belated. My thanks to
all those who responded both through posting and by sending individual
mail messages.
The following are the answering machines that were mentioned in
people's responses (generally with some comments about the quality of
the machine):
BRAND NAME TIMES MENTIONED
========== ===============
Panasonic 14
Phonemate 4
Code-a-Phone 2
Record-a-Call 2
Record-o-Fone 1
Cobra 1
Magnavox 1
All of the Panasonic owners reported satisfication with their units.
Some would have preferred to have some other features which were
available in other Panasonic units. These other units either had cost
more money or were not available at the time they were shopping. Most
of those who had an opinion on the quality of the unit felt that it
was built better than the other answering machines at which they had
looked. One person who owned a Panasonic model felt that the use of a
continuous loop cassette was a problem when they wanted to record an
outgoing message greater than that of the cassette's capacity. [I
found while doing my shopping for a machine that Panasonic makes units
with both continuous loop cassettes and standard cassettes (the type
which must be rewound). They also make microcassette units.] No-one
reported any problems.
The next group of answering machines (Phonemate through Record-o-Fone)
all seemed to fare about the same. Owners seemed satisfied. One
owner of a Phonemate which was destroyed by a line voltage spike
during a lightning storm replaced it with a Code-a-Phone (he believes
model 2530) which has most of the top of the line features and uses
micro cassettes. This results in an answering machine of much reduced
size. An owner of a Record-o-Fone ($59.00 closeout) sounded
satisfied. Her girlfriend purchased a Panasonic model (she believes
for about $120). It seemed "...to be much better built--the controls
have a better feel, and the action in the tape mechanism is smoother..
still, mine's still working."
The owner of the Cobra unit was very displeased with it. "It often
answers and takes a message, but nothing is recorded on the tape."
The recommendation was to avoid this machine at all costs. The
Record-a-Call (model 675) that this person has at work operates fine.
The Magnavox was a combination clock radio, phone, and telephone
answering machine. This owner would not recommend this unit either.
The ring is too low, the controls are shared between the radio, the
clock and the answering machine depending upon what mode is set, the
radio can not be turned-off unless the entire machine is turned-off,
etc. [Good engineering--a true binary device!]
The features which were considered most desireable (and a necessity by
some) were:
o Beeperless Remote Control: In conjuction with this, quite a few
people stated that it was very desireable to purchase a model with
a security code that was greater than one digit and particularly a
code that the owner could change. The norm seemed to be toward 2
digit codes. In some models, one digit was set at the factory and
the other digit could be set by the owner.
o Remote Message Retrieval
o Remote Message Erase
o Tollsaver
o Voice Activated recording
o Announce only
o Microcassette version to give a smaller footprint and to allow the
purchase of standard leaderless microcassettes.
o Remote change of outgoing message: This feature was mentioned by
about 8 responders as something they either had and liked or they
wished their unit did have this feature.
o Recording of the date/time on each message: This feature was only
mentioned twice. One respondent had this feature and another
would have purchased it had it been available at the time she was
shopping for her machine.
The information provided seemed to indicate that the prices were down
from where they were just a short time ago. Many of the machines are
available at some level of discount and within each company, a number
of models are available differing both in features and whether based
on full size or micro size cassettes.
One item which was pointed out to me by a few people: When purchasing
replacement cassettes, be sure that you purchase LEADERLESS ones. ie.
cassettes without the plastic beginning. If you don't, you will
probably not record the beginning of the first incoming message. One
can purchase dictating cassettes to overcome this problem. If you own
a microcassette machine, this will not be a problem since these
cassettes do not have a leader.
I hope this information will help any of you who are considering
purchasing an answering machine over the next few months. You helped
me.
Barry
Posted: Thu 6-Mar-1986 16:22 EST
To: RHEA::DECWRL::"net.consumers"