libman%atse.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (Sandy Libman - now on ATSE::) (05/13/89)
>I have a PhoneMate 9750, their top-of-the-line two-line answering machine >with a built-in telephone. [...] Oh, there is one drawback to this unit: >it uses very expensive lithium batteries which have failed at least >twice already. Bob Breum I also have the Phonemate 9750 and am disgusted by the (lack of) design that went into the way it handles power failures. The machine takes $12 worth of batteries. These batteries last one hour! It seems to have the following reactions to a power outage: 1. If the batteries are good and there's a power glitch, everything happens as you would expect. The machine acts as if nothing happened (power-wise). 2. If the batteries are hopelessly shot, or not even there, or good and you have a long (>one hour) power failure, then when the power comes back on, the machine rewinds the incoming message tape. Yes, you noticed that. It happily writes all over the messages that came in before the power failure. 3. If the batteries are marginal, and there's a power glitch, the machine puts both tapes into FF and runs them until they are banging at the end of the reels. It then starts to smell like it's going to produce copious amounts of smoke and flame. 1 and 2 were confirmed by Phonemate's 800 number as "That's the way it works." 3 was observed once, first-hand, and is the reason that I don't keep any batteries in it. -Sandy