EmailHere's what experts say to shoot for when purchasing a telephone answering machine.
- Power outage backup. The machine should have a battery backup in case of a power outage of a few hours or more. Otherwise, you may lose messages.
- Total recording time. Many digital units hold only fifteen minutes of messages. If you receive many messages or travel for long periods of time without checking messages and deleting them, look for a machine that offers 30 minutes or more.
- Remote message retrieval. Look for a machine that lets you change your greeting and turn the unit on and off from a remote location. Most have this feature.
- Toll-saver. When you're checking your messages from a remote location, this sets the machine to answer on the fourth ring if there are no messages (as opposed to answering on the first or second ring if there are messages), which allows you to hang up before you're charged for the call.
- Auto-disconnect. This feature automatically disconnects the answering machine when you pick up the receiver; it's useful for people who screen their calls or sometimes don't get to the phone fast enough. Be aware that some machines only stop while the outgoing message is playing, but not once the machine starts recording. Other models only disconnect when the directly attached phone is picked up (meaning this feature won't work with an extension).
- Variable speed playback. This function speeds up or slows down playback to electronically enhance messages; it's useful if you miss a number and don't want to skip ahead.
Other features to look for include an option that allows you to hear only new messages, message preview (which plays the first five seconds of each new message), a stamp that tells you what day and time the message was received, short burst/cellular compatibility (which ensures that the message will keep recording even when calls have fragmented transmission), room monitor (which lets you listen to the sounds in a room while you're away), priority calling (which alerts you when an important caller is trying to reach you) and message transfer (which forwards messages to a telephone number you program into the machine).