Answering Machine Review

Introduction to Answering Machines

Standalone answering machines are quickly becoming obsolete. About three companies currently manufacture these devices, so the pickings are slim. Even so, many officially discontinued models are still available. More popular these days are cordless phone/answering machine combos, which are covered in our companion report on cordless phones.

Consumer Reports magazine last updated its coverage of answering machines in 1999, and most of the included models have since been discontinued. Rather than Consumer Reports, we found opinion websites to be most helpful in lieu of professional reviews. When it comes to answering machines, owner satisfaction hinges primarily on voice quality and ease-of-use. We found the best owner-written reviews at Amazon.com, Epinions.com and BestBuy.com.

Digital answering machines have completely taken over the market from the older varieties that record on tapes. Digital answering machines are faster and quieter, and they let you bounce from message to message, picking and choosing which messages to keep or discard. You also don't have to worry about finding replacement tapes.

While some AT&T answering machines get good reviews, we found mainly negative comments for the AT&T 1718 . Of about 15 contributors to Amazon.com, not one owner gives it more than a single star. Some owners report that this model simply stopped working. Others are more specific; one user notes that he was able to program the day and year, but not the month. Another reviewer notes that voice quality is garbled. Instead of an LCD displaying the number of messages, this machine merely blinks (for example, if it blinks five times, you have five messages), hardly a convenient feature. Lastly, because the phone cord is hardwired to the machine, you'll need to buy a coupler if you need the phone cord to be longer than six feet. Other models solve this issue by simply having an input jack, so that you can use a phone cord of any length.

ConsumerSearch receives a number of inquiries from owners who have lost the manual to their answering machines. The best source we've found is www.InstructionSheets.com. This website has a large archive of owner's manuals available online or links to where you can find them. This is a great resource if you have a perfectly good answering machine but can't quite remember how to program it.