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Motorola D1011
by Larrabee
Like a lot of people I use my mobile as my main phone these days, but its always good to know that the landline is there. The good old reliable 'real' phone that shouldn't run out of battery, won't lose signal and is always there as a back up.
There are several different configurations available with this style of handset by ... Motorola, you can have multiple handsets, with answerphones or not depending on your needs. I've opted for just one handset with an answerphone built into the base rather than as a function of the handset.
The phone is nice looking, it came in slick attractive packaging and was very easy to set up, pretty much plug it in and off you go! Its a classy matt black colour with soft buttons and the glowing bits are a soft yellow and fairly easy on the eyes. Its pretty compact and doesn't take up much room, I keep mine on a pretty small bedside table and it never gets in the way, there's still room for a book, a box of tissues and a lamp on there.
The handset is about the size of a mobile phone from the late nineties, its not trying too hard to be cool but it manages it by being simple and clear. The menus and functions are easy to understand and use, although I still haven't got around to programming in my friend's and families numbers, there is an option to do that. The light around the circular menu button will flash if you've missed a call, so you can tell at a glance if you need to look at the phone.
The answerphone is pretty basic, simple and easy to use. The yellow line-shaped light will flash if there's a new message (which I prefer to a beep as its less intrusive) and you can listen to your messages using the standard play/stop/skip controls that everyone will be familiar with. The answerphone speaker is nice and clear, I've never had a trouble with understanding the messages, no crackles or fuzziness.
The sound quality of the handset is good too, as good as most mobile phones with no crackling or cutting out so far. The battery is great too, I've talked on this phone for hours at a time without the battery running out, and it will last for days and days on standby. Its literally never let me down, although I'm sure it can't possibly last forever!
The only problem I have with this phone is that the ringtone is a bit too quiet, its not always possible to hear it from a few rooms away. If you get the version with a few handsets though and have them dotted around the house it shouldn't be a huge issue.
I bought this phone from Argos for around £20, and its been great value for money. No problems and functioning well, its an attractive and functional little landline phone that I would definitely recommend to anyone.
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Audioline AB 880
by Mitch285
Audio line AB 880, quite simply, I don't like it.
I wanted to buy a new answer machine for my office for my business, turns out. I made the worst mistake possible.
It wasn't easy to set up; I found the instructions to be quite badly translated, no idea what they were meant to be translated from. I just didn't ... understand them well.
There's only 50 minutes recording time on there and each message has to be a max of 2 mins long, which for my business, isn't always possible to get into 2 minutes when trying to arrange contracts and everything.
The set up took at least 20 mins to do; admittly our phones are oldish compared to what's on the market now, but a standard plug in should have been easier.
Quite honestly, in my eyes. Isn't worth it, although if you only what this for a house phone machine, then yea, possibly ok for you.
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BT Response 75
by 2night
Most people think of an answering machine as a way of not missing a call, a way of knowing that someone called while you were out. But for me I used this as a way of screening calls. My house for some reason was bombarded with cold callers many times a day. I don't know if we were on some list or something but they all seamed to call and ... sometimes at very late hours at night.
This compact machine had very easy to understand instructions and was therefore easy as can be to set up. There was only really two steps to follow. First I had to simply remove the plug from the phone socket and attach this to the answering machine and then attach the lead from the machine into the wall socket. The answering machine has a long mains powered cable, so simply plug this in where you want the machine to stay. The answering machine itself felt heavy enough to make me feel that it wasn't cheaply made and would last for years to come. The main body of the machine is gun metal grey in colour, this didn't exactly go with our sitting room but didn't stand out to much either. It can record up to thirty separate messages and has a recording time of thirty six minutes in total.
This was more than enough especially for the reason we were using it.
There are simple instructions included that tell you how to leave your personalised message for your callers to hear. "Sorry I'm not hear at the moment please leave a message after the beep", being the standard and most simple one to record.
There are also some other features that can come in handy such as, being able to control how may times it will ring before going to message. This way if you don't want to screen your calls, you don't have to be running for the phone to stop it going to message. It can be programmed to ring for up to nine or as little as two. There is also a VIP setting to let you know when it's family members or friends calling.
The little LCD screen on the front is very easy to read as the numbers glow a vivid red.
The play back of the recordings was clear and crisp and when I left messages for my family myself by calling home the outgoing message also sounded good.
This machine was a total necessity when it came to our family, it works great for what it's designed to do, meaning friends and family could leave us messages to let us know they had called. But what was most enjoyable was listening back to the cold callers mumbling and stuttering then hanging up. This became a nightly laugh for the family, they must have noted down that they kept getting an answering machine because eventually they all stopped calling.
This can be purchased online at : home-phones.co.uk
For £32.99 + shipping.
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