Ascom Avena 233 plus

This Swiss made unit is available as phone only or combined phone and answerphone (Plus model). The Avena announces callers names, can voice dial,lights up, is hands free anywhere and is truly friendly to use.Having used many digital cordless phones prior to the Ascom - I was pretty sick of missing features and the lack of intuitive menus which could enable adjustments without finding the user manual. With the Avena - liberation has come - there are friendly menus for virtually everything. This little beauty does everything with simplicity and verve and even it even talks to you. With voice dialling and caller ID announcements (on up to 10 numbers), a 4-line ...

This is a nice looking, well made DECT telephone answering machine with lots of features and a very long user guide. I don't have time to describe all the features - and I don't use most of them anyway. The Avena has some good points: sound quality is fine, the speaker-phone works well, the LCD has a back light, and the rechargeable cells are AAA, so they will be easy and cheap to replace. Unfortunately, it has some bad points too: the range is surprisng limited, and it sometimes drops a call even when the handset is in the same room as the basestation. When making a call, all too often it will start to dial and immediately fail with a 'No ...

After about a year with this phone I finally succumed to my inner most desires; grabbed a 2lb sledge hammer and... well, you can work out the rest for yourself. I'm a fan of digital cordless and at the time this model seemed to be the best looking of an ugly bunch. A bit ostentatious perhaps and the laughable picture on the front of the box (featuring a selection of advertising stereotypes creaming their united pants in its presence) didn't really help. I was happy enough for the first few weeks and enjoyed the little flashing light show every time someone called. The pre-recorded answer phone messages in a variety of different languages were ...