AT&T 1739 Corded Digital Answering System, White
by AT&T
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of AT&T 1739 Corded Digital Answering System, White
Customer Review: Good basic functions
Summary: 4 Stars
AT&T was gouging me $25/mo for voicemail on my business landline, leading me to shop for alternatives. (When I canceled, they told me I "could have called earlier" to reduce this to $12/mo... thanks guys.) I opted for this model for the 40 minute storage capacity and generally positive reviews. It's also dirt cheap.
On the plus side, set-up is straightforward, and it does exactly what it claims to do. It can be handy to screen calls sometimes, which I couldn't do with voicemail. Remote message retrieval works fine, I haven't tried the other remote functions yet. As far as I can tell, it hasn't missed any calls. The caller-id function works as advertised.
There are some negatives too. I find the lowest volume setting is still too loud -- I want some privacy when I hear messages. There's no alternative greeting: You have to record a vacation message over your regular message, and then re-record your regular message when you return. And as others have noted, sound quality is adequate but certainly not as good as voicemail.
This answering machine will do, but I'd happily pay more for higher sound quality, better volume adjustment, and an alternative outgoing message. It would also be nice to retrieve messages via a telephone handset, i.e., quietly, without having to call in remotely.
Customer Review: Works, Just not Great
Summary: 3 Stars
I returned this to the store a week after buying it. I was hoping this would be an economical replacement to voice mail but I just couldn't get over the cons.
Pros:
* Cheap
* Easy to set up and use
* 40 minutes of messages and voice memos @ up to 3 minutes/message. I don't know why the other reviewer only got 14 minutes - maybe he misunderstood when it said "40. Minutes. Remaining."? Mine had 40.
* Did a good job of detecting when the phone was picked up.
Cons (in order):
* Poor call quality. Most of the calls I got sounded distorted at best. Unless the person spoke very clearly and enunciated purposefully, it was hard to understand the message. The announcer's voice sounds great, so I don't think the problem is with the speaker.
* Ridiculous feedback! If I answered my phone within 3 feet of the unit, it would cause very strong feedback. I had to keep them *away* from each other.
* No date setting. It asks you to enter the year and the day but doesn't allow you to set the date. Your message is "Sunday at 6:15pm"... which Sunday?
* Hardwired cord. Not a big deal but it would have been nice if it had a jack instead so I could use the cord I already had snaked behind my entertainment system.
Customer Review: Does the job, sounds a touch garbled
Summary: 4 Stars
About a decade ago, I had an tape-based answering machine die. It was a pain to use AND you could almost always clearly hear the message that was left. I replaced it with a combination telephone/answering machine/speaker phone -- which was really easy to use AND you could rely on it garbling the message at important points (such as in the middle of phone numbers). After nine years, I gave up on that machine when it recorded one message so poorly that the only words I could make out were, "and this is really important".
So, I purchased this machine. It has all of what you'd expect an answering machine to have: remote-access, choice on how many rings to answer after, detection and shut-off on a handset pickup, a readout showing how many messages are on the machine, playback, individual message deletion, and a day/time stamp. I've been using it for a little over a month and truly appreciate being able to hear message again -- albeit with the distortion that comes from either not using a high enough sampling rate or using too high a compression setting. The words can be heard and distinguished easily enough, but no one ever sounds quite like themself.
Overall I'm content with the machine: it does the job even as the sound is a touch garbled.
Customer Review: nice for the price
Summary: 4 Stars
This does what it should. Answers the phone when my kids are to slow/busy.
Loved the features of:
- Big Play button - my old one had all small buttons size
- Can display up 98 unique messages
(too bad they didn't use a 2 digit display)
- 40 Min of record time - my old one only had about 10 mi.
- Can slow mode playback for those very fast talkers who leave
there number
- Allows a wide range of ring counts 2-7 before answering
- Has many features that rely on having caller-in service from telco
I'm to cheap to get caller-id for an extra $10/mon.
- Remote access (call machine from work) - prompts where descriptive.
Cons:
- Setup is a bit weird. Had to get the manual out to understand what
all the options meant.
- Remote access code limited - first digit must start 5-7
I wanted something like 123 same code for TV remote access.
Now I have to remember something else that begins with a 5.
Sound quality is ok for me. I guess it depends on telephone company volume signal strength.
Customer Review: Disappointed
Summary: 3 Stars
I just bought this unit after our old one died. The previous one would only let the call ring 4 times before it would answer it (this really meant that one had to answer in 3 rings). This drove me nuts for years having to run like a bullet to catch it before the 4th ring. I had wanted to get a unit that would ring more times this time around. The instructions said adjustable for 2 to 7 rings but it was lying. The ninny that designed it made it so it would ring 6 times until the first message was left, thereafter only four. (The other option was 4 rings the 1st time and 2 thereafter.) It's funny, I worked for Bell Telephone company (owned by AT&T) for 35 years and we were told to tell people to let a phone call ring for at least 10 times in case a person was not near a phone (or momentarily indisposed). I guess I should have bought a better unit and I would have if the technical information on the box had mentioned the number of rings in the data. I told the wife I was through running for the phone. And as the man used to say, "And dats de name of dat tune." Otherwise, I guess the thing would have gotten a 5 rating.