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From: rosen@exit26.DEC (Barry Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Telephone Answering Machines
Message-ID: <630@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Wed, 22-Jan-86 13:21:25 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.630
Posted: Wed Jan 22 13:21:25 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Jan-86 22:06:33 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 55


I want to purchase a telephone answering machine.  I have been told 
that the cost of these devices has come down substantially and that 
more "standard" features are now available such as remote message 
retrieval and voice activated message recording.  The equipment will 
be used primarily by my wife who works out of our home and therefore I 
feel that a very reliable piece of equipment is necessary.

In looking over some ads in a Sunday newpaper, a large number of 
brands with various features (but not much difference in cost) were 
offered.  The features that seem to make sense to me are:

1. Dual Cassette: rather than a cassette to record the messages and a 
   continuous look to record the outgoing message.

2. Remote Message Retrieval: the one that sounded most interesting to 
   me was the type where you could retrieve your messages from any 
   touch tone telephone (no tone generator box required).  Many of 
   them indicated that you could also do other things like play them 
   again, continue recording messages after the last message or rewind 
   the tape and begin recording from the cassette's beginning, etc.

3. Answer the phone after the nth ring: rather than some number which 
   was preset at the factory.

4. Voice Activated Recording: which allows incoming messages to be of 
   variable length.  It seemed like many of the machines allow this up 
   to some preset limit to avoid using the entire tape on joker.

5. Variable length outgoing message:  This looked pretty standard on 
   most of the dual cassette machines.  I gather that after your 
   announcement and the tone, the outgoing cassette just rewinds to 
   the beginning and waits for the next call.

6. Toll Saver:  The purpose of this feature is to alert you prior to 
   the machine answering your phone that there have been no new calls 
   recorded since the last time you checked for messages.  I don't 
   know how this works but I would guess that the "ring" must somehow 
   be made to sound different.

Of course, not having any experience with these things, I may have 
overlooked features which I do need or added one that is not really 
beneficial.  If you have had any experience with telephone answering 
machines, I would very much appreciate your help by commenting on:

o  FEATURES you found useful/necessary (add to or substract from my 
   list).

o  BRAND NAMES and MODEL NUMBERS which you feel are worth 
   investigating and/or with which you have some experience.

o  PRICES: which you believe one will pay for such a unit.

Please MAIL RESPONSES to me and I will "roll them up" and report back 
to you.  Thanks....Barry