AT&T 1739 Digital Answering Machine
- Max. Recording Time: 40 Min.
- Answering System Type: Digital
- Caller ID: Yes
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OK bare bones
Pros
inexpensive; adequate features; easy; simple;
Cons
hard-wired line cord; no day, month; miminal voice quality
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
A good value if you don't mind resetting clock when power goes out and don't need many features. Voice quality just acceptable.
Just when you thought they couldn't cut any more corners, along comes this answering machine.
Well, it works, does the minimum job that I want, and I'll probably keep it. But it has a few warts out of the box.
This is really a first impression, I'll update later if I discover more issues.
It is a digital answering machine that runs on wall power, no batteries involved.
1. Line Cord
A frustration is that the telephone line from the answering machine to the wall is hard-wired at the answering machine end -- no socket. My previous machine used a socket, which would have made replacement easy -- just unplug the line cord from my old answering machine and plug it into this new one. But no, can't do that. You have to dive under your desk, behind your bookshelf, or move your bed to plug this dedicated line into the wall. It is not the longest line, maybe 6 to 8 feet.
2. Date-Time
Setting the date/time was surprising... the date only has a day of the week and the year! No month or day! Wow, that is a brilliant economy of silicon I never would have thought of -- and probably shouldn't. I personally would prefer to know the day and month as well. I guess you have to reset the year on New Years day. Apparently, if you have caller ID, the date/time gets updated automatically. I don't have that.
3. Outgoing Message
The outgoing message is pretty scruffy. For some reason, the first word of your message is slightly muted, as if someone is turning up the volume while you speak. It also seemed my voice came out a little higher on playback, which is good if you want to sound like a Disney character rather than your usual impressive self. The audio has the usual fuzziness of highly compressed digital audio.
4. Incoming Messages
The incoming messages suffer from similar quality as the outgoing messages.
5. Key Features
I give it high scores for simplicity -- one of the advantages of limited-frills design.
5a. Setting Date-Time
Setting the "date/time" was easy enough once you read the instructions. Basically, you hold the Clock button until the setting mode appears in the display, and let go. Then you are prompted by voice to press the ANNC/SKIP or Clock button to accomplish setting the day-of-week, time-of-day, and Year.
deduct a couple of points due to it is stated that it will lose the date/time setting if power goes out. Come on, flash memory isn't that expensive! It may survive some duration of outage though, I haven't verified this.
5b. Setting Outgoing Message
Likewise, setting the outgoing message was simple, just hold down the ANNC/SKIP button until you hear a beep, keep holding while you talk, then let go when done. It defaults to tollsaver 4/2 mode (4 rings until answer if no pending messages; 2 rings if pending messages). You can change the tollsaver mode to 6/4 with setup.
(That's about all you need to do to be in business. Just plug in the cords and power cord (small wall wart) and you are good.)
5c. Deleting Messages
To delete messages, you press the Delete button as you listen to them, or hold the Delete button to delete all when in idle mode and after all messages have been heard.
I don't think you can delete new messages; only after or while listening to them.
5d. Capacity
Capacity is modest but fine if you are not planning a long vacation or work for a political campaign -- 40 minutes of messages, memos, announcements; max 99 messages. I do not see where you can set max message length however.
6. Other features
- It has remote access to pick up messages, using a 3 digit remote access code (settable) for security.
- You can silence the outgoing message from blaring from the speaker.
- It can announce the incoming number (need caller id).
- It can announce the telephone number for each message (need caller id).
- If you have call-blocking, it can be set to allow blocked calls.
- It can be set to beep when new messages have been recorded.
- It has a volume control.
- It can be set to prompt in English or Spanish. The buttons are labeled in both languages.
CONCLUSION
I got it at Fry's for about $15. Nothing else close to that price range. So I feel it is well worth the price so long as it isn't missing crucial features for your uses.
12/1/2010 Update - after using the unit for about a week, I'm upping my rating from 3 stars to 4 stars because I feel it is a solid, easy-to-use device that will serve you well if you don't need very fancy features, and for the price should be considered above average (since there isn't much competition at that price).
Well, it works, does the minimum job that I want, and I'll probably keep it. But it has a few warts out of the box.
This is really a first impression, I'll update later if I discover more issues.
It is a digital answering machine that runs on wall power, no batteries involved.
1. Line Cord
A frustration is that the telephone line from the answering machine to the wall is hard-wired at the answering machine end -- no socket. My previous machine used a socket, which would have made replacement easy -- just unplug the line cord from my old answering machine and plug it into this new one. But no, can't do that. You have to dive under your desk, behind your bookshelf, or move your bed to plug this dedicated line into the wall. It is not the longest line, maybe 6 to 8 feet.
2. Date-Time
Setting the date/time was surprising... the date only has a day of the week and the year! No month or day! Wow, that is a brilliant economy of silicon I never would have thought of -- and probably shouldn't. I personally would prefer to know the day and month as well. I guess you have to reset the year on New Years day. Apparently, if you have caller ID, the date/time gets updated automatically. I don't have that.
3. Outgoing Message
The outgoing message is pretty scruffy. For some reason, the first word of your message is slightly muted, as if someone is turning up the volume while you speak. It also seemed my voice came out a little higher on playback, which is good if you want to sound like a Disney character rather than your usual impressive self. The audio has the usual fuzziness of highly compressed digital audio.
4. Incoming Messages
The incoming messages suffer from similar quality as the outgoing messages.
5. Key Features
I give it high scores for simplicity -- one of the advantages of limited-frills design.
5a. Setting Date-Time
Setting the "date/time" was easy enough once you read the instructions. Basically, you hold the Clock button until the setting mode appears in the display, and let go. Then you are prompted by voice to press the ANNC/SKIP or Clock button to accomplish setting the day-of-week, time-of-day, and Year.
deduct a couple of points due to it is stated that it will lose the date/time setting if power goes out. Come on, flash memory isn't that expensive! It may survive some duration of outage though, I haven't verified this.
5b. Setting Outgoing Message
Likewise, setting the outgoing message was simple, just hold down the ANNC/SKIP button until you hear a beep, keep holding while you talk, then let go when done. It defaults to tollsaver 4/2 mode (4 rings until answer if no pending messages; 2 rings if pending messages). You can change the tollsaver mode to 6/4 with setup.
(That's about all you need to do to be in business. Just plug in the cords and power cord (small wall wart) and you are good.)
5c. Deleting Messages
To delete messages, you press the Delete button as you listen to them, or hold the Delete button to delete all when in idle mode and after all messages have been heard.
I don't think you can delete new messages; only after or while listening to them.
5d. Capacity
Capacity is modest but fine if you are not planning a long vacation or work for a political campaign -- 40 minutes of messages, memos, announcements; max 99 messages. I do not see where you can set max message length however.
6. Other features
- It has remote access to pick up messages, using a 3 digit remote access code (settable) for security.
- You can silence the outgoing message from blaring from the speaker.
- It can announce the incoming number (need caller id).
- It can announce the telephone number for each message (need caller id).
- If you have call-blocking, it can be set to allow blocked calls.
- It can be set to beep when new messages have been recorded.
- It has a volume control.
- It can be set to prompt in English or Spanish. The buttons are labeled in both languages.
CONCLUSION
I got it at Fry's for about $15. Nothing else close to that price range. So I feel it is well worth the price so long as it isn't missing crucial features for your uses.
12/1/2010 Update - after using the unit for about a week, I'm upping my rating from 3 stars to 4 stars because I feel it is a solid, easy-to-use device that will serve you well if you don't need very fancy features, and for the price should be considered above average (since there isn't much competition at that price).
