Not Bad, But With a Few Hang-ups

Recently I received the AT&T Digital Answering System 1738 as a gift, a few days after I received a telephone from the same person who bought me the answering machine. Since I do not subscribe to Verizon’s voice mail service, I thought, Why didn’t he simply buy me a combination telephone/answering machine? But I will make do with what I have, and write a review, to boot.

The AT&T Digital Answering System 1738 –hereafter to be referred to as “the 1738” is a compact, light unit approximately 6 ½” x 4 ½” x ¾”, and weighs maybe four or five ounces. There is a tiny plastic hook called the “strain-relief tab” on the top on the unit, next to the outlet for the power cord, that can be used to hang the 1738 on the wall next to a wall-mount phone. This is not the tab’s intended purpose, but it will work for that.

What I like about the 1738

Remote Access Capability

For people on the go, remote access capability is very desirable. You can check your messages from anywhere, change the settings on the 1738, even turn the machine on if you forgot to do this before you left. You will need to pick a code- a three-digit number between 500 and 999. I don’t know why you can’t select one between 000 and 499, but the former option still leaves 500 different choices. Because remembering all of the remote commands is difficult, the 1738 comes with a wallet-sized cheat sheet.

Message Guard™

In the event of the inevitable power failure, the 1738 will retain all of the messages stored. This is an absolute necessity, for who hasn’t had the lights go out during a storm, or accidentally unplugged or kicked over the answering machine? I wish that there was a feature that stored deleted messages in an electronic “folder,” like PC’s store them in a “recycle bin,” because everyone has occasionally erased an important, irretrievable message.

Reviewing Messages

This encompasses several facets of operation. At the press of a button, you can play a message faster if it’s not that important, play it slower if it’s fairly important, or play it again (and again), if it’s really important. Trivial messages can be skipped entirely. This last feature really comes in handy during election time, so you don’t have to listen to all of those stupid messages reminding for which candidate you should vote.

Ample recording time

The digital recording chip will store up to 99 messages, or 40 minutes of recording time. This is more than enough to record your message announcement (“Hello, this is Bob. . .”) and leave plenty of room for all of those long-winded friends and relatives who have to tell you everything that’s happening in their lives, whether you’re listening or not.

Number announce

This feature only works if you subscribe to Caller ID. After the first couple of rings, when the 1738 is turned on, the system announces the incoming number. Similar is the store number feature, which announces the caller’s number after you play the messages. Again, this feature requires Caller ID, and has to be turned on in order to work.

What I don’t like about the 1738

Sound quality

As I noticed with a previous, now-defunct telephone/answering machine (The AT&T 1818), the sound quality on a digital chip is not very good. Manufacturers will smugly claim that it’s superior, but I have found quite the opposite. I speak very articulately, but even my recorded announcement is only mediocre. The old magnetic tapes were cumbersome, and tedious to constantly rewind, but the sound was better.

Seven second-delay causes disconnect

If a caller leaving a message hesitates for seven seconds, the machine automatically disconnects him. Well, that’s not fair! A 15-second delay, yes; a 10-second delay, maybe; but seven seconds is not that long. The caller might not hear the initial beep, begin talking too late, and wonder what happened.

Not very intuitive

The 1738 may not be rocket science, but figuring out the operation would be challenging without the instructions. We are impatient nowadays, and don’t want to spend a long time reading manuals, connecting cords and wires or downloading files. We want to buy something, plug it in, and use it. Every time that you experience an power outage –and you will experience them- you will have to open up the instructions all over again to reset everything.

If you already have a telephone, and want an answering machine, then go ahead and buy the 1738, which works well enough. On second thought, no, spend a few extra bucks and buy a combination telephone/answering machine.