Greatest Thing

I purchased this fax machine back near the end of '04. Ever since then it's been the best thing. It combines a 2.4 cordless phone with dual key pads and speaker phone, answering system, and let's not forget the fax and copy machines!

First let me talk about the phone. It has a 50 name and phone number phone book and even a dialer! What could be cooler? There is a caller identification feature as well which tracks the top 30 callers. It can receive calls while I'm away and I can look at them when I get back. There is also an intercom and call transfer(which I almost never use), and a handset and base speaker phone. Can you believe it? A speaker phone in the handset and base unit! I personally use the handset speaker phone over the base unit one, because I don't have to keep the phone to my ear when conversing, and even when I get put on hold I don't have to babysit with the phone to my ear all the time. Both speaker phones have been clear, but there's sometimes a loud like howling noise when I am using the handset speaker. I find that the best way to solve this is to stand the phone up right rather than lay it down. If the shrill noise continues I simply go back to using the ear piece. I can hear everybody and everybody can hear me right back. Most speaker phones I had before required me to raise my voice just to be heard by the other person. If you like holding the phone to your ear you can always use just the regular ear piece. If you need privacy there is a head phone input on the side of the cordless handset as well as a belt clip.

The fax machine does a good job. It has a reasonable speed of about 10 seconds/page which is fairly fast. So if you send 6 pages you would send them in about a minute. The machine can also be programmed to receive faxes without a user's intervention. There are 3 modes of choice. My personal one is when the answering system and fax machine work together. When an ordinary call comes in it lets the person leave their message. If a fax should come in it puts on the fax function and prints it out. Now what is cooler than that? The best part is that it's all done automatically which means that it can do it while I'm not there. There is also a fax only mode which always puts on the fax machine and receives just faxes and a manual receive mode which has you receive the faxes as they come in.

Copy works very well, and it works really fast contrary to what another reviewer said. Speaking of sending and copying there is a feature on this fax called Quick Scanning which scans every page into memory before it copies it or sends it. This means that it can copy things for me while I'm busy with something else. The copier can even enlarge, reduce, or sort copies as well as makes up to 30 copies.

Now let me talk about the answering system. I simply LOVE this machine. It lets me have a prerecorded message rather than my own, and it has a nice red light that blinks when somebody leaves me a message which can catch my eye as soon as I walk into the room. The messages sound really clear which is a good thing. I never have to turn up the volume just to figure out what that person was trying to say. There is also a way to slow the playing down so I can hear everything clearly. The BEST part is that when I play my messages, and there are new ones it only plays through the new messages. The machine I used to have had me flip past everything I already heard. There is also remote access which I never even did. However, the one thing I wish this machine did have is the ability to record your phone calls.

Overall this product is satisfactory. I just don't understand why there is a back light on the handset but not on the base unit. This way I can see how many messages or calls there are in the dark.