Customer Reviews

AT&T 1718 Digital Answering System (Wind Chill White)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Have had it for 4 months; finally gave up and got rid of it. Very, very poor sound quality ... difficult to understand messages left. Also no battery backup.

This answering machine is no fun. While most answering machines have two phone jacks in them, this machine only has one. The cord to connect the answering machine to the wall is integral to the unit. So if you want to put the unit more than six feet away from the wall, you'll have to buy a coupler to hook it up to the long phone cord you already have.

Also, there is no way to determine whether there are any stored messages on the machine without touching it. This is inconvenient. Instead of buying this product, see if you can still find an AT&T 1717 on the market. I don't know why AT&T discontinued it. It was a lot better than this model.

The sound is horrible. Messages are saved when someone calls, but they can't be retrieved. Remote anwering codes quit working. A piece of junk.

What the other folks have said so far is correct! However, here's some new downfalls of this machine nobody has seemed to mention yet:

"REPEAT" doesn't mean "Repeat". It means "GO TO PREVIOUS MESSAGE". ie. If you're listening to a message and someone is giving you their phone number and you missed a digit, you should be able to hit repeat and listen to the message again. NOPE! Instead it takes you back to the PREVIOUS Message that you don't need to hear again. In the manual, it says this will only happen if the message is giving the time/day stamp part of the message, but this is incorrect. IT HAPPENS ALWAYS! I called AT&T Customer Service on this issue and they could care less.

"TIME/DAY STAMP": You can't shut off. Every other feature on this machine you can turn on or off except this one. Most of the time, I could care less if they called at 10am or 2pm, I still need to return the call. Besides, most people end up saying what time they called anyway as habit. Why do I need to hear the time twice?

NO NUMBER OF MESSAGES DISPLAY: When you come home, they want to you to count the number of times the light blinks. If it blinks 9 times, I have 9 messages. That's exactly what I want to do when I come home from a hard day's work is count blinks on my answering machine every day. Darn it, if there's 5 new messages, just spell it out for me on a LCD display.

CALLER I.D. PHONE NUMBER ANNOUNCE: It could be a great feature. But I like to keep my number of rings on 2 before it answers. The problem is that then the machine won't read you the number calling. The manual is incorrect. It says that the number will be read no matter what, but that the rings would change to 3 to allow enough time to read the number. Again, this is incorrect.

I [didn't pay very much] . You get what you pay for! Shame on me!!

Poor voice quality. You have to go more expensive for good digital voice quality. The 1717 model was better. If you want a good digital inexpensive one, find the 1717 model.

This is the worst machine I have ever owned, would have given it a "0" rating but the rating scale won't let a person rate the low. It worked fine for the first month, but into the second month after that the messages became garbled and and progressively worse intill you could not understand the messages at all,it seemed like the more messages I recieved the worse it became. I deleted the messages to make sure that the machines mailbox wasn't just too full, but that was to no avail. This was in a three month time period. I don't know how well the remote feature worked for I never needed to use it. I would save the money and buy a different brand, unless you love the sound of people under water..hehe.

Record an announcement, but don't expect it to play clearly. Breaks, static, you name it. All the other reviews are correct.

A better product, and one that actually works, is the Panasonic KX-TM100B [ASIN: B00000J53X]. You'll save yourself a lot of grief by buying it instead.

This machine is fine unless you depend on remote calling to check your messages. The first few times everything performed properly but suddenly, it began to play the messages and then just cut off. The messages are still there, once you get home and actually hit the play button, but you can not retrieve them from other locations. You also have to stand directly over the machine when recording your outgoing message or you will sound like you are in a box. Even, then, the sound quality is nothing to write home about.

This machine cuts off when I call in to try to review my messages - this is EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING! If I do call in and manage to successfully retrieve some or all of them before it cuts me off, it resets the machine so the LED no longer blinks (neither fast nor slow) to indicate that there are messages on the machine. Therefore, if the message waiting is for my husband, I have to call my phone again to leave a message for him to retrieve his messages. There is no battery to backup the time/date feature either. If you lose power, you must reset. Altogether a completely unsatifactory machine.

I find this machine to be usable when I'm home; but when I access it remotely with my cell phone, the voice quality issue is REAL TOUGH! Need to find a 'hearable' answering machine somewhere--the old tape units weren't great, but were definitely better than this!!