Home :: Communications :: Telephones :: Accessories  

Accessories

Answering Devices
Corded Telephones
Cordless Telephones
Headsets
Novelty Telephones
Video Phones
GE 29992 Digital Messaging System with Caller ID

GE 29992 Digital Messaging System with Caller ID

List Price: $25.99
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nice Extra Caller-ID based features (Message Plus+)
Review: This caller-ID enabled answering machine is well worth paying extra for as compared to other caller-ID enabled answering machines due to its Message Plus+ features (not mentioned in features).

This one specifically allows you to have up to 50 phone numbers in a VIP list where you can assign up to 6 different recorded greetings. The person has to call first before you can add them. This is great to handle the calls from the carpet cleaning, water filter, ... companies (not UNKNOWN). After they call you the first time, you can record a greeting telling them to take you off their list and it won't even allow them to leave a message. It also has a greeting for blocked (private) calls.

For the numbers you don't want to hear, it can send them straight to an assigned greeting and allow them to leave a message (if you allow them). For calls from family and friends, you can set it to ring the phone longer (with 1 of 3 different tones) so you know it is a call you want to answer. You can also define the length of the message a person can leave.

The only number it can't handle directly is the UNKNOWN. You can't assign a greating/don't leave a message to it directly. So this is its only weakness. The unknown callers can be directed to voice mail indirectly by adding numbers to the VIP list. Any call not on the VIP list can be sent to voicemail sooner (after 2 rings) as well as known callers you want to send sooner.

The only caller ID based answering machine that I have seen that comes even close (some,not very) to these features is the Lucent/ATT 7720 cordless (*not 900 Mhz) callerID, speaker phone, answering machine. Which is nice, but not 900 MHz, so the sound quality it not that good. The ATT stand alone CID answering machines don't even have these features (or they don't show them in their features).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very Hard to Use
Review: This has got to be the the very worst of all answering machines. It was very hard to program, not user friendly at all. The sound was muffled and hard to understand. Do yourself a favor and don't buy this one.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Too Much Going On
Review: This machine presents itself as a clever little item allowing you to set up a variety of personal or prerecorded messages for incoming numbers. It even has the ability to refuse a call, which I use often because my new phone number must have been someone's fax number at one time and whenever I hear those annoying beeps, I set the machine to refuse the call from then on. The downside to the machine comes in two forms. Since you hae all this ability to make a variety of messages, and since the total amount of recording time on the chip is about fourteen minutes, the machine's minimal message time for each caller is TWO minutes. It seems the minimum should be 30 seconds. The biggest drawback to the machine is that to turn it off or on you are required to go through two screens of menus and several selection choices, like language and time settings, before you can finally turn it off. If GE could not provide a simple switch, then at least the on/off choice should be the first one to appear. In my case I have less frequency (like never) to change my language choice and more frequency to turn it off or on.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Would be nice except for intermittent caller-id problem
Review: With configurable outgoing messages based on caller ID, this machine would be real nice (although you can't configure ring/message options for anonymous callers like you can on the Casio TA-140 & 145). Unfortunately the 29992 suffers from several intermittent flaws. For example, for about 25% of the calls it doesn't record any caller ID information (on the same calls, other caller-ID boxes in the house work just fine). I bought two different 29992 units for my relatives last Christmas and both units had the same intermittent flaws. There was no information in the box on how to contact Thomson Consumer Electronics to resolve these issues, so I sent them back and I bought them the Casio TA-140 from Amazon.com instead.


<< 1 2 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates