Suggestions welcome for make & model of answerphone
We’ve got an answerphone - a BT Freestyle 2500. It’s rubbish. I don’t know how it is that BT keeps on choosing suppliers for its branded kit who are no good, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across a bit of consumer kit from BT that has surprised me with its quality and reliability.
The rubbishness of the 2500 is unlimited. It’s a cordless phone with two bases. On either phone, no matter how close you are to the base station, it sounds as though you’re already somewhere around the orbit of Saturn: gentle whooshing all the time. People say “it’s a really bad line, isn’t it?” But it isn’t. As my experience with broadband shows, it’s actually a really good line.
And I checked by plugging in an old dial phone that happened to be lurking around, to the same socket that the BT Freesyle is connected to: a pure, untroubled dial tone. No whooshing.
It’s even worse with the Freestyle when you try to liste to a message someone has left. It sounds as though they’ve left it at the bottom of our road. “Moo mmm ub oo oob ub bub oo,” it goes, and we look at each other perplexed. “Was that a number or an address?” we ask one another. It’s no good. It needs replacing.
So, your suggestions please.
(Oh, and thanks for all the suggestions on the mobile network. I think I’ll stick with Orange - who I can beat down to £10 per month and a new phone. Suits me, since there’s no way I’m lashing out for an iPhone.)
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September 21st, 2007 at 10:45 am
I bet you have been surprised by BT equipment’s quality and reliability - surprised that it is worse than you thought it could possibly be. And you forgot ugly too. When I was looking around for a new DECT setup (see below) it was quite funny to hear the sales staff in various shops go through contortions to imply how rubbish the BT DECT phones were without actually saying so directly.
As to the topic I use the 1571 service rather than have an answerphone. However the answerphone in my Panasonic DECT phone setup looks as though it would be good if I were to use it - I’ve got the version that does SMS.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:08 am
BT gave me one of these and it’s probably the least rubbish BT phone I’ve ever used:
http://www.shop.bt.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4LPC
Think mobile phone from about three years ago, but dressed up in Fisher Price clothing. No whooshing, but can be a bit quiet.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:41 am
I almost hate to do this, but we’ve used Panasonic kit at home for the past 15 years and it’s been invariably brilliant. However, domestic radio phones appear to be at interesting crossroads at the moment: they look like GSM phones, they try to behave like GSM phones but they simply don’t have the interface/usability. And the latest Panasonics are a little like that. But Panasonic’s radio answerphones are reliable and relatively well put together and do what they say on the box.
And no, they’re not a client… >;0)
September 24th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Just to echo what Alexander has said - we’ve got a smashing Panasonic cordless phone and answerphone set at home. It’s small, it works and the sound quality’s smashing.