Home > Consumer Reviews > GE 29869GE2 Digital Answering System with 4 Mailboxes

I know several people have had reliability problems. We've had our GE for two years and it still works great. It didn't lose anything after a 24 hour power failure. (Don't forget to install the battery!) However, we did get caught once when we moved the answering machine in our new place and disconnected the AC cord from the base.

I love the many features. (See other reviews for details.) We use the GE as a traditional one mailbox answering machine, and we use the extra mailboxes to store messages out of the main inbox. 40 minutes of record time makes this easy. Switching between the primary and secondary outgoing greeting is as simple as pressing a single button. We've checked messages remotely with no problems.

I, too, wish the time/date stamp was at the start of the message. I also wish there was some way to rewind a playing message by only a few seconds instead of having to go all the way back to the beginning.

Wow, I am impressed. I don't think much of GE products usually. If anything, I have used their alarm clocks and telephones without much fanfare: they work, but I know that other brands like Panasonic and Sony usually perform and look better, and may even be easier to use... but you have to pay quite a bit more for their products, so I settle for GE when I don't need the best.

You can imagine how surprised I was when I got the GE 29869 answering machine. I know some reviews said that it had good sound quality, but a few reviews also said it had poor sound quality. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I am happy to confirm that this unit does, in fact, have good sound quality. And not many digital answering machines can claim that! Certainly not my old Sony TAM-100.

The Beast
I bought the Sony 3 years ago in summer 2000, and was *un*pleasantly surprised when I bought it home. I thought I was getting a good deal on this unit -- half price off MSRP at the college bookstore. Only catch: no returns. "Hey, it's a Sony... it couldn't possibly be that bad," I thought to myself. Whoops. Bad sound quality. And me, unable to return the darn thing!

Tips on sound quality
The GE's sound quality is fairly good on outgoing and incoming messages. You have to be careful about how you position the unit, however, and how you "talk" to the machine when you record your outgoing message. I have found that your outgoing message sounds best when you are at a 45 degree angle to the microphone and about 12 inches away (measured from mouth to mic), with the machine about 6 inches in front of you on the desk. I originally recorded the outgoing message hovering directly over the unit, about 8-10 inches away. It was a little muffled. I also noticed that placement was important for listening to recorded messages. Place the unit close to the wall for best sound.

Taking messages
Back to the GE. While I would say that sound quality is one of the most important things to look for in an answering machine (sadly because most digital machines sound pretty bad), it is not the only thing. Of course, another important criterion for answering machines to excel on is answering the phone when you don't pick it up and taking the message faithfully and accurately. I'm happy to report that this GE does its job well so far in the limited time I have used it. I have not missed any important messages (knock wood).

Features
- remote message retrieval with 3-digit password
- multiple mailboxes (4 in this case)
- message counter display
- can set two outgoing messages
- call screening
- memo
- 2-way conversation recording
- message scan
- 40 minute recording time
- time/day stamp
- move messages between malboxes
- fast foward (2x speed playback)
- power failure 9v battery backup
- selectable rings (2-8)
- toll-saver (4 rings no msgs, 2 rings new messages)

Features that it is lacking
- cannot disable call screening (you can always hear the person leaving the message unless you turn down the volume manually)
- lacks call display, doesn't read out the number of the person calling
- does not have anti callerID blocking feature (it tells the caller that calls whose callID numbers have been blocked are not being accepted)

The AT&T 1726 has all 3 of the above features that the GE lacks. I cannot vouch for the sound quality of the AT&T, though (never used an AT&T before), and it is more expensive.

Conclusion
So far, this unit works well, has good sound quality, and is very reasonably priced for its performance and features. I have only used it for a week, so it's not long enough with which to judge reliability. 4/5 stars

The battery backup didn't work. With the 9V battery properly installed, the slightest interruption of power resulted in losing the outgoing message. This is not ok for a business office's answering system. Amazon was great and sent me a replacement answering machine, but it didn't work in that one either. I thought maybe it was a defect with just that batch of machines, so I purchased one locally. That machine had the exact same defect.

I wanted to be able to give this answering machine a good review, I really liked the features and it was very user friendly, but with messages so vulnerable it is useless to me. If you don't mind losing your messages with no warning, it is a great machine.

I see a lot of good reviews here. I must admit that the answering machine has a very good interface. The problem is that a few months after I bought it the speaker started making this crackling sound. It sits on a desk where we're working and it's very annoying to listen to this continuous random crackling noise. It was inexpensive, so I just bought another one. A few months later, the new one started doing the same thing! I assume there was some sort of manufacturing defect. I just can't figure out why I don't see anyone else mentioning this problem. Maybe this issue has been fixed by now, but let this be a warning that yours may do this too.

In terms of features & price, this answering machine is one of the best deals you can get. With 4 separate mailboxes and 40 minutes of digital recording time, what's not to love, right? Well, after less than a year of use, the answering machine no longer answers incoming calls. After 4 rings, the outgoing message begins to play from the speaker, but the answering machine never picks up! It took my wife and I several days of not getting any messages to figure this out. Who knows how many important messages we missed because of this? Very infuriating.

We have since replaced the answering machine with a Sprint SP-812 that we picked up used from Craigslist.org for $10. The SP-812 only has 1 mailbox and 12 minutes of recording time, but at least it reliably answers the phone... and that's the most important feature of all.