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

The memo button did not work (ever). I called customer service and they had me unplug for 10 min to reset, still didn't work. I replaced with another and the memo button didn't work in that one either. It's a great idea, but never got it to work.

I am so dissapointed in this answering machine. I read so many great reviews that I went out and bought one. It is easy to use and read and looks good. However, it regularly cut people off while they were leaving a message (and message length was set to four minutes) and sometimes wouldn't pick up. I can't believe I'm the only one with these problems and yet I tell you the truth it's happened with two machines.

About a year ago I decided that it was time to retire my old Lucent A560 (later changed to a model 1715) answering machine I had on one phone line and a Code-A-Phone tape-type answerer on a second line. Having had very good luck with my Lucent solid-state unit with respect to reliability and absolutely excellent message & record voice quality, I purchased two AT&T 1738 replacements which had nearly the same form factor as the A560. Boy, was I wrong!

After receiving my new units, I tried them out. They had absolutely rotten message voice quality due to much cheaper voice encoding techniques that the new "psuedo" AT&T manufacturer used. I found them to be absolutlely unacceptable and would not use them (I am a broadcast engineer and believe in good audio quality).

Placing the AT&T units aside, I then ordered two of the GE 4-mailbox answerers. I really didn't need the other mailboxes but had read that the voice quality was much better than other machines. They turned out to have a factory recorded female voice that sounded like a person with a birth defect not to mention the announcements are poorly sequenced when listening to messages and can actually be irritating to listen to.

I later found that when listening to the GE machine's voice over a cell phone through even poorer encoding techniques used by some cellular manufacturers, one had to concentrate very hard to understand what the programmed voice was saying. It was miserable! If you had forgotten your remote access commands and were planning to rely on the machine prompts, you had to prepare yourself to concentrate real hard to understand what was being said.

The personally recorded announcement and caller messages on the GE machine were much better in quality but I found the personally recorded announcement level to be significantly lower for the caller than my two older machines. Since there is no means for adjusting this level those people who happen to call in through a lossy circuit may have to listen very carefully to hear what you are saying.

After several months of dealing with the new machines and developing a total dislike for the factory recorded voice, I decided that it was time to go back to my old Lucent A560. Unfortunately I had given the unit to a friend who wouldn't return it because they liked it so much. Since these machines are no longer in production, I went out on eBay and managed to find two of the later model 1715 units in nearly new condition for $5 each and purchased them. I once again have machines that sound like humans not to mention at an acceptable audio level for the caller. In addition the programming of this machine is far easier and less confusing than that of the GE, the message length can be up to 3 minutes duration, the machine also has the Toll Saver feature, the day and time is announced at the beginning of the message rather than the end and no pesky battery is required to save the messages in the event of a power failure! Unfortunately the total caller message time is only 12 minutes (boo!) but is adequate for my use. In most respects, the original Lucent company really did their homework when designing this product.

A caveat on the GE machine and, I guess, is showing up on many of the other brands as well: If you record your message and pull the power plug out of the jack at the rear of the unit, it will be erased and the machine will be reset back to all factory default values! But if you leave the plug connected and remove the power supply (wall-wart) from the AC receptacle, it will not. I cannot understand the logic behind this especially after I had to disconnect the cord from the unit to route it through a small opening in a cabinet. If the unsuspecting customer does this without checking their machine afterwards, they will be in for a very subtle surprise later on.

Now a footnote: I recently learned that Lucent had developed a special algorithm for encoding their machine voice when the A560/1715 was built. This technique minimized storage memory size (a very important consideration in earlier days) while preserving voice reproduction faithfulness. Lucent was willing to license it to other manufacturers but apparently the others didn't want to spend the extra money to give their customers a quality product. Maybe the customers didn't care(?) but, again I think it had something to do with the "bottom line."

I guess "new and improved" should be questioned whenever a person decides to upgrade. It may be improved in the wrong direction! I sincerely think that GE (or Thomson) should have put a tad bit more of their "jet engine technology" into this product.

I had this machine for about 3 months before it just stopped taking messages. The greeting would answer and it seemed like it was working but I'd have people telling me it was cutting them off after about 5 seconds and never take the message. I wondered why I hadn't had any messages on it for about a month!

I'm wishing I could find an answering machine that was worth a darn.

I'm not happy with this machine. I purchased it as a replacement for an AT&T digital answering machine that worked very well for about 12 years, but finally gave out. However this machine is inferior to my old AT&T unit. This machine: (1) consistently cuts people off while they are leaving a message (and the message length is set to 4 minutes), (2) gives time/date stamp information at the end of each message, and (3) is not as user friendly as my old unit.