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Re-activateThe morning DJ's that jolly me through my miserable morning commute—Scott and Todd on WPLJ—had an amusing exchange this morning. Scott, the senior member of the gang and somewhat of a technophobe, said he stopped into some Verizon and AT&T wireless stores to buy an answering machine and was surprised they couldn't help him.
The gang yucked it up over his faux pas, conjuring up images of an answering machine tucked into a backpack and tethered to a cellphone. But then they jumped online to help him find an old-fashioned, standalone machine to hook up to his landline phones, even though they couldn't understand why he didn't use the phone company's voice mail service or buy a phone with an integrated answering function.
Consumer Reports hasn't covered standalone answerers for some time now, but we do report on cordless phones with integrated answerers.
I bought a phone like that but don't use it. I prefer the voice mail that my cable company offers as part of its phone service, especially the ability to go online and listen to messages while I'm at work. The only downside is that I don't get a visual alert when I get a voice mail message—just a stutter tone when I pick up the handset. (There are some phones that have a light indicating a voice mail is waiting, but mine doesn't.)
What are your druthers when it comes to voice mail vs. answering machine? —Eileen McCooey
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