Homes with offices or teenagers will find good use for the Sony IT-A3000 Integrated Digital Telephone Answering Machine. It has three assignable message boxes, but watch out for that 19-minute message capacity, it'll fill up fast. Another handy feature is the jog/shuttle dial that lets you speed up or slow down messages without changing the pitch of the caller's voice - great for catching phone numbers from people who rattle them off so fast they must think you have a tape recorder built into your brain. The message-forwarding feature directs messages to a different number (a phone or pager), so you know when new messages arrive.
One disappointment: the surprising mediocrity of the digital sound. Recorded voices are a bit muffled. This is not what CDs have taught us to expect from digital recording. And another drag: it can be complicated to use. For example: "if you want to leave a reminder in my business-call box, you need to press *2 during the message (but before the beep), then leave your name and number after the beep...." Get the message?
IT-A3000 Integrated Digital Telephone Answering Machine:US$296.95. Sony: (800) 222 7669, +1 (201) 368 9272
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