What's your opinion of telephone interviews?

[Nikia]

4. It is an advantage if you are a distance away

It is also easier to have notes written down to help you answer the questions.
On the disadvantage side,I recently had a phone interview where the interviewer asked only very open ended questions. I had a hard time knowing if I was giving too much detail and boring him or not because I didn't have any body language to read. I must not have done well because I was not invited to an onsite interview.
I have had some successful phone interviews though. They seemed to be the relatively short ones by HR to make sure that you aren't wasting the hiring manager's time or your time by doing an onsite 1 hour or more interview.