Digital Voice Recorders: Reviews

If you need a simple recorder for personal notes, interviews or lectures, some reviewers say that the Olympus WS-210S could nicely fill the bill. Its 256 MB of integrated memory is limiting, but the digital voice recorder… can still hold up to 130 hours at its lowest-quality settings. Aside from the smaller memory capacity and the ability to play MP3 music files, this recorder is largely identical to the Olympus WM-331M profiled below.

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If your main objective is recording personal notes, interviews, class lectures and meetings, the Olympus WS-331M is well received in reviews. This digital voice recorder has 2 GB of internal memory -- enough for nearly 36… hours of best-quality stereo recordings or approximately 520 hours of mono recordings at its lowest-quality setting. With a pop-out USB connector, the Olympus plugs directly into a computer's USB port for downloading WMA recordings to a PC or Mac equipped with Windows Media Player. While the Olympus recorder can also double as an MP3 player, experts say it won't replace your iPod.

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The Roland Edirol R-09HR gets high marks for its recording quality and ease of use. The memory card slot supports capacities up to a very copious 32 GB. It features a maximum sampling rate of 96 kHz for very high-quality… audio recordings, and supports variable bit-rate (VBR) format in addition to WAV and MP3. These features, and others, make it a good choice for high-quality recordings that will be broadcast, such as in a podcast. Though some less expensive professional-grade digital voice recorders offer similar features, reports say the Roland Edirol R-09HR sets itself apart thanks to its superior build quality and great ease of use.

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The Sony ICD-MX20 is the most accurate voice recorder for use with Nuance's top-rated Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-to-text software, making it a great choice for those (such as teachers, doctors and lawyers) who need to… transfer their spoken notes to text. The 32 MB of internal flash memory can hold just under 12 hours of recordings at the lowest-quality setting, but an expansion slot for Memory Stick Pro Duo flash memory lets you add up to 16 GB of replaceable memory. However, the Sony ICD-MX20 records files in a non-standard format that must be converted in software that's not compatible with the Mac operating system.

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