Best Voice Recorders

Basic audio quality is fine for lectures, interviews, transcription

If you're a student recording classroom lectures, a journalist conducting interviews for print stories or even a professional who wants to transcribe speech to text, reviews say you can find what you need in a digital voice recorder costing no more than $200 -- and sometimes much less.

Many reviewers favor recorders in the Olympus WS-300 series, which, although primarily designed as voice recorders, can also double as MP3 players. Reviews say that the Olympus WS-321M (*Est. $85) and the Olympus WS-331M (*Est. $115) offer a good value and great performance for most basic uses. The key difference between the two models in the line is the size of the internal memory: 1 GB for the Olympus WS-321M and 2 GB for the Olympus WS-331M. Although the memory is not expandable, each recorder has three levels of mono recording quality and three levels of stereo recording quality. That translates to recording capacity (at the lowest quality mono setting) of more than 277 hours for the Olympus WS-321M and 555 hours for the Olympus WS-331M. At the highest quality stereo setting, recording time is a more modest, but still decent, 17 hours, 40 minutes and 35.5 hours, respectively.

Aside from memory capacity, both of these Olympus digital voice recorders share the same features. Like many other digital voice recorders, these Olympus models can be set for voice activation, so you don't end up recording lots of silence. While there's no ability to keyword search audio files, you can bookmark passages. Reviews say that they like the ability of the Olympus WS-300 series recorders to plug right into your computer without a USB cable. The Olympus models record in the common WMA format, which you can transfer to and edit with your PC or a Mac equipped with Windows Media Player software. These digital voice recorders are also designed to double as MP3 music players, but reports say that they don't shine in that role.

Each recorder weighs 1.7 ounces (including one AAA battery), measures 3.7 inches by 1.5 inches by 0.4 inches, and contains an internal speaker, microphone and jacks for an earphone or plug-in microphone. The battery life is estimated at up to 21 hours.

The Olympus WS-300 series is a favorite among experts. In its report on the Olympus WS-321M, PCMag.com's Molly K. McLaughlin finds few faults beyond the low quality of music playback and awards this Olympus digital voice recorder four out of five stars. Dr. Thorsten Dresing and Thorsten Pehl, whose comments are posted on the German retailer website AudioTranskription.de, conclude that the Olympus WS-300 series is "our price/performance favorite for simple interview situations, from one-on-one interviews to interviews with four persons." Laptop Magazine reviews the Olympus WS-331M, giving it four out of five stars and calling it ''absolutely at the head of the digital voice-recorder class." The Olympus digital voice recorder passed the reviewer's hands-on testing in two interview situations, but a restaurant recording did include some background noise.

If you have a smaller budget, and don't care about music playback, the less expensive Olympus WS-210S (*Est. $60) could be an option. Feature wise, aside from the ability to double as an MP3 player, the biggest difference lies in memory size -- just 256 MB, allowing for 138.5 hours in the lowest quality mono mode, and nearly nine hours in the highest quality stereo mode; again, three mono and three stereo recording modes are offered. In reviews, sound quality of this Olympus digital voice recorder is good, but not great, and AudioTranskription.de complains that it is actually a step behind that of the recorder it replaced. However, AudioTranskription.de also says "it is hard to find a comparable recorder for a lower price" than the Olympus WS-210S.

We've also seen some recommendations for the Olympus DS-40 (*Est. $105) digital voice recorder. With just 512 MB of memory, the Olympus DS-40 has less capacity than the comparably priced Olympus WS-321M, but generally offers more features and, according to some -- such as the reviewers at AudioTranskription.de -- higher quality audio.

Among its pluses, the Olympus DS-40 digital recorder has a noise canceling circuit that improves recording quality, and it is capable of higher speaker output levels than the WS-300 recorders (250 mW versus 70 mW). It can also record in more formats, including WMA, MP3, Audible and DSS, and comes with the Olympus DSS Player software for editing sound files. Additional improvements in this Olympus digital voice recorder include a larger display and an AC power adapter.

On the other hand, some of the features formerly unique to the DS line are now found in the Olympus WS-300 Series, including a backlit display and alarm. The Olympus DS-40 digital recorder also requires 2 AAA batteries instead of one, as is the case with the Olympus WS-321M and Olympus WS-331M. The Olympus DS-40 is also larger, and at 4.4 inches by 1.5 inches by 0.6 inches, might be a tad too bulky for some shirt pockets. It also lacks the built-in USB connector, meaning you need to use a USB cable to connect this Olympus recorder to a computer. If these inconveniences do not matter to you much and you are pretty sure that you will need only 512 MB (which translates to a maximum recording time of just over 136 hours), the Olympus DS-40 recorder is certainly worth considering.

As of this writing, Olympus has just released a new line of recorders in the WS series, the Olympus WS-510M (*Est. $150), Olympus WS-500M (*Est. $100) and the Olympus WS-400S (*Est. $80). They are more expensive than the Olympus WS-331M, Olympus WS-321M and Olympus WS-210S, respectively, but include significantly more memory (1 GB to 4 GB), larger screens and other additional features. However, these recorders are still hard to find at retail stores and we've seen no professional or user feedback on any of them yet. The Olympus WS-331M, Olympus WS-321M and Olympus WS-210S remain current.