Sony ICDP320 - 64MB Digital Voice Recorder w/ PC conectivity

I really recommend this Sony ICD-P320. I gave it a workout and it worked great. I am really pleased with this unit. No complaints at all. I like the fact that the mic is on top of the unit and not on the side. That means you can put it in your shirt pocket with the mic pointed up, which means it won't be muffled. The Olympus did not do that.The record button is user friendly. It has 3 recording levels, and you need High Quality level for lectures in big halls.

After some recording time, I took it home and transfered the file to my PC. Worked flawlessly. The recording quality was very good. Excellent software. It is easy to split recordings and rename them. I have been recording using cassette tapes for years. No more. Because I don't have to buy tapes, this unit will pay for itself in time.

If you want, you can convert the sound file to wav, and save it into iTunes. Then in iTunes, you can save it into Apples AAC format. But I found that keeping it in the sony format and using the sony software to play the files works just fine. The sony files are also a much smaller file size compared to AAC or Wave. One thing to note is that you cannot convert to mp3 with this unit. That doesn't matter to me. The other formats work fine.

I bought 4 AAA rechargeable batteries and a charger for about $12. so I would not have to worry about buying batteries. Using regular batteries, I got about 11 hours of HQ recording time.

It has a few more suprises. You can plug it into your old cassette recorder and transfer the audio into digital. This is really cool. I have a few hundred cassette tapes I would love to transfer to my PC. If I only had the time! You can also plug it into your TV and record the audio into digital. And I listen to XM radio on my PC. I can plug this unit into my computer and capture streaming audio into it. Then save it into my computer. Good for recording talk shows which I want to do.

I am a liberal arts student, and I purchased this recorder for two reasons+

1. to record lectures

2. to dictate papers

In recording lectures this recorder is perfect. There are not too many buttons, which makes for ease of pulling it out of my bookbag and pressing record. That's it, no tricky set up. The quality is good, but I leave it on the high quality recording option. It is very small, so it is easy to tote around, slip in your pocket, and is unobrusive. If you are in a large seminar it is small enough to set on the corner of your desk without getting in your way.

I also love that there is no need to switch tapes during a lecture, it has alleviated all tape recorder related worry.

The software that comes with it is very easy to use, and allows you to save the audio file in many different formats. I usually save it in a .wav file, so I can load it onto my ipod, or burn it onto a cd. That is a wonderful advantage to this recorder, no more annoying tapes to deal with, now I load my lectures onto my ipod, and off I go.

There are a few things I don't like about this recorder. Batteries DO NOT last long, I would recommend investing in a few of the long life rechargeable batteries. With regular batteries I got about 5 hours of record time, with the rechargeable ones I have gotten 7+ hours and have much more to go.

Also, playback on the recorder itself is not very good at all, I have to put the files on the computer before I can understand them, and that can be annoying at times.

Another thing that is a bit annoying is the time/date feature. Everytime you change the batteries, while it does not erase the files on the recorder it does erase the time/date stamp. It is bothersome to have to reset them everytime.

Overall, if you don't have the money to spend on a really fancy digital recorder, this is the one to get. Not too many bells and whistles, but very easy to use, and very practical.

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If you've dictated on tape before, then you probably know how important the slide switch is rewind to hear the last few seconds you did and maybe tape over something to correct it.

Surprisingly, the insert/overwrite capability has been left off most digital players! I combed through instruction manuals for dozens of players to finally find it. If you want an Olympus player then you're gonna have to pay top dollar for the DS-2300.

But for under $100, sony is the only one with this feature. This is a pretty bare bones model, but it does have the crucial insert/overwrite feature, and they made it easy to listen to the last few seconds of a very long recording (some digital players make you fastforward from the beginning to get to the end that can be VERY painful in long recordings).

Insert is something I'm gonna have to get used to, but I like the idea. If you forgot a point and want to insert a paragraph somewhere, you just rewind and insert it the player will move over the later recorded material as opposed to overwriting it (depends on which feature you have selected).

The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was I was hoping for a crisper recording quality since there's no motor or anything. Still, it's more than good enough for my needs. Even with an external mic though I've found it to be a little tiny even at the highest quality, maybe I'm just being picky. My minidisc recorder is by far the best when it comes to recording quality, but that's a separate review and unfortunately they don't make minidisc transcribers, or maybe they do...

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I found this recorder to be a good value, meaning that for its price it does its job and has great features.

Pro:

On the recorder you can save messages in multiple folders. You can add to existing messages. You can erase individual messages and/or whole folders. You can choose 2 different microphone sensitivites, and 3 different recording quality levels (you'll want it set for the best of those 3, HQ).

This device comes with a CD that includes the usual stuff: Drivers and manuals, along with a couple of nice software applications. The programs are used for both saving files to the PC, and managing many of the recorder features. Speaking of saving files, you can save directly to the PC in Sony's voice format and/or .wav (at 256 kbps) format. Very nice.

Cons:

As usual with Sony, all of this is designed to run only on Windows PC's. Sony imagines this makes for good business, but the reality is this: If you use any other platform, Sony doesn't want you as a customer.

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I use this recorder with Dragon Naturally Speaking. It works seamlesslly with the with the software provided. I use a clip on microphone. The recording is good but I'm going have to train Naturally Speaking to understand the difference between what it hears when I dictate with the headset and that from the recorder. The accuracy from the recorder is about 75% compared to about 90%. Not fault of the recorder or their software.

Lloyd