Olympus DS-2500 Digital Recorder Voice Recorder

Key points include easy to operate controls, a high visibility display, solid construction, and a professional appearance.

Controls:

The control buttons are large, easy to press on purpose and difficult to press accidently. With the included leather case closed you can still start, pause, and stop recording. You can also begin a new recording and place the recorder in standby mode. This is everything you would want to do while you're "in the field". It's easy to identify the buttons by touch and I've found it's also easy to operate these functions while the recorder is clipped on my belt, comfortably out of sight.

The Display:

The display is large and easy to read in any lighting. Some digital recorders (and other devices) I have work well in very bright light and with the aid of a back light are readable in complete darkness. However in normal room light they are all but illegible.

Battery life:

Essentially forever... The spec's say 37 hours. I've gone 24 and the battery indicator shows "a bit less than half". The thing is you have to work at running it for that long without recharging since every time you connect it to a PC to transfer recordings the battery gets charged.

Recording time:

Again, essentially forever... The included 2GB card can hold over 150 hours of audio. That is the beauty of capturing audio in DSS format. The downside will come in a little bit.

Construction:

What can I say, it's metal. More than that, there are little touches like a flap that covers the memory card slot when you remove it and an erase button that is covered by the leather case to avoid accidents.

Professional appearance:

If you're going to stick a recorder in someone's face then it helps if looks like something professional. Even if it doesn't help, it probably can't hurt.

Software:

The included software is useful and it, along with the recorder, integrate seemlessly with Dragon.

I've used this recorder with two software packages. It comes with DSS Player Standard Dictation Module. That transfers audio files between the recorder and my PC. It also plays the audio from either location. It has a number of features to help with dictation. For example, in playing back audio it can speed up or slow down playback without altering pitch with is a great way to help understand things that initially sound garbled. It also allows me to export the audio in wav or wma format for use by other programs.

One feature I especially like is that at the press of a button it will transfer a recording to Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 12 where it can be converted to text quickly and accurately. (In case you're wondering, this review was read into the recorder and transcribed by Dragon.)

Negatives (if you're looking for a general purpose digital recorder):

Doesn't do a good job recording music.

Records only in mono

Can't record in MP3, WAV, or any format other than DSS

Can't start recording at a preset time (the one feature in this list that I miss)

Negatives (if you're looking for a digital recorder to capture the spoken word):

It is, perhaps, a tad pricey

BTW, I feel that honest, effective reviews can take the place of first-hand experiences that are lacking in online shopping. I've always appreciated the help I've received from other reviewers and work hard to return the favor as best as I can. Please let me know if you found this review helpful and if there was anything you thought was lacking or unclear leave a comment and I'll do what I can to fix it.

I bought this voice recorder to replace an old cassette tape dictation and transcription machine. Construction appears solid. Controls are simple if not exactly intuitive. The sound quality is excellent, even better than cassettes. The supplied software allows you to automtically download a file to your PC where you can play it back for transcription or processing by a voice recognition program like Dragon (a separate purchase I have not tried because there will be many different voices and no opportunity for training). My only disappointment thus far: Recorded files cannot be renamed in the Olympus PC software, at least not as far as I can see. You are stuck with a relatively arbitrary and uninformative name assigned by the recorder. So for example if you interview someone, you cannot name the file after the interviewee unless you copy the file to a separate folder outside those managed by the software (e.g., to a folder named after the interviewee). This copied file can then be renamed, and it can be immediately played by the Olympus software without formally importing it back. The other reason for the 4-star review was the horrible delivery experience with DataVision and FedEx. I could not be present to sign for delivery at my home, the delivery could not be redirected to my office, and it could not be held in the town where I work (which has a FexEx location, not just drop-offs). DataVision and FedEx blamed each other for these problems, and eventually I had to drive 100 miles to pick the recorder up. Not a product defect, obviously, but Olympus should know about its distributors.

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I have used this device for about a year. While it is good at recording, etc., the control buttons on the recorder have been a problem. They are small, closely placed, are all the same size, and they cannot be differentiated by feel alone. This has led to unintentional reversing, over-recording, loss of dictatations and similar frustrations. I believe this is a serious design flaw and I eventually bought a DS 5000 which, though more expensive, has a slide switch which has eliminated such problems, for me.

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This is about the best Olympus digital recorder I have found that works for dictations and does not cost an arm and a leg although I still don't know why it costs so much. This was my second "bulk" purchase of these recorders to replace an older model (I think it wsa the 2100) that was my first dive into the digital recoreder pool. This is the lowest level model of recoders I have found that work well for dictatioins We are using these to dictace medical notes and pathology reports. Lower priced recorders don't let you edit ie: insert (really helpful), skip around in files, record over things and other things that you really need for dictations. We started using these with some older doctors that were totally non-tech and they took to them like ducks to water remarkably so.

The biggest down side to these recorders, besides the inexplicable high price, is that the erase button is in a spot that if you happen to accidentllay lay a pile of charts on top of the recorder you can accidentally erase all your recordings for the day I have done it at least twice, and it SUCKS! The other thing is that, although these are pretty much "take them out of the box and use them idiot proof intuitive, user friendly" there are times that I think I am recording and I am not and times when I accidentally am recording and I did not know it because of the activation of the record button. Now there is a little red light that is on when you record, but it is little and not right in your line of sight unless you are conciously checking it. It is usually not a big deal, it just is something that happens once or twice a day to me it is usually me rushing and not paying 100% attention to the recorder....

Downloading files is a breeze and these have a BIG advantage from the older models as they just use a common USB hook-up that is the same as most digital camera plugs vs the old ones that used a very delicate and specific plug that cost more than the recoder to replace.

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Little did I know about DSA and DSS voice files. Dragon Naturally Speaking only translate DSS but not DSA. I'm stuck with an expensive voice recorder that I can't use with Dragon Naturally Speaking. A search of the web yield very little info on any translation software that will take DSA files. If you are looking for DSS format voice files in a recorder, avoid this one.

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