Panasonic RR-US470 Voice Recorder, Thin Style, PC Software 134 Hour Rec

This is a great product for recording notes and has many useful features. It is light and easy to use. I like the option of having a built-in zoom microphone.

I also have the Olympus equivalent which is more expensive but has benefits such as built-in USB connector (ie no need to carry a cable) and also stereo recording and MP3 playback. Another benefit of the Olympus is that the file format of the recordings are compatible with my PC whereas the Panasonic files require conversion using the software supplied with the unit. The Olympus does not have a built-in zoom mic. and requires only one AAA batery compared with two for the Panasonic.

As a digital voice recorder, this works fine. With respect to its touted ability to transcribe recorded voices into text, give this one a wide berth.

As others have mentioned, the software is incredibly complex and the documentation is flimsy at best. After an exceedingly frustrating (and lengthy) attempt to train the PC software, the results were abysmal. It actually wasn't too bad with my voice but my wife (who was the one who actually trained the software) saw horrid results.

That didn't make any sense to me she trains it, yet it translates my voice far better than hers! What was clear is that her original intention to translate a roundtable discussion with various participants into text so that would reduce (not eliminate we're not that naive) the amount of note taking was wishful thinking.

For the price, the voice recorder is fine the software is terrible.

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I got this recorder as a replacement for a Panasonic recorder that was about 9 years old. I was very satisfied with my last recorder. This recorder is also very good, but there are a few problems.

This recorder has an excellent capacity to get a strong hold on the voice within the classroom. The playback is good, the recording time leaves nothing more to want (on the highest quality I've never gotten close to filling it up). The battery consumption is satisfactory. Before, the recorder output was a mono headphone (which required an adapter for stereo playback), and now you can use stereo headphones with the device, although the audio continues to be mono.

So what's wrong with it? For one, the removal of a previous feature, divide. The allowed you to transcribe recordings and then as you went along, you could continuously divide the track and delete the completed portion. That feature is no more. The software is bad. The device uses some sort of proprietary format (not mp3, aac, wav, mpa, etc.) and it uses technical terms which are at times confusing. Supposedly, it doesn't completely support Vista, but I haven't run into any issues.

The bottom line: This is a great recorder (practical), which just needs a little polishing around the edges.

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If you happen to loose the software CD, this becomes a very expensive paperweight. Panasonic won't provide anything but "updates" to the software (no driver even!) at their website or when "chatting" with a support representative. They are sincerely sorry for the "inconvenience" this causes (making the device useless). Buy from a company that cares about its customers.

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The sound quality is not good. The scroll dial is not easy to deal with. The volume function is very touchy. It is located in the center dial and it's also used to "stop". It's almost like a "joystick", so if you are not careful, you are constantly turning unit on and off instead of lowering or raising the volume. I have had many voice recorders, and although I like the ease and capability it has to save on the computer, I like the Sony product much better for sound quality and ease of use.