I was looking for a very compact voice recorder that was capable of high quality recordings. (I also own a Zoom H2, which has a fine audio quality, but is a little large and power-hungry for casual use.) I looked at a number of small recorders at various prices, and eventually chose this one from Panasonic. It has a nice mix of features, the recordings sound good, and it is small enough to carry and forget in a coat or pants pocket. It's straightforward to use. Yes, there are simpler voice recorders available, and you will certainly benefit from reading the manual, but I had no difficulty using it straight out of the box. It has two small microphones on the top, which deliver a good stereo signal (40Hz-20KHz), while a jack on the side allow the use of external mic or line recording.It runs off a regular AAA battery a rechargeable AAA battery is included, which can be charged from the USB plug. The versatility of this arrangement impressed me. Not only is the battery life long, but, if the battery does run out, you can easily swap in a store-bought alkaline (or lithium) AAA.
The wide range of recording quality settings includes uncompressed PCM (48 Hz or 44.1) delivering around 5.5 hours of theoretically-better-than-CD quality recording (6 hours for CD-quality 44.1). In practice, of course, recording quality will be limited by the quality of the microphones, but it sounded pretty good to my ear. Other recording format options include various flavours of MP3, from 320 kbps at the high end (27 hours of recording time) down to 32 kbps mono (for over 11 DAYS of recording!). Of course, the length of a single recording will depend on battery life, and, if you turn off backlights and LEDs and use an alkaline AAA, this runs to about 9 hours for a high quality recording, to around 21 hours for the lowest quality. In addition to built-in memory, you can use a MicroSD card, which plugs into a easily accessible port on the side of the unit, to add extra storage. The unit can be run off external power using the USB plug (nice!), although you would need to provide your own cables and adapter.
These figures are for the XS410. Another, almost identical unit, the XS400, includes 2Gb of memory instead of 4Gb, so halve the values. Given the low cost of adding 2 Gb of MicroSD, memory, the cheaper unit may be slightly better value.
Transferring files to a computer was painless with Windows 7 I simply plugged the unit into a USB slot, and Windows opened it as a hard drive. Because the files are stored in a standard format, they are easy to play back directly on the computer without further manipulation. The pop-out plug is a convenient solution, but if you have other USB devices inserted into your computer, the wide body of recorder can make it impossible to insert the XS410 plug without either unplugging other devices first, or using a USB cable adapter. This unit really should ship with such an adapter to let it fit tight quarters.
The included accessories are minimal a battery and a (useless) battery case. The device has a metal fixture for a lanyard or strap, but these aren't included either.
Another quibble is that the position of the headphone jack, close to the left microphone, means that the mic does an excellent job of picking up sounds from the headphones. It took me a while to identify the source of a squeaking sound, which was caused by the headphone cable rubbing against the plug. Plugging in a set of high quality headphones seemed to cause intermittent electrical problems a ticking. I haven't been able to reproduce this reliably, but the interference did not show up on the recording.
Overall, however, I am very pleased with this device. The headphone problems are minor this is not meant to be a professional audio recorder. (For that application, the Zoom H1 might be a better choice in this price range.) It's a simple, very small, lightweight device which can easily make very long, high quality recordings of meetings and voices, which can be easily transferred to computer. It does all this very well, includes a host of well thought out features, and sells for a reasonable price.
Linda Culbreth http://www.BookDesignByLinda.com and http://www.linkedin.com/in/LindaCulbreth
Buy Panasonic RR-XS410 4 GB Personal IC Digital Voice Recorder (White) Now
I have found this recorder works very well with recording indoor and outdoor events containing music and speech and in places that need sensitive equipment.Read Best Reviews of Panasonic RR-XS410 4 GB Personal IC Digital Voice Recorder (White) Here
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