Coby CXR190 Digital Voice Recorder with Integrated Speaker (sliver)

This device will work fine for someone who is accustomed to tagging and working with raw sound files. The windows software works, but it is very no-frills and you have to do your own tagging, downsampling, etc.

For those people who don't know what 'tags' are, and are not comfortable with doing file conversions and that sort of thing, this device may not be your best choice. For those people I would recommend a cheaper recorder to avoid the whole USB situation, and just listen to everything on the device with headphones... Or if you want to get the tracks on your computer, maybe find a recorder that comes with better software, if such a thing exists.

Here's my story:

I purchased this recorder from my college's bookstore, because out of the 2 models offered, this was the one with a USB connection so I can get the tracks onto my computer, where I can burn cd's for people or transfer them to my iPod or whatever I want to do.

Well, I *can* do those things but it's not easy. Here's my list of beefs with the device and its software:

-> The raw sound files are a proprietary format, so you must use the packaged software if you want to work with them on a PC.

-> The device does not name the files anything useful, such as the date on which they were recorded. The files are named things like "ICR027" which makes it difficult to figure out which file is which.

-> This naming system causes problems when the numbering starts over, and you already have a file by the name of the one that you are trying to send to your PC. You can't change the name of the file on the device, so you have to change the one on your hard disk, fix that in your mp3 library, and so on.

-> The software will transfer the raw file to your computer as a .WAV if you want it to. However you cannot choose a bitrate for this conversion, so you get a gigantic file that must be downsampled with a different program.

-> The firmware on the device itself is rather unfriendly. I still haven't figured out how to pause and resume a recording, even though the "pause" "play" and "record" buttons are clearly labeled. Changing settings in the thing is a headache, too. This is pretty standard for voice recorders, though.

So my main complaint here is that the process of transferring a file to my pc, getting it in my iTunes library, resampling it, and tagging it, takes too much time and effort for my liking. I can do this, but it would have been much nicer if they'd created software that would at least take care of some of these steps for me.

3 Stars because it works like it's supposed to, but they could have aimed much higher on convenience.

I returned this item because it is difficult to use. Fast forward and rewind during playback only work in 30 second increments. Presumably one could do more with the bundled software, but it did not install correctly on my Windows platform. I could not read the files over USB with my Macintosh. I managed to get the files off the device, but could not find software to convert the format (SP) to something more useful to me, such as AIFF or WAV. The Voice Activated recording feature does not have a sensitivity adjustment, so the device records constantly if ambient noises are present.

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I bought this recorder because it's the cheapest recorder listed on Amazon that allows for SD cards and has a USB port for downloading recordings from the device to my PC. That works fairly well for me, but I use the VLC Media Player as my go to media player, and it can play just about any file you throw at it.

My gripe is with the SD Card Slot. Maybe this is my own inexperience with using SD Cards, (I've only used them in my cell phones) but it seems as if I need to tape the card in place. In my cell phones that make use of SD cards, they click in to place and are ejected by pressing on the card. Putting a piece of tape over it seems to help, but really, who wants to do that?

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My husband needed the recorder for his voice over work and he really likes it. It is small and compact, but easy to use

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the product is ideal for people who need to record interviews, music or other activities of daily life. Can be easily carried anywhere by their size