Sony ICD-MS1 Digital Voice Recorder

I received the Memory Stick-equipped voice recorder as a present, originally under the impression that recording a note or memo would quickly be turned into a typed document in Word, Wordperfect, or another similar type of software. What I did find was that while it is EXTREMELY good at picking up your conversation, even in a noisy car, its use is limited initially unless you have a Memory Stick-equipped computer to process the information, and even from there, you need more stuff.

If you have no port for a Memory Stick, you have to spend a fair amount of money for the adapter, which takes the Meory Stick and encapsulates it into a standard 3.5 inch disk for your computer. For voice applications to now use the recordings and type them, you also need to have a voice recognition program such as Dragon 5 or better. This is not a cheap program, and earlier versions won't do if you want the automatic typing done, and of course, you have to take the time to train the program to recognize your voice.

The recorder itself does a great job. It's the additional costs for using it that have been disappointing, and therefore the 4 stars. Still, there is no question that this is a very good recorder.