Olympus Digital Voice Recorder (VN 6000) by Olympus
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Digital camera reviews of Olympus Digital Voice Recorder (VN 6000)
Digital camera Review: Beware of Olympus Digital Recorders!
Summary: 1 Stars
Buyer's beware. Olympus support is horrible. If you ever lose or damage your software Olympus will not help you get it. I lost my CD when I moved and you can't download the software anywhere (you can't even buy it from Olympus). Now I have a completely worthless digital recorder. I'LL NEVER BUY OLYMPUS AGAIN.Digital camera Review: Can't beat it
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this as a present to help a friend with some classes she is taking. After I got it I wanted to keep it. It was hard to let go.. :P
When I finally gave it to her I couldn't stop playing with it, "showing her" the features and things, until she finally took it from me. Now she loves it. I haven't used it too much, but I can say that the features are superb: recording time is surprising, audio quality is very good, you could record days of audio with this little thing. Haven't tried hooking it up to the computer yet but to me this was one of the main reasons for getting it. Plus the price, you really can't beat that. And to top it all off you can also plug in a microphone and headphones, which is an excellent touch. Also the controls are very intuitive and easy to use.
I want to get another one for myself now!
Digital camera Review: Can't transfer recordings to PC - how come?
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this so that I could record some classes I'm attending to. Seems like it will do the job.
However, I won't be able to tranfers the recordings to anything. They'll just stay buried in the device forever, and I'll have to use it whenever I whant to hear them.
And no, I don't think I'm to blame for not noticing that it doesn't mention PC connectivity anywhere. That's because I expected such a feature to be present in any product of this kind nowadays. I think it should be clearly stated in the product page when a relevant standard feature like this is missing.
Digital camera Review: Digital but cannot connect??
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought 2 of these after having bought other Olympus digital recorders in the past (and one Panasonic as well). I returned both after realizing that the VN6000 won't connect to a PC. Other versions with nearly the same model number will connect but you shouldn't be confused; this one won't. I'm not sure why anyone would buy a digital voice recorder that doesn't have the ability to connect but if you're sure you won't need that, then this is a good product. I traded in the two VN6000 for the 6200 which connects just fine.Digital camera Review: Does a great job, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
I have used Olympus's line of digital voice recorders quite heavily for over five years now, mainly because of their extreme ruggedness and ease of use.
This one works quite well, too, but unlike the others I have used, this one has a rather annoying bug.
There is a problem with the index button.
For some reason that I am unable to understand, when I use it, often it fails to mark the spot I want, usually immediately after fast forwarding or rewinding.
In fact, once this happens, the only way to get it to mark at ALL in the recording is to quickly press and release the rewind button, then do the same with the fast forward button to get back to the beginning of the recording, then advance to where you want to place your mark, waiting at least five seconds after releasing the fast forward to hit the index button.
I have discovered that waiting about five seconds after doing a fast forward or rewind usually (but not always) prevents this annoying index mark bug.
It is quite annoying, though, especially if you have to spend a considerable time advancing to where you intend to make the index mark again.
Another minor thing - although I was fully aware of it beforehand - is that this recorder does not have a USB port to directly transfer recordings to a computer.
A solution, albeit a bit clumsy, is to plug the headphone jack into your sound card's audio input, hit play on the recorder, then use recording software on your computer to capture it.
A nice feature this recorder DOES have that the current Olympus recorders in the "VN" series with the USB port lack is a timer function, which comes in very handy for recording regularly scheduled radio shows, or for leaving your recorder unattended to record an event if you can't stand right there to operate it.
I needed the timer feature more than the USB port, so that was the motivating factor for why I chose this model.
I am quite puzzled as to why Olympus chose to make the USB port and timer feature mutually exclusive on their current models, since their older VN480-PC and VN4100-PC have BOTH features.
I have owned two of this model recorder now, and they both have the same index mark bug, so this is clearly a flaw in design and not just a bum unit, so this one gets only three stars for poor workmanship that is clearly inherent.