Olympus WS-320M 1 GB Digital Voice Recorder and Music Player by Olympus
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Our Price: $139.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Olympus WS-320M 1 GB Digital Voice Recorder and Music Player
Digital camera Review: Good audio quality, file format annoyances, micro size has pros and cons
Summary: 4 Stars
Pros--Size, Sound quality, Handy USB design,
Cons--Size, Limited file type support, Battery life
I've used this product over a year, primarily to record group conversations, persona memos, meetings, and conference calls. On the whole, it is very useful, but it has a few quirks and weak points.
The WMA format is a minor inconvenience. I'm a Mac user and can translate the files easily enough--Quicktime reads them no problem and I edit them with more advanced software anyway--but I don't know how standard a format this is, even for Windows users, compared with MP3. The device recognizes and plays MP3 files, so it seems it ought to have the option to record in that format.
It recognizes few audio file formats. The ability to use the 1GB capacity to hold my own music audio files and use as a portable MP3 player is a nice secondary function. It doesn't recognize other typical music file formats though (of which my and most people's music libraries consist), and that's annoying. Also, its very short battery life limits its practical use as an iPod substitute. (You'd be lucky to get through a two hour flight on one battery. I keep a spare with the device at all times.) It has standard 1/8" mic and headphone jacks.
As mentioned in other reviews, the tiny size has pros and cons. I love that I can slip it in a front shirt pocket to record a conversation. It is so lightweight and small, i hardly know it's there. And that's also one of the negatives: I can forget when I left the thing in a pocket or easily forget it on a cluttered table. Another issue also typical of increasingly tiny electronics is the point of diminishing returns with usable controls: the buttons are so tiny, I can see how they'd be difficult to manipulate. I am a tall man with large hands and manage without difficulty, but I am also young enough still to have fine dexterity and not require reading glasses. Folks a little older and less accustomed to wee gadgets might not fare as well.
The break-apart USB design is cool and convenient. It's great for transfer--no cable required--and can function as an alternate flashdrive for file storage. The negative here is that it is reeeally s-l-o-w.
If pocket size and convenient file transfer are your primary requirements, buying this is a no-brainer. If you require even better sound quality and have to have MP3 recording, you might look at something like the Edirol R-09.
Digital camera Review: Good features, bad plastic case
Summary: 2 Stars
A beautiful product with alot of features from Olympus however worked for only 3 months after purchase date. Why:
1. Plastic case - Because of the plastic case you cannot store this device in tight places (pants pockets) or places with vibration which caused my unit to fail after only 3 months. This isn't a rugged design.
2. It's very tiny - This makes the unit more fragile especially with a plastic case.
3. The tiny built-in speaker magnet will attract ANY metal crumbs and is very difficult to remove them from the tiny holes, which will result in audio noise/distortion during playback by speaker.
Also voice record-to-playback navigation is cumbersome - It's difficult to go from recording to seeking for playback.
Overall: This unit works well under intensive care but will fail in harsh conditions because it is so fragile. It is pricey too. At $200.00 Olympus failed to replace my unit and all music, lectures, and data was lost.
Digital camera Review: Great For Dictation
Summary: 5 Stars
I use this recorder to record my voice which I pipe through Dragon Speaking Naturally speech recognition software into a text document that I later use for word processing. It works great. It's almost as good as using the microphone connected to the computer.
I not a musician so I don't know about some of the complaints raised in some of the reviews but if you are using this voice recorder for buiness - legal - medical - writing purposes you should do just fine.
Digital camera Review: Great Little Recorder
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought the WS-320M DVR so I could record lectures I give. I then post them on a website and students can download them and listen or re-listen as needed. For this purpose it is outstanding; good voice quality (with an external microphoneMicrophone, ME-15) and very easy to use. The things you can't do (that I wish you could) is stop for more than an hour or go back and make corrections.Digital camera Review: Great Product......Bad "AMAZON" Service...
Summary: 4 Stars
Exceptionally great product...Would buy more for my other clients.
Amazon "BAD" service, when ordered it was in stock, will ship next
day, Didn't have the product until after 2weeks. Let me guess it was
b'coz "FREE SHIPPING"
This is my 3rd review for the same product, it never shows in the
customer review sections....wonder why????