Olympus WS-510M 4GB Digital Voice Recorder and WMA/MP3 Music Player by Olympus
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Digital camera reviews of Olympus WS-510M 4GB Digital Voice Recorder and WMA/MP3 Music Player
Digital camera Review: Great record quality but...
Summary: 4 Stars
The recording sound is very clearly. However, if you are using a Mac and would like to save the wma files as mp3, here is what you need to do.
1. Download free Flip4Mac WMV "2.2.3" version from this link [...] and then save it to Application, and then double click it on it.
2. Download free Switch Sound File Converter for Intel Mac from this link [...] and then save it to Application, and then double click it on it.
3. Now you should have both Switch and Flip4Mac software open and the recorder plug in as you see on left hand side, under Devices when you in Finder.
4. in Switch window, add the wma files you want to convert into Switch window, choose your Output Format as .mp3 and select a location for your Output Folder, and then click Convert.
5. Now you should have a mp3 file, at least I did.
Digital camera Review: Great! Small issue though.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the EASIEST recorder I've used. Although it has a lot of features and a big menu tree compared to other recorders, it's laid out in an easy to use fashion.
Pros:
You can change some options while the recorder is in use.
Unlike most recorders, you can select the noise cut off level for the "low sound= pause recording" feature that most recorders have already. This is handy because the acoustics of some classrooms are different.
The USB built in is super handy. Right after a class, I plug it in to my laptop, and label the files.
It's much thinner than most recorders I've had. The sony recorder, which has a 1/4 of the features this one has, is quite thick in comparison.
It has a light up LED screen! This may not mean much, but I check the times while recording and jot them down in my notes when something interesting is said. Sometimes a powerpoint is on and the lights are low in the room. With the light up screen, I can check the times in the dark. My old sony recorder didn't have this feature, and it was frustrating.
Rechargeable battery via USB is badass. Having to make a trip to the store to buy 3 AAA batteries that come in packs of 2 or 6 leaves me hating life. This guy comes with 1 AAA that's rechargeable and lasts long enough.
One of the best features is that you can adjust the fast forward and reverse 'skip' buttons. This is super critical. The sony recorder has a 5 second forward or back skip, and that's it. If you have a 1 hour lecture of meeting to scan through, well, good luck with that. The Olympus has the option of changing either the FW or RW to 3 second, 5 second, 30 second, 1 minute, 2 min, 3 min, 5 min intervals! So, you can skip big chunks of time with a couple of clicks, and back track a few seconds at a time to get where you need to go! Not easy enough? This recorder allows you to set index marks even after you've already recorded.
Not sure if anyone has noticed this feature, but the Olympus allows you to drop in MP3 files for playback as music or whatever. Some other recorders will spit and vomit if it tries to play an MP3 that wasn't originally recorded on it. This guy plays them with no fuss or confusion.
Cons:
The only gripe I have is that you can select, High to low quality settings in stereo or mono ONLY for WMA recording. The MP3 setting only records in HQ, so you don't get a lot of room out of it, and the battery drains faster. By the way, you have to go to their website and download the update for the MP3 recording feature. I record in MP3 so I can sync some lectures to my ipod. Macs don't support WMA, so you're SOL unless you download flip4mac, which will let you play them. Since my Mac doesn't support WMA, and I want to want to just 'play' WMA files, but sync them, I found a cheap and easy solution! There's a FREE program that allows you to easily drag and drop WMA files for conversion to MP3, and it'll save them in its source folder. So, viola! Now you can natively record in the settings you'd like, and convert with no fuss to the MP3 setting.
Digital camera Review: Huge DIsappointment!
Summary: 1 Stars
I have owned 5 Olympus digital recorders - 3 DS-330's, an Olympus WS-320M, and a WS-331M. The 331M has twice the memory of the 320M, and the buttons are easier to use.
I was hoping for improvements in the WS-510M, in addition to another doubling of memory from 2 GB to 4 GB, but I was utterly shocked to find that they had changed the buttons on this new model. The very handy record/pause button on the side of the 331M, which fit perfectly under my thumb and could be used flawlessly without looking at the recorder, had DISAPPEARED! The new record button was right in the middle of the front panel, closely surrounded by buttons for other functions. Ease of operation had taken a terrific nosedive which I could not accept.
I find it hard to believe that Olympus would make this egregiously counterproductive change. Some people just can't leave well-enough alone.
Be forewarned. The WS-331 is the best yet, hands-down.
Digital camera Review: I LOVE MINE
Summary: 5 Stars
I own another Olympus recorder which I bought years ago and I paid a ton of money for it. It was money well spent. I was intimidated by the "digital" part of it for a long, long time, but once you get the hang of it, these are so fabulous.
There's a button on the front that lets you move between folders A-E. That letter will appear on the screen and you can work on 5 different projects easily---just press the little button and it will take you to the folder you want where you can store all your notes for that project.
Within each folder are 199 files---I know this sounds confusing if you are new to the digital world, but the recorder does it all for you. You just go to the folder (tap the far right top button several times and it will go from A to E on the screen. You stop at the letter you want). Then press record and Talk! Easy!
When you are done, you'll see on the screeen 1/1---which means two things: you have just created a file and there are a total of 1 files in your folder, 1/1. The next time you record, it will say 2/2---which means you are in the second file and there are 2 files in your folder and on and on it goes until you get 199 files.
Now let's say you want to go back and listen to file 1 of your 199 files. You click back through them manually with the (<---) arrow which is on the front wheel until you get to it. The screen will say 1/199 and you will be at the first file and know you have 199 files total. I think that is just so easy and so cool!
To record, you press the top button in the middle which you can see in the picture (it's just below the screen) and talk---that's it. You don't press two buttons at the same time like in the olden days.
If you want to pause, click it again. If you want to stop recording, the top button on the left is stop and you click it. NOTHING could be easier.
At first, I was afraid to buy a recorder with the buttons on the front because my old one had them on the side, so I went to a store and looked at the product. THE FRONT IS BETTER. You have to remember that this little guy is the size of a heath bar. It's small! And holding it in your hand makes it super easy to click all the buttons with your thumb. Another reviewer said they were too small---I think they are PERFECT...go and look at Office Depot and you'll see the size. If you can't read them, the red one is record and the black one is stop. I can see them just fine, and if you can't remember this few buttons, then you probably are not reading this review.
Now, this gadget has all sorts of hidden menus to do all sorts of detailed things---I flip through the menus now and then and check them out, but basically, I just want to record and download.
It comes with a foam pouch which is really nice. My old one didn't have that.
It comes with a rechargeable battery and it's supposed to recharge anytime you have it hooked up to your computer. I haven't taken the time to charge it.
The second reason I bought another olympus is because my first one had 1/4 of a gig and this one has 4 Gigs! I filled the old one up in a week, so I'm thinking this one should last two months!!! Unbelievable for the price I paid which was $109---my old one cost over $300, I think.
Olympus makes a ton of these little recorders and I went to their website to try to figure out what was what. They could do a lot better job of telling you.
I narrowed the choices by the USB port. The old one I have snaps apart (too cool) and one side is a usb insert (like a flash drive). This one has a little USB thing that slides out of the bottom and then retracts. This was a deal breaker for me with the other models---I will lose a cord and I wanted the USB thing to be built in. The whole point of having a digital recorder is to hook it to your computer.
I like the voice activated feature(unlike another reviewer).
The other reviewer is right that you do have to go through several buttons to erase, but if you think about it, better to be asked to confirm, then to erase by mistake. I *think* (but I'm not sure if I remember this correctly) there might be an erase for the whole folder on one of the menus.
At this price and this size, there's no reason not to have one with you all the time. It will work with Dragon and actually type up your files, but I am here to tell you that the Dragon people are as unfriendly as they come. After I spent DAYS trying to figure out why my Dragon software would not work when I was trying to train Dragon with their mic, I paid the $20 to talk to someone who
He/she finally said it was an issue they knew about and that I could not use their headphone/mic that came with the software. They refunded my $20 and I bought a new mic---but what about all MY TIME!? The DAYS I lost!?
I think they owe me for that. And Dragon ruined one of my audio drivers on my computer causing it to crash over and over---GRRR and I had to pay to get that fixed by the Geeks, like I will ever see that money back from Dragon.
If anyone knows of any voice recognition software that actually works and is made by a company that's nice, responsible, and friendly, please comment to this post. I paid Dragon to figure out how to convert the wma files this recorder produces to wav files (I know it can be done because I've done it), but he said it couldn't AND took my money. Yes, I love them. If anyone knows how to do it, please also comment. Using voice recognition with this recorder is a very important reason for getting it.
UPDATE: If Olympus reads these (and they should)---could you please make one with more files---5 is not enough. I work on a lot of projects at once. Give me 10! And could someone please explain what the index thing does?
ANOTHER UPDATE--May 22, 2010: Amazon just sent me a product update on Dragon, since they now make software that converts WMA files to print. In other words, I won't have to convert the voice files I make on this recorder to WAV files before they will print---at least that's what the box says. We'll see. I'll be back with an update after I use it.
Digital camera Review: I returned it.
Summary: 1 Stars
When I first got my Olympus I loved it. It is small and lightweight enough to fit perfectly in my shirt pocket, which I often do to record myself giving speeches for self-evaluation. I loved the rechargeable battery, back-lit screen, 4 GB of memory, and pop-out USB connector. And the learning curve to use it was not too bad. However, as I began to use it for the purpose for which I bought it, the playback sound quality was not good at all. I tried every quality and mic sensitivity setting, and nothing produced a quality nearly as good as what I was used to with my 5-year old Sony that had died. I even tried downloading the firmware that allows for recording in MP3 format instead of WMA, and the playback quality was worse. Plus, with MP3 recording, all of the quality setting options were no longer available. As much as I liked this product for the reasons first stated, I returned it because I was unable to secure a decent recording with the recorder in my shirt pocket. I continued to look and research because I still needed to replace my dead Sony. I ended up buying a Sony ICD-PX820 from Best Buy, which I have used for about a week now and absolutely love. It only has 2 GB of memory instead of 4, but that still gives me 24 hours of recording time on the highest quality setting. (More than enough for me.) It is slightly larger than the Olympus, but is still very small, light weight, and pocket sized. The tiny buttons and controls of the Olympus were not a problem for me, but the larger controls on the Sony are nicer. The Sony's batteries are not built-in rechargeables, but battery life is good and you can buy AAA rechargeable batteries if that is an issue. I wish the Sony's screen was back-lit, but that is not a major issue for me. It is also nice that the Sony records everything in the more versatile MP3 format by default. But here is the MAJOR issue for me - the quality of recording is wonderful! And the Sony sold for about $30 less than the Olympus. I should have bought the Sony from the beginning. I might have kept the Olympus if I had not had the old Sony to compare the playback quality to. I would not recommend this Olympus. Anyone who buys the Sony needs to pay attention to the model. If you want to download recorded files to your computer (which I do), make sure you get the 820 model.