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R**T
Great bit of kit for the price
***Update: I've been using this devicd quite a lit since I wrote the review below. I wanted to add a couple of other points. Firstly I am still running on the original stock batteries that came with the unit which are onky now showing at around 50% used. That's pretty impressive for the use it's had. Secondly, I finally got around to testing it with a stereo clip on electret mic and it records in stereo. Thirdly, I have been using it to recird telephone conversations when dealing with the bank and solicitors etc (which I'd reccommend you do as to have reliable transcripts) and have found the a clip on external mic remived from the clip and tucked inside the one on the earpieces of my 7dayshop bluetooth headphobes (see other review) has resulted in brilliant quality phone recordings of both sides of the conversation. Really impressed with this little recorder ***Great bit of kit for the price.Again, lots of other reviews here so to get to the bones of it, this is a nice small unit, runs on 2 x AAA batts with great long battery life (will get weeks of use out of a pair of AAAs). The sound quality from the internal microphone is good and the unit has a few settings for getting the most out of it. There are 'scenes' such as voice notes, meeting, interview, lecture etc which all adjust the recording levels, i.e. the voice note setting will assume you're recording with the mic held to your mouth so levels will be set accordingly. There's also a mic sensitivity setting of low medium and high which works in tandem with this. For example, in meeting mode, there's a notable difference in background sounds picked up with this scene and mic setting of medium and high sensitivity.The recording formats range from lowest bit rate for voice only right up to 128kbps and 192kbps monaural mp3 settings when using the built in microphone. The external mic jack acts as both an external microphone input and a 'line in' meaning you can easily use a 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo lead and record from another audio source's output, for example a computer, telephone, cd player. It is worth noting that the recording from an 'audio in' setting will be in stereo. I've tested the Audio In recording (in SHQ mode (192kbps)) with the input source being my computer playing back some music and streaming radio and I would say that the resulting files are of HiFi quality. Coupled with the track mark and divide feature this could make for a very handy way of transferring old tapes or vinyls to mp3s; quite a surprise.Upon playback of a recording one can pause and select divide to chop the files or you can simply keep hitting the track marker button whilst listening to a recording to index the track (which will let you skip to each marker with the forward / backward buttons in future without dividing the underlying mp3 file) or from the menu you can select divide all track which will chop up the underlying mp3 file into separate ones. This is a most useful feature for splitting files and saving only the important parts of a meeting without having to use software to do this on the computer.The unit connects to a PC / MAC with the supplied USB cable and just shows up as a standard USB mass storage device. The recorded files are just dragged and dropped from the drive it shows up as, onto the computer.Recordings can be made / moved / copied into one of the Folders which are there by default on the voice recorder but new folders can be created. It's worth noting that the folders are literally just folders on the file system so you can create new ones whilst the device is connected to the PC simply by selecting new folder and typing a name with the computer keyboard which cuts down a lot of time compared to using the menu to create them just using the device itself.There's a micro SD card slot for additional memory if required, but you'll get a lot of recording time on the build in memory so I shouldn't have thought that expanding it would be a thing for most normal use cases.One other thing worth mentioning is that while it is connected to the computer you can move .mp3 recordings or even .mp3 music files to the device - so should you have taken a voice recording off the device you later want to play back through the unit, just return it to a folder. Music files will be played back. I created a new folder called 'music' and through a few in there. They won't appear by filename but in the usual 01/XX format (as you can see in the picture) as if there were just recordings in a folder but the sound quality is both very good and in stereo when played back through headphones. Obviously to make the most of this added bonus, set continuous playback mode to 'on' and one track after the other will be played in order without having to hit play on each one. Would, in some cases and for some people, double up as an acceptable mp3 player. Certainly worth remembering however a lot of music will take up space available for recordings.As for general operation of the device, it will power up in < 1 second with a slide of the power switch making it ideal for those moments when you need to start recording right away.I've tried the unit with both the internal microphone and a clip on mic and have been pleased with the results. The lowest part of the frequency response is 75Hz which means it won't be quite a bassy as some higher end digital sound recorders but I actually find this to be a bonus as it makes for clearer recordings as doesn't have such bellowing when it comes to knocks and bumps when recording and being carried.I have not yet needed to refer to any written material to work out how to use the device or all its features and fine the menu to be clear and easy to use. I'd recommend this item. I'd owned an Olympus in the past which made recordings to .wmv file which I found didn't go up to as high a bitrate and thus the quality of the recordings suffered for it, and then (having misplaced it) bought a cheaper olympus which I didn't realise I couldn't connect to the computer. This Sony unit is cheap than the Olympus one I owned, about the same size and build quality, with better sound quality and the ability to transfer files to the computer so very good value for money in my opinion.
L**1
Quality product, you get what you pay for.
Tl;dr: Costs more than some, but you pay for quality. Does everything I need it to quite well.Packaging:Arrived in good time, and well packaged.As well as the Amazon package, the Sony box was well thought-out and kept everything in place.Quality/ price:Although this is slightly more expensive than some of the other dictaphones on here, you get what you pay for.The box came with a micro USB cable to transfer files to the computer, batteries(!) and built-in management software. This isn't very powerful, but it does the job of getting things where they need to be in your computer to store lectures, etc.It also comes with a guarantee and web support, which is a benefit from buying from an established company like Sony.There are instructions in the box, but they don't cover all the features. The ones they don't cover (like the "scene" function that changes the recording for different environments) are easy to figure out if you have a play with it when you switch it on.Build quality:Build quality is good. It's a little plastic dictaphone at the end of the day, but it feels robust and has some weight to it. Buttons etc. all seem fine, and the record and playback buttons especially are big and easy to use.Use:It does everything I need it to do, and does it pretty well. Recording is simple and user-friendly, and there is the feature to add in markers within a recording (t-mark) that's useful for splitting up topics/ lecture slides.One thing to note is the mic is very directional. It sits in the top of the unit, and it matters where you point it. If you're sitting close to what you're recording it's fine, if you sit further away or have it behind something it'll still record, but there will be a bit more noise.On the other hand, this is good for lectures. If you point it at the speaker it does a bit of work filtering out background noise, and the noise-cut feature helps.Memory is very good (just less than 4Gb with the built-in software). The recording quality can be lowered as well without too much loss. I can't tell the difference between Super High and High with the speaker on the machine and it gives the option to extend the amount of time you can record for.The memory can also be expanded if you want, and there's a slot for a microSD/ M2 card.Overall:Like the Tl;dr: well made, does what it needs to do with minimum fuss. Can be limited if you try and push it, but for recording meetings and lectures it's great.
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