Olympus VN3100 Digital Voice Recorder

This little recorder is great. The sound quality is good. Its pretty easy to figure out if you spend a few minutes with the directions. It has plenty of recording time. Its small and easily fits in your pocket. It has a headphone jack for private listening. You can play back on slow or fast. Cue forward or back by a few seconds or all the way back to the beginning really easily. I was skeptical at first when I saw this but now I cant imagine being without it!

This is a wonderful little recorder for simple recording of conversations, interviews or lectures. It's very easy to use. Would recommend highly. Not sure if it can sync with laptop, haven't tried yet.

This recorder is excellent. It meets all my needs with four folders, ease of use and clarity of playback. Many of my friends have tried and were so impressed they are now buying one for themselves. I am very pleased considering other voice recorders I have tried.

First of all, this recorder is tiny-smaller than a microcassette recorder, and smaller than many cell phones. The most usable features for me are mic jack, voice activation, and timer recording. I record AM and shortwave broadcasts, and sometimes record radio transmissions from my scanner. All you do is plug the mic jack into the headphone jack of the radio. But the volume on the radio has to be set very low or it will distort when you record this way. The voice activation works with the mic jack also. If I want to record the local railroad frequency when I'm gone, it will only record when there's activity on the frequency. That way I don't have large blank spots on the recording. I give it 4 stars because the sound quality does not equal standard size cassettes. There are 4 quality settings-XHQ(about 6 hours), HQ(about 12 hours), SP(about 30 hours), and LP(about 72 hours). XHQ is about the same quality as a microcassette on high speed. HQ is about like a microcassette on low speed. And SP and LP are very bad. Those are not worth using. And another reason it gets 4 stars is because you can't power it with an AC or DC adapter. AAA batteries are the only option. And battery life was not what I expected on a recorder that has no motor to drive a tape. Audio output is minimal. You may need to hold it to your ear to listen in a noisy environment. Headphones or plugging it to a home stereo are better options. But that's to be expected with a device this small. Despite it's weaknesses, it's a nice little gadget that gets the job done.

Using a digital recorder like this one is a great way to learn lines. Record your cues and responses, and be the first one in the company off book.