I took a chance on this audio recorder for a college project requiring recorded audio. I wanted a quality recorder but didn't want to pay well around $100 for it so I found this recorder.
Pros:
- Good Audio Quality: picks up background noise which may or may not be good for your situation, just a think to know about this recorder
- Compact Size
- Button Lock Feature: you can turn on a switch which will make all buttons unusable so your don't accidentally delete your files when carrying the recorder around. For me, I really love this feature, since deleting files done with about three button presses, if the device turns on accidentally that could be a problem without this feature.
- Comes with headphones, built in microphone and external speaker for playback! (Watch out some you have to buy a microphone separate or offer no playback of audio at all.)
- USB connector
Cons:
- Digital Audio Files: saves audio as a WAV not MP3, no alternatives are available. Platform problems, Lag time is extreme.
- No physical On/Off switch. You turn it on by pressing >, which I don't mind but in order to turn it off, you have to click mode once, then >, and then it waits 60 seconds to turn off. It's a pain and I'd rather just turn it off myself.
- Runs on 2 AAA batteries... it connects to the computer but it does it through a connecting cord, I would have preferred an internal lithium battery I could charge because it seems like it is going to take a lot of batteries. That could go either way though, lithium batteries hard hard to replace so having it run on batteries could make it last longer in the long run. It's more of a personal preference for me.
Major Problem: The recorder's software lags my Mac to the point almost nothing will work. It does not recognize my Windows PC at all after about 10 minutes of waiting. When I have 1, 1 minute file on the device it took around 5-10 minutes on a Mac with an i5 processor and 4GB RAM. I work with 3D graphics programs and large photoshop files and this system almost lags it more than those do. That is a major problem that makes using the digital audio very difficult mainly because the files take forever to load! You need extreme patience with this device for to get the digital files to open & save on your computer but it can be done.
Tips for dealing with the digital file problem:
(1) Make sure the usb connector is actually attached completely, one time the part attached to the unit wasn't connected all the way, the side that connects to the unit falls out easily so place it somewhere it won't move.
(2) Use a Mac over a PC, I still haven't been able to get it to work with a PC. If your only option is a PC... make sure you have plenty of time to get the files because it might take a very long time for it to realize it has been installed on the computer.
(3) If using a Mac, when the device shows up on the screen, I had to click it, then it takes forever to load, click into the folder, wait again, then finally drag the file to my desktop. Make sure you click into the next part if it is done loading because each section took awhile to load for me.
(4) When opening on a Mac, open with Quick Time instead of iTunes. It crashed iTunes for me and you might lose what you are working on. I finally was able to get it working with iTunes but it was a pain and Quick Time opens the WAV file with no almost no wait time.