Olympus VN-3600 Digital Voice Recorder

by Olympus

Product Details

Product Manual [569kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00008LX7E
• Item model number: VN-3600
• Batteries: 3 AAA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #109,600 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 20, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Olympus Voice-Trek VN-3600 features a compact, lightweight design with three scalable recording modes. You'll get superb cost performance with a maximum of six hours recording time, with 32 MB built-in flash memory. The recorder weighs just 23 ounces and is ergonomically designed to fit snugly inside the palm of the hand. With its long talk time, the VN-3600 is ideal for weekend seminars, extended discussions, recording meetings, school lectures, or study groups, as well as for short memos, ideas, phone numbers, shopping lists, and other notes.

The unit combines smart styling with four folders for arranging files according to personalized subjects such as "work," "personal," and "to do." A fourth folder (scheduling folder) is used to sort recordings by date, letting you recall the day's meetings, expenses, and reminders for easy on-the-go retrieval. Each folder stores up to 100 messages. Up to 20 alarms can also be programmed for meeting, dates, show reminders, or wake-up calls. Simply press the button when hearing the alarm beep to hear the pre-recorded reminder.

The VN-3600 has these recording modes: HQ mode (for the best possible quality recording and 91 minutes available recording time); SP mode (for a high-quality recording and 137 minutes available recording time); and LP mode (for the most possible recording capacity, with 364 minutes available recording time). An LCD display shows remaining recording time, date and time, voice-activation mode, play mode (HQ/SP/LP), microphone sensitivity (HI/LO), and battery status. Other features include voice activation for hands-free recording and easy deletion of one or all messages in a folder. The VN-3600 uses the ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) recording format.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great value, great interface., April 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Olympus VN-3600 Digital Voice Recorder (Office Product)

This item is all it says it is. Small, lightweight, easy to use (the jog dial and record button above it are all you need!), and a not too complicated LCD interface. Recording capacity (and options) are terrific. It's easy to play back, erase (but not TOO easy - you have to hit ERASE and then confirm by hitting ERASE again), and record files. The built-in microphone is VERY powerful (no need to hold the unit anywhere near your mouth, or head for that matter!). This truly could be used to record meetings, etc. The playback volume is extremely powerfull as well (and powered only by 2 AAA batteries). I only wish Olympus made a case / cover available for this item, and provided an optional hands-free mic.

61 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Few frustrating flaws, May 24, 2003

By 

T. Sanders (Haarlem, The Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Olympus VN-3600 Digital Voice Recorder (Office Product)

Yes it is a nice and small recorder, and certainly one with the best recording time in it's price. But the Olympus VN-3600 Digital Voice Recorder has a few frustrating flaws.

First of all, forget about using low quality recording. You can hardly make out the voices. You can still get 2.5 hours of decent sound out of it at medium quality. That should be plenty for most users.
What's really driving me crazy is the joint buttons for skipping to the next file and for fast forward. Supposedly, if you hold the button, you'll fast forward, a single push will skip. But since both play/pause, next track, previous track and stop are on jog-dial-style button, you can accidentally press stop when you want to fast forward, or fast forward when you want to pause.
Why is this frustrating? Imagine you have recorded an one hour interview and are listening to it. Accidentally pressing next track or stop will skip you from the current point in the recording to the next track or make it stop. You'll have to fast forward to the point where you ended up. And since FF is really that fast, it take a frustrating amount of time. Seperate buttons for fast forward and fast backward would have solved this issue, although there isn't any space for them on the device (since it's so nice and small...)
Maybe this is less of a problem if you've got small finger, although I don't consider mine to be extrodinarily big.
Had I know about this issue in advance, I definately would have opted for another make/model!

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great value, June 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Olympus VN-3600 Digital Voice Recorder (Office Product)

I ordered this product new from a third party seller on amazon, and I was more than pleased with the product once it arrived. As is always the case, the LP setting isn't the greatest, though in a pinch one could use it for, say, a personal interview in a quiet room, if one needed more than the 2.5 hours afforded by the SP setting, which sounds fine in most lecture/interview/meeting situations.

The folders are a tool I didn't think would be useful to me, but have since come to love. I can file interviews for several articles I'm working on at a time, and when I'm done with one, simply erase the whole file.

When I was shopping for one of these things, I almost went with a mini-cassette recorder. Don't make that mistake. Digital gives much better sound quality simply because you don't get the hiss of the tape in the recorder. It is also incredibly small and light. Batteries last longer since there isn't a motor.

Some reviewers have asked about getting files onto your computer. The only way to do that with this unit is to plug the earphone output into an audio input and record the audio in realtime. I haven't found any need to archive old interviews so this hasn't been an issue. If you will need to archive, either go for a mini-cassette recorder or pay through the nose for USB connectivity.

There isn't a jog-dial as the description says. There is a four-way circular button. I don't know of any personal voice recorders with a jog-dial. Searching through audio is incredibly easy and fast, though.

I used to carry a notebook around everywhere, now I have my mini-recorder in my pocket at all times. I use it as a journalism student as I don't know shorthand, and as a music student to record my private lessons and review them later. The sound quality is fine, and the amount of audio that this little thing holds is simply staggering.