Olympus VN-480-PC DIGTL VOICE REC ( 141725 )

by Olympus

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002V9IJG
• Item model number: 141725
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,379 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 11, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Olympus VN-480PC provides over 8 hours recording time, convenient PC compatibility, voice activation mode for hands-free recording and simple-to-use thumbpad navigation. It's the the perfect audio solution for recording lectures at school, conversations with friends, major and minor tasks, and everything in-between.

Features:

• PC LINK. Connect easily to almost any PC to edit, email, and/or archive your files.
• FILE MANAGEMENT. Manage and store your audio files with four separate folders.
• INDEX MARKING. Index your recordings so you can quickly locate important audio.
• Convenient PC link for quick and easy downloading of audio files to a PC.
• 4 folders (3 file folders plus a schedule folder).
• Thumb-pad navigation makes it easy to access various features.
• Quick, easy file management.
• 3 recording modes (HQ, LP and SP).
• Alarm Playback Function.
• LCD display shows date, time, battery life and more.
• Voice Activation.
• Timer recording lets you set the start and end times for a recording so it can be captured automatically.
• Earphone and Microphone Jacks for versatility.
• Two AAA batteries provide up to 25 hours of continuous operation.
• Compact size makes it fit comfortably in hand or pocket.
• Metal clip for hands-free recording.

What's in the Box
VN-480PC Digital Voice Recorder, 2 x AAA Battery, USB Cable, Digital Wave Player Software (CD-ROM), and Instruction Manual

Product Description

Provides over 8 hours recording time, convenient PC compatibility, voice activation mode for hands-free recording and simple-to-use thumbpad navigation to help make it the perfect audio solution for recording lectures at school, conversations with friends, major and minor tasks, and everything in-between. Connect easily to almost any PC to edit, email, or archive your files. Manage and store your audio files with four separate folders. Index your recordings so you can quickly locate important audio. Thumb-pad navigation makes it easy to access various features. LCD display shows date, time, battery life and more. Compact size makes it fit comfortably in hand or pocket. Earphone and Microphone Jacks for versatility Fast playback Metal clip for hands-free recording Voice Activation Speaker - 28mm diameter dynamic internal speaker Recording Format - ADPCM Recording Media - Built-in 64MB Flash Memory Recording Time - 2 hours 57 minutes in HQ mode, 4 hours 27 minutes in SP mode, 8 hours 13 minutes in LP mode Sampling Frequency - HQ 16.0kHz, SP 10.6kHz, LP 5.75kHz Overall Frequency Response - HQ 300-7200Hz, SP 300-4700Hz, LP 300-2600Hz Practical Maximum Output - 120 mW Power Supply - Two AAA batteries Two AAA batteries provide up to 25 hours of continuous operation System Requirement - Microsoft Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 Professional, XP Professional, Home Edition, CPU Intel Pentium 166MHz or faster, 32MB RAM, Sound Board Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 or 100% compatible card, Video Card and Display 800 x 600 pixels, 256 colors, 2x CD-ROM Drive, 1 free USB port, Audio Output Speaker or earphone output Dimensions - Length 3.9 x Width 1.54 x Depth 0.85 inch Weight - 2.4 ounces (68 grams) including battery

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great little gadget!, December 3, 2005

By 

Richard G. Amirault (Malden, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Olympus VN-480-PC DIGTL VOICE REC ( 141725 ) (Office Product)

I just bought one of these .. why? .. becuase I had bought it's "little brother" .. a 16k version and loved it so much that I had to get one with more memory (this has 64k)

Contrary to the official Amazon discription .. the high quality recording time is almost 3 hours (2 hr and 57.5 min)

If you are interested in a digital voice recorder be sure to get one (like this) that can easily upload to your computer. Many units without a USB you have to connect the earphone jack to the mic in of your soundcard and play it back in 'real time' The USB transfer works great, and is fast .. the files are stored as .wav files but using 3rd party software you can burn them to a music CD or convert them to mp3 or whatever.

I recorded a meeting that was an hour and 5 min. The wav file was about 40meg. Using 3rd party software I made an mp3 about 14.5 meg. The sound quality (for voice) was really good at the high quality setting.

It also has a sound activation (commonly called VOX) feature that records only when it hears sound above a certain level. Also there is a TIMER RECORDING feature that will start recording at a specified time and length.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for lectures and seminars!, August 7, 2005

By 

N. Atkinson (Rock Hill, South Carolina United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Olympus VN-480-PC DIGTL VOICE REC ( 141725 ) (Office Product)

Just recently purchased one of these recorders and I fell in love the first day. Very simple to use and compact. Recorder has four folders with up to 100 files in each folder. One has a special folder that has date subfolders; a useful feature for schedule management. Also has alarm playback function, a variable control voice actuator, and index marks as well (to easily keep track of important sections in a file. But the best feature of all is being able to download the recording to your pc.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars best of what's available, January 9, 2006

By 

randomcultureobserver (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Olympus VN-480-PC DIGTL VOICE REC ( 141725 ) (Office Product)

Compared to similarly priced digital and non-digital options for voice recording, this is an awesome recorder. The sound quality is excellent (in high quality mode). It features the best internal microphone on the market. The controls are easy to use (though having more buttons would have made it better and more intuitive). The unit is very light and comparatively unobtrusive. It avoids difficulties of flipping tapes encountered by traditional recording methods. It is not nearly as cumbersome as the MiniDisc either, though the sound quality is not nearly as good.

However, I remain fairly disappointed with the category and with these particular digital recorders. It is ridiculous how much money these recorders cost given how little memory they contain. A Creative MuVo mp3 player available for about $63 at Wal-Mart (a store that carries Olympus digital voice recorders) has 512 MB of memory. The Olympus digital voice recorder has 64 MB! This unit would be GREATLY improved by higher storage capacity and removable memory! These capabilities would be of great use for qualitative researchers, journalists, and other professionals for whom taking a storing a lot of interviews is a part of the job. Right now, I have to come home between each interview and upload it to my PC desktop, since it cannot connect to my Apple laptop and I can't remove the memory and put it in a card reader. Also, the connection system used to transfer the pitiful 64 MB of memory is very slow. It took 10 minutes to transfer approx 40 MB from the unit to a very fast computer running XP. I am disappointed with the storage and processing capacities, even if they may be industry-leading. I have enjoyed these capabilities (removable memory, processing speed, larger memory) in their cameras since 2000.

In summary, I'd recommend it to any professional (on a budget) who needs to take interviews, does their own dictation, etc., but I would also encourage Olympus to improve this product significantly.

FYI: I am not sure how the unit would do recording lectures.