Olympus VN900 Digital Voice Recorder

by Olympus

Product Details

Product Manual [569kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 3.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000067NL9
• Item model number: 141625
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,849 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 16, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The handy Olympus Voice-Trek VN-900 features a compact, lightweight design with three scalable recording modes. You'll get high-value storage with a maximum of 90 minutes recording time from 8 MB of built-in flash memory. The recorder weighs just 2.3 ounces and is designed to sit snugly in the palm of your hand.

With its lengthy recording time, the VN-900 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 so you can arrange 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 unit offers a built-in condenser microphone, and a .125-inch microphone jack gives you the option to use a high-quality external mic (not included). A .125-inch earphone jack lets you monitor your files during or after recording.

The VN-900 has three recording modes: HQ mode (for the best possible quality recording and 22 minutes available recording time); SP mode (for a high-quality recording and 33 minutes available recording time); and LP mode (for the most possible recording capacity, with 90 minutes available recording time).

An LCD display lets you check 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-900 uses the ADPCM (Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation) recording format.

What's in the Box
Voice recorder, 2 AAA batteries, pocket clip, user's manual, warranty information.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

245 of 246 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect product, but misrepresented, November 27, 2002

By 

James Salter (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Olympus VN900 Digital Voice Recorder (Office Product)

The VN900 is a wonderful product. It is the smallest of kind, easy to use, has powerful extra features like programmable alarms to help you remember when and what to do on a busy day. The battery consumption is nill, much lower than some competative products. It suits my purposes perfectly.

but . . .

It does NOT record 90 minutes of voice. In LP mode the sound quality is SOOO poor that it is USELESS. Ninety minutes of muffled incomprehensible noise is perfectly USELESS, a stupid choice on the part of Olympus. The medium and high quality modes are quite good, but you only get 33 and 22 minutes! Folks, this model should be called VN330, not VN900

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Olympus VN-900, November 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Olympus VN900 Digital Voice Recorder (Office Product)

This is the voice recorder I've been looking for. It gives
you 22 minutes of high quality recording in HQ mode. You
can select the microphone sensitivity for dictation or
high. I keep mine on high all the time. It will pick up
bird songs or planes flying overhead. There is a hold
switch on the side of the unit that disables the buttons
so that it won't activate when you are carrying it in
your pocket or purse. The pocket clip is pretty much
useless; you need to carry it in your jeans pocket or
purse in order not to lose it.

54 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fatal Flaw, May 24, 2002

By 

A Name "Bokonon" (MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Olympus VN900 Digital Voice Recorder (Office Product)

Great product except for one irritating flaw. The clip should be mounted on the back of the device not on the side. Clip this into your shirt pocket and you have a 1.5" bulge in your pocket, hang it on your belt and it sticks out waiting to crach into something. The clip is useless so it floats around in your pocket; it took 3 days for me to lose mine when it fell out of my coat pocket.