Customer Reviews

my-Vox Digital Voice Recorder Springboard Module (Graphite)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I think this is such a handy thing to have. I'm a project manager and my day consists of dozens of people popping in and out of my office with some need or another. They catch me in the hall, the cafeteria, everywhere. I have a massive to-do list already, and remembering all of my active issues become difficult, especially if someone just said something to me in the elevator or passing me in the hall. I have my Handspring Visor in my pocket all the time anyway, and I just whip it out and, with one easy touch of a button, am able to leave myself a little reminder which I later convert to a to do list item. I like the one-touch operation that the Springboard module's button provides. The button doesn't always want to believe it has been pressed, though. The sound of the recordings is pretty poor. It sounds like you recorded your messages while driving down the highway - - there's just this persistent and prominent background noise. But then again, all I'm recording is my voice and the quality only needs to be good enough for me to understand what I've said. It's not like you'll be playing music with this thing. One other note on sound, it doesn't do especially well recording sound at a distance. If you're in a meeting and want to capture what the guy a few seats down is saying, it will record as extremely faint. You'd do better to stick your Visor in his face. I must say, I don't need or use my-Vox's ability to file audioclips in different folders. I don't usually even title the clips (though you can do that). The only reason I use the thing is for quick reminders that I later transcribe. I have no real need to organize them. It doesn't hurt to have the filing capability, though. If you go long periods of time between transcribing or just want your reminders to remain in audio form permanently, this feature could be useful. One other complaint is that the jack that you plug the headphones into is really tight. You really have to press to get it to click all the way in. That's a bit troubling and I worry I'll break it. Still, it's a neat thing to have if you constantly find yourself saying, "Note to self..."

After fitting the myVox to my Handspring Platinum, I tried recording a few messages. Everything seemed OK, although the sound quality wasn't great as others have noted. However, after nine or ten messages, the PDA locked up, with a Fatal Alert: Fatal Exception message. Nothing would persuade it to work apart from a hard reset - even the power switch was locked ! Hard-resetting it meant that I lost all the data on the PDA, so I tried to hot-sync it from my PC to restore. After the hot-sync, the unit gave the Fatal Exception message again, and wouldn't go any further. Eventually I had to manually install all the applications and data that were there before installing the myVox, which took about six hours ! I re-fitted the myVox, but within another nine message recordings, the PDA went into a continual reset loop. Back to re-installing again today ...

Coincidentally, I have a second Handspring Platinum on temporary loan, and I tried to fit the myVox to that one to see if it was a problem with my particular PDA, or a conflict with any software I have loaded. This second one is factory-default - i.e. no 3rd party software. Again, in less than ten recordings, it was locked solid with the "Fatal Exception" problem. Incidentally, the version of software on the module seems flaky too. Selecting the "Purge" menu option always gives an error message "Form.c, Line 1728, Object not in form" which looks like a debug message - I wonder if this is an intermediate (unfinished) version ?

I can only assume that the myVox Springboard module is not compatible with the Platinum Visor, or with the version of PalmOS it runs (3.5.1, as opposed to the version 3.1 that the other models of Visor use), contrary to the claims on the Handspring website, but in any case, I'll be sending it back for a refund tomorrow.

Poor sound, to use the headphone jack you have to take the visor off the leather case, and it doesn't have a volume control !!!

CD-quality sound I wasn't expecting for 69.95, still I was dismayed by the scratchy low-fi audio produced by the my-Vox. One possible explanation would be the extreme compression scheme required by the small onboard memory size. Tiny memory equals tinny sound, I guess.

Needless to say, I returned mine.

I use this everyday! Mostly in the car/ at work / around the house to record stuff like "remember to call jim" or "Met the following at X meeting: Steve...".

Sound Quality? I think it's pretty darn good. Not CD quality, but that's not why I bought it. I did record gurgling brook in the Olympics recently though.

I LOVE that I can just push the button on top and record without even taking the cover off of the Visor. This is easily the best feature, and I can't imagine having to take off the cover, take out the stylus, turn it on, open the application, and pressing the "record" button (like the other voice recorder). Crazy.

Time? 8 Mins? I don't think I have ever gone below "5 mins remaining"

Crash? Yes it did once, but I am pretty sure that it was because I told it to set an audio alarm, then deleted it before it had the chance to play. Of course, that's when it crashed - when it tried to play the message that wasn't there.

My recorder worked ok for a couple of weeks till I had to change the batteries in my PDA; then whenever I put the module back in the PDA froze up and I had to do a hard reset. Also, their URL is apparently inactive? DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

CD-quality sound I wasn't expecting for..., still I was dismayed by the scratchy low-fi audio produced by the my-Vox. One possible explanation would be the extreme compression scheme required by the small onboard memory size. Tiny memory equals tinny sound, I guess.

Needless to say, I returned mine.