Olympus WS-500 Digital Voice Recorder (Silver)
by Olympus
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Category: CE
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: OlympusFormat: CD
Platform: Windows
Model: WS-500MSilver
Product features:
- 545 Hrs of Recording
- Store and listen to up to 500 songs
- Internal battery charged by computer or charger
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Olympus WS-500 Digital Voice Recorder (Silver)
Customer Review: Excellent Recorder!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had this recorder for about 10 days and have used it for both voice recordings, playback of voice and playback of music files and an audiobook. I've also used the USB recharging feature, copied audiobook & music files to the "Music" folder from my Dell laptop USB port running Vista Home Premium (64 bit). The unit is small, and easily fits in a pocket. Overall, I've found the WS-500M (silver) recorder to be excellent! I'm very pleased with it.
Reason I bought it:
I'm a self-employed writer and wanted to record story ideas, meetings, interviews, etc.. Plus for other meetings where I wanted a record of what was said, saving me from writing everything down. I had been using an HP iPAQ PDA (hx2495b) Pocket PC with built-in voice recorder. But over the years I've had trouble with Windows Mobile 5 hanging before going into a meeting (slow, doggy OS). When it worked it was fine, but then it recorded to main memory and when that ran out, the recording stopped of course. So I bought the right tool for the job.
Other reviews:
I read the reviews on here & elsewhere before buying it and it is highly rated. One person mentioned the 30 page manual as being long, but that includes the instructions in four languages (i.e. EN, FR, ES, PT) with the English (EN) section being 11 pages. There is a foldout section with diagrams the instructions refer to.
Another compliant I've seen is the hard to use menu, I disagree with that, the menus are easy to use. I have computer background though, so electronic devices come easy to me. I do have some experience with using the Olympus WS-210S (256 MB) recorder, and this unit is nicer. When I first used the WS-210S the menu took some getting used to, but I think the WS-500M has improved the menu. The WS-210S is used at our church, where it is plugged into the sound system's mixer (via patch cable to the MIC jack on the unit) and we record the priest's homily. Our priest has a wireless microphone. We then convert the WMA format to MP3 (free utility: "Efficient WMA MP3 Converter"), edit out unwanted audio (start/end) with the free "Audacity" software & export as MP3, then upload to our parish website as a podcast. The WS-210S only records in WMA format, while the WS-500M can record in WMA or MP3*. (* You need to download the free firmware upgrade from the Olympus site to record in MP3.) Nice added feature!
The backlight feature is nice. The USB recharging feature allows you to recharge the included AAA NiMH rechargeable battery by plugging into a USB port on your computer. Pressing <STOP> & plugging into the USB port only allows charging, so you can't transfer files & recharge at the same time. I don't see this as a drawback. The recharging feature was important to me. Alkalines are costly & end up in the landfill, unless you can recycle them.
There is a switch that allows you to use it in either Voice or Music modes. "Voice" allows you to select the five different folders (A-E), record/playback audio, etc.. "Music" mode allows access to the "Music" folder (where you can copy music or other audio files (i.e. audiobooks) to it from your computer). You can copy whole folders into the "Music" folder from your computer to group music, audiobooks separately. There are no playlists, so you would have to name the tracks in a sequential format to play in that order. If you want an MP3 player, you should look for that first. The primary purpose of this unit is a voice recorder, so the added feature of playing MP3/WMA's is nice, but it lacks features (i.e. playlists) found in MP3 players.
The sound through the speaker is adequate, but as others have noted, it sounds much better (CD quality) through the included ear-buds (or your own pair). You can also plug external speakers into the headphone jack, or with a patch cable into your car stereo (if it has an input AUX type jack). If you set the voice recording to the lowest quality though, I don't know how that will sound. So if your recording live music somewhere, set the recording quality in the menu to the highest.
Someone said the recorder will pickup table noise when placed on a table for a meeting. I would suggest placing the recorder on a book or stack of papers.
Someone said there is no ON/OFF switch, actually there is and it's the "HOLD" switch. It's oddly named, but in the HOLD position it's OFF, while sliding it the other way is ON. It has a nice feature of turning off after a couple minutes of non-use (i.e. not recording, not playing back or pressing buttons).
There is a light on the front & back that shows when it's recording or charging. When recharging is done, the light turns off. You can get more tech. spec's at the Olympus site, don't buy it there as it's list price ($100).
Description of Olympus WS-500 Digital Voice Recorder (Silver)
Stay organized on the move with this high-class storage device and powerful music player. Transfer meetings or notes and even large documents to your PC with the easy-to-use USB input. The WS-500M is designed to be plugged directly into your computer for fast file transfer. With 2GB of internal memory, store up to 500 songs and listen to them in impressive stereo sound with track and artist name clearly displayed on the LCD.Digital Cameras and Photo Categories
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