Olympus VN3100 Digital Voice Recorder

When I went out shopping for a voice recorder I didn’t want one that had fancy lights, did backflips, had a taser built in (though that would be cool I just wanted a voice recorder so I wouldn’t forget my thoughts during the day. I have a very bad memory and I knew that if I could speak my thoughts rather than writing them I could remember much more of what I wanted to remember.

So I started here at Amazon. The reason I started at Amazon was because they have the widest selection of anything anywhere. (in my own personal opinion) After looking at a few different ones I decided an Olympus would be my best bet. I have always had a great time with Olympus and have never ever had a problem with it. I was not disappointed!

The device itself weighs in just about 65 grams and is 4×1.5×11/16 (LengthxWidthxDepth in inches) It is literally palm sized and fits comfortably in my hand (though I have a bigger hand than most people) It has an internal mic and speaker both of which are adequate for any atomsphere. Most audio-philes would not be happy with the sound quality but be not discouraged, it records clearly anything that is spoken. In the Menu it also gives a choice of recording in high or low mic, as well as sound quality of XHQ, HQ, SP, and LP. It also sports a mic and headphone port for you to use external equipment with it.

The interface is very easy to use and fairly intuitive. There is a hold switch on the left side for locking it and turning it off, a battery charge level in the upper right hand corner, and an easy to read lcd screen. It has four folders (A,B,C,D) for easy organization and each recording records the date and time when it was recorded.When in hold the only thing that it’ll show if you press any button is the date and time. (it can show 24 clock as well)

This unit does not sport a usb port for connection to your computer (hence the pc absent from the model number) and actually comes in a silver finish not the blue one. One thing that irked me but is not much of a problem was that it has a strap hole but does not come with a strap. It is an accessory that can be bought from Olympus.

All in all this is a wonderful product and is actually fairly cheap for the features that it packs. For those with bad memory it is a life saver as well. I would recommend this product to anyone who wants to record anything from thoughts to speechs.
Rating: 5 / 5

I’ve had this recorder for a number of months now, and I’m using it to recorder interviews that I am using for my thesis. While the recording quality itself is fairly good, I am extremely irritated that the buttons themselves aren’t really set up very well. For example, I am transcribing the interviews, and so I am constantly replaying parts of the recording. If you don’t press the button exactly in the right spot, you end up, instead of forwarding backward or ahead, going all the way to the beginning of the track and losing your spot. For obvious reasons, this can be extremely infuriating. I’ve had it do this a good 20 times at least, and then have to try to find where I was. It’s caused a loss of efficiency that I think is unacceptable.

So, if you don’t mind inefficiency and having to spend a lot of time forwarding and going back and subsequently losing your spot, then it’s great.
Rating: 3 / 5

First of all, this recorder is tiny-smaller than a microcassette recorder, and smaller than many cell phones. The most usable features for me are mic jack, voice activation, and timer recording. I record AM and shortwave broadcasts, and sometimes record radio transmissions from my scanner. All you do is plug the mic jack into the headphone jack of the radio. But the volume on the radio has to be set very low or it will distort when you record this way. The voice activation works with the mic jack also. If I want to record the local railroad frequency when I’m gone, it will only record when there’s activity on the frequency. That way I don’t have large blank spots on the recording. I give it 4 stars because the sound quality does not equal standard size cassettes. There are 4 quality settings-XHQ(about 6 hours), HQ(about 12 hours), SP(about 30 hours), and LP(about 72 hours). XHQ is about the same quality as a microcassette on high speed. HQ is about like a microcassette on low speed. And SP and LP are very bad. Those are not worth using. And another reason it gets 4 stars is because you can’t power it with an AC or DC adapter. AAA batteries are the only option. And battery life was not what I expected on a recorder that has no motor to drive a tape. Audio output is minimal. You may need to hold it to your ear to listen in a noisy environment. Headphones or plugging it to a home stereo are better options. But that’s to be expected with a device this small. Despite it’s weaknesses, it’s a nice little gadget that gets the job done.
Rating: 4 / 5