Olympus Digital Voice Recorders | Olympus WS100 Digital Voice Recorder Review

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Olympus WS100 Digital Voice Recorder Review

Filed Under Reviews | 6 Comments

olympus digital voice recorderThe WS100 is powered by one AAA battery. It can record 27 hours audio on the HIGH QUALITY setting. Even more if you lower the setting a bit.

The controls are intuitive and easy to use as well. Looking directly at the Olympus Digital Voice Recorder, the right side of the device has a RECORD, PLAY, and STOP button. Self explanatory right?

On the front of the device is the controls that allow you to scroll through folders and files already on the device. You can also tweak settings on the device. For instance, I always turn off the backlit screen because it uses up too much battery. Not excessive, mind you. But for my uses I let it record for hours at a time and don’t want to wast battery power on lighting the screen. In addition to the general controls there is an erase button to easily erase files. Thankfully it prompts with a confirm box – which has saved me on multiple occasions from accidentally deleting a file.

Microphone sensitivity is controlled in two places on the WS100 Olympus Digital Voice Recorder. The simplest controls are on the left edge of the device, which allows you to choose between HQ (high quality – to reduce background noise), SP and LP (long play) settings. You can also set mic sensitivity in relation to these two settings by scrolling through the menu settings on the voice recorder screen itself.

The voice activate function is nice too. When activated it records automatically as soon as it detects sound.

It contains 256MB of flash memory and can be connected to a computer via USB. It records in WMA (Windows Media Audio) format. I prefer MP3, but I just plug into my laptop, move them over to iTunes, and select “CONVERT TO MP3″ and voila! it’s done. If you are more technically savvy, I guess you could move them into something like Audacity for editing or converting to MP3 as well.

It can be used with both PCs and MACs, so no worries about cross platform ability.

Since it is a “mass storage class” device, it can also be used for general file storage. I like this feature alot.

One of my favorite parts is the file management and organization. It is very straightforward using the controls described above. Basically, there are five folders and each folder can hold 199 files. These can be organized by topic or general interest or whatever.

For under $100 (sometimes $50-$75), the WS100 Olympus Digital Voice Recorder is one of the most affordable and easy-to-use recorders available.

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Comments

6 Responses to “Olympus WS100 Digital Voice Recorder Review”

  1. Dave on December 26th, 2009 6:51 pm

    I have about 4 hours of use on my olympus ws100 and not it will not turn on,fresh batteries and all.It will work when hooked up to my computer but when i try it from the base where the battery is I get nothing!!I guess that was $110.00 shot down the drain :-( very unhappy with this product!!!!

  2. Gary Ford on February 19th, 2010 10:13 am

    May I have operator manual for WS-100?

  3. Gary Ford on February 19th, 2010 10:17 am

    How do you get it to not beep when pushing button.
    I want it to run silent.

  4. jose on July 18th, 2010 6:10 pm

    I have an I have a problem is padlock security and not let me record anything as you remove the padlock

  5. aditya agarwal on November 30th, 2010 4:56 am

    contact nos. of olympus voice recorders dealers and distributors in delhi and ncr(india)

  6. Dick Othus on March 26th, 2011 1:58 pm

    i was given a Olympus VN-4100 digital voice recorder… therewere no English instructions? Thank you, Dick Othus

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