First, I would be remiss if I did not give you a stern lecture about the legality of recording. I am not a lawyer and play on the client side of that relationship, but I did review many laws in regards to recording others, both with and without their consent based on an incident with Dell.
Consent, especially via a telephone call, will not ALWAYS protect you, especially if you are recording for the purpose of setting someone up. Just use written forms of communication: email, chat and snail mail. Sum up conversations via phone in an email and send it to the party so that the conversation is memorialized.
Check out the laws as ignorance of them is no excuse should you get served, though I have read that a first time offense is USUALLY a slap on the wrist. I would not count on that and would do my homework extensively BEFORE I played back a recording of someone in order to prove you are right about a conversation/meeting, in a business environment or otherwise.
I am just sayin’… Best used for your own recount and even then it may be illegal. Be careful! My paranoia is now soothed. What? Just because I am paranoid does not mean the world is not out to get you and me! Let us get on with the review.
Reason for Purchase and New Found Uses
In our company, I was chosen to be the one to take notes of our meetings. I have an injury to the very hand I write with, so instead of making the agenda take hours to wrap up with my constant, “Hold on! I am writing,” we decided to record them. No, not carpal tunnel, it is a bit more serious as it happened over 20 years ago. Yes, I look a bit like a freak (see pic, I am the older of the two) and my hand is an awful sight too!
It works INCREDIBLY well for this, picking up voices very clearly from 15 feet away or more. If you can hear it, odds are this device will pick it up as well. We used the VAS (Voice Activated System) and it is as advertised. You do not miss a thing when it pauses whilst everyone is reading a document, then resumes conversation. Well, it does miss the long pause, which is painful when waiting for it to resume on playback.
In our chosen entrepreneurial adventure, aka chasm for our life savings, we have MANY vendors, several of which required that we achieve certification in order to resell their products. This means training. I do not know about you, but I tend to space out after a few hours, then I come to, wondering what in the heck I missed.
Also, I choose to hit buttons not asked by the instructor and my panic to get back to where I should be makes me miss the conversation in between going astray and getting back on track. As such, a tape recording, specifically allowed by said entities, was the only way I could pass the test without cheating off my partners (on-line tests and I did attend FSU!).
Features in Daily Use
The fact it can save around 150.25 hours in LP mode (lowest quality), 81.25 hours in SP (Standard Play) and 30.5 hours in HQ (High Quality) on the 256MB of built-in memory allows us to save these training sessions AND refer back to them. Since many of the sessions include products with similar features, we need to be able to discern what each can and can not do. Far too much of the training is non-existent in text form ANYWHERE.
You do not have to start from the beginning or shuffle around for which mini-tape it is on and which side. You just select the number, which each new recording is assigned one. This makes it a breeze to find a specific lecture. It is much the same process as selecting tracks on a CD. It also provides the date of the recording to avoid confusion even further.
Another nifty feature is that you can
*fast forward through a lecture by holding *that button down, you can see the time elapsed and it plays a word or two as you reach the next increment while the *button is held down. Just release when you hit pay dirt. The same holds true with rewind. You do not hear it backwards, akin to John Lennon with, “I buried Paul (he was also the walrus, Paul that is).” It plays words forward while rewinding since it is not going second by second, but skipping time, which gradually increases the longer you hold it down.
For example, when you first press it, you skip 6 seconds, and that increases exponentially so that you are skipping many minutes at a time after a few seconds of continuous depressing. Is it going too fast? If so, you can press it and hold until it forwards, release and repeat said process to go through the recording at a slower pace.
Another GREAT feature is the “Hold”, sliding mechanism. This locks the device to prevent errant recording or deletion of recordings whilst it is in transport. It makes all buttons non-functional and it would be difficult for this feature to be accidentally turned off since the sliding mechanism is fairly immune to a brush on something sliding it to the off position, based on it being resistant enough not to allow an incident of this nature to disengage the selection. It also saves your “battries”, two AAA’s.
It also has an outlet for headphones and one for a microphone. I would assume, in addition to headphones, the jack for them could be used as a line out to place a recording on another form of media like your PC’s hard drive with the right software. I have yet to play with that, but I am confident I could make it work if it was a necessity. It would be a nice way to catalog a student’s class lectures and preserve them in the event the device becomes full. The microphone can be used to move audio from another device to the Sony Recorder with the appropriate cables (not included).
Further, you have 4 folders, A, B, C and D, where you can organize recordings to differentiate them by theme or some other aspect. Should you accidentally put one in the wrong folder, you can move it. If a single recording is VERY long, you can divide it, as well, so it is easier to find that part you need. Keep in mind, once it is divided, the two shall never be one again. It is sort of like a bitter divorce, I guess.
You also have the ability to set the sensitivity, hi and low, for the built-in microphone, mostly designed for the VAS mentioned previously. There is an alarm you can set too, that can playback a message at a certain time, daily, weekly or annually – no monthly. I would assume this is best used as a voice reminder to do something at a specified time daily, weekly or….yearly. You can set it to beep like a more traditional alarm clock as well. The last setting I am familiar with determines if the recorder will playback an entire folder at one time or just one selection from that folder. Since it is easy to stop, I see no reason for this to be a widely sought after feature, but it is there, just in case.
Other Sony Alternatives
There is a model that looks almost identical to this, but it is $10-$20 more expensive. I know because I bought this at Office Depot and the more expensive one was on the rack where the price and model I wanted to buy was. I bought several things and did not realize the overage until I got home.
I went back fuming I was overcharged and was shown that the item # was different, though there was no place for the other device to be displayed (i.e. it was the only one in the store). I got a little bitter I had to drive back and got a $3 off coupon in addition to the refunded difference. Covered the gas anyway!
The only appreciable contrast in the two, and negligibly so, was that the other model had an AM/FM Radio built-in. I am not sure who looks for a small recorder with a tinny sounding speaker so that they can listen to the radio, but I must say that consumer segment must be small. Talk radio would be my only guess as to why someone would enjoy that feature. It is out there and is model ICD-B510F. They really do look almost the same.
If you want guaranteed, easy PC compatibility from a Sony recorder, the ICD-U70 comes with a USB port and 1GB vs the 256MB (4 times the space than this one) and plays in true stereo vs. monaural. The ICD-B500 is in mono, not stereo and specifically is stated in the manual that it is not designed for music. The U70 runs you about $100 or more, so you pay almost 4 times the price of this unit. Have a little more cash on hand burning a hole in your pocket? Then the
Sony ICD-SX57DR9 Handheld Digital Voice Recorder may be what you really want.
The one I reviewed here suits my wallet and my needs nearly 100%, but different strokes for different folks. Whatchu talkin 'bout Willis?
Specs and Size
Recording System Digital, Monaural Recording
Recording Media Built-in Flash Memory 256MB
Recording and Playback Times
HQ: 30 Hr 25 Min.
SP: 81 Hrs 15 Min.
LP: 150 Hrs 15 Min
Recording Features
Digital Voice Operated Recording (VOR)
Move
Divide
Message Folder(s) 4
Frequency Range
HQ:165.625Hz
SP: 7.8kHz
LP: 6.9444kHz
Microphone Sensitivity Feature
Microphone Input 1
Headphone output 1 (Mini)
DC-In 3V
Output Power 250mW
Battery Type (2) "AAA"
Battery Life (Approx.) REC Mode Up to 22 hours in LP
Built-in Speaker
Dimensions 1.36 x 4.3 x 0.7 inches
Weight 2.3 ounces
1-year limited warranty 90-day parts; 1-year labor
