Olympus VN-2000 64MB Digital Voice Recorder

 (11 customer reviews)

I am very impressed with this little device. It's incredibly small and light, and very easy to use. To anyone accustomed to tape machines of any vintage it (a) makes storing and accessing different recordings a breeze, and (b) seems to drain batteries only minimally ... I have used it a lot in the couple of weeks since I got it, and the gauge still shows a full battery. The built in mic is incredible, and deals equally well with one-on-one conversations, and lectures recorded from the audience. My one regret is that you can't download files to a Mac from it (or from any other Olympus machine, so far as I could discover). Still, excellent for the price.

I bought this recorder, after reading reviews, researching the product for my need (college lectures)and purchased it via Amazon. I like the voice recorder...it is small, easy to use (although I carried the product information pamplet in my bookbag, just in case), nice playback sound (although if using earphones, you can only hear from one side). Sounds like a great product??? Well, after a year of use, it simply stopped working. Thats it. I thought I was recording lectures, afterall the red light came on each time, and it wasn't working. To my disappointment, it cannot be repaired. So...about $60 for a years use, I won't be purchasing another from Olympus.

I loved this little recorder. It did everything that I wanted it to do, and then some. It was well-designed, easy to use, had good voice quality, and (for me) generous capacity. But note how I'm writing my review in the past tense. A few days ago, my unit stopped working properly. It'll play back just fine (thank heavens for that, at least) but it freezes up and refuses to respond to button presses when I try to record anything. You have to take the batteries out and put them back in again, but then you simply end up back where you started. You still can't record. I did a "full reset" and it didn't help. I just called Olympus support, hoping there was either something else I could do to fix the unit ... or perhaps a sympathetic agent who'd replace an out-of-warranty unit that hasn't performed to a reasonable expectation. No such luck. So I got from July 2006 to January 2008 out of this thing ... 18 months of use. Sending the thing in for repair would be "$30-$40." Cost to replace it:...Read more