Olympus VN-5200PC Digital Voice Recorder

Update 7/17/2009: Olympus has just introduced its new Olympus VN-6200PC Digital Voice Recorder. The VN-6200PC is identical to the VN-5200PC in function and features, but now has twice the memory, 1 GB, for the same suggested list price as the VN-5200PC. My VN-5200PC is great, but the VN-6200PC should be even better!

If you need a quality, low-cost, monaural digital voice recorder that easily records and transfers Windows Media Audio (WMA) files fast via a USB 2.0 connection to your PC without any extra software, the Olympus VN-5200PC is a great choice. It outperforms the popular Olympus VN-4100PC Digital Voice Recorder in nearly every way...more storage, longer recording...Read more

I first owned the VN3100, then went to the VN4100PC, both of which were very decent units. When I saw the VN5200PC with a large memory and slightly better feature set I thought, this is the one for me! Well, I was wrong, regardless of the room size the voices that are picked up by the built in mic are always soft or muffled, sometimes inaudible. You need to be within a couple of feet of the unit to get any decent definition of sound. Perhaps mine in a lemon, I haven't checked on that possibility, but regardless it is truly disappointing. On the bright side I purchased an ME52W Olympus external mic for the unit and now voices boom on playback regardless of room size. I'm referring to conference room sized rooms, not auditoriums. It would have been nice if the unit would function properly without an additional external mic.

One more peeve is the lack of organizer program for your PC. The VN4200PC came with a very basic, but very useful program that allowed you to sort and...Read more

I am a physician and bought this recorder to dictate patient charts. The recorder is easy to use with a user friendly screen. Also if you are recording something where you do not have to stop the recorder at any time and continue in the same file then this is for you. However, what they do not tell you that if you are dictating or recording yourself and you are 10 minutes into your recording and then want to rewind one minute and record over a the previous minute, you can not do it. There is no way to pause a recording, rewind and then record in the same file. The machine will start a new file. Even the old tape recorders allow you to rewind if you make a mistake or want to go back some and continue recording in the same file. So I'm giving this and all recorders that don't have this function a poor score as they deserve.