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 4x1.5x11/16 (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...Read more

I tried to save a few bucks and bought the VN3100. It is doing a great job for me. I have no complaints on the quality of the unit, hence my rating of 4 stars.

I am using it simply for reminders throughout the day. Its much easier to record my thoughts than trying to remember them all. I am an architect and many ideas come and go during the day. The VN3100 is excellent for quick capture.

My regret was triggered by several recordings I made of my two boys (2 and 5 years old). We have been playing around and I have several recordings now that I would love to save. Without any way to download the files to my PC, they will need to remain on my recorder forever.

I recommend that anyone considering the VN3100 upgrade to a recorder with a download feature. You never know what you will record that you will want to keep forever.

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.