Olympus VN-4100PC Digital Voice Recorder

I have had this recorder's nearly identical little brother, the VN-480PC for well over five years of very heavy use now, and I wanted to move up to this, the largest capacity version of Olympus recorders with the exact same feature set. While the VN-480PC has just short of three hours total record time at the highest resolution "HQ" setting, this has just short of twelve hours total at its highest resolution "XHQ" setting. I wanted the extra capacity, plus the possibility of slightly better sound quality over that of the already excellent VN-480PC. There are a few other minor features of this recorder, such as two variations in playback speed, but I will detail only the features I use often. 1) Five way controller that even a first time user can understand for fast forward, rewind, playback, and volume adjust. 2) Five separate buttons for other purposes, including folder selection/index, display/menu, record, stop, and delete. 3) Two settings - HI and LOW - for recording level settings - I use LOW for recording up close and HI for large rooms or even arenas. 3) USB port to allow download of the audio files to computer - While this does work, the port is only USB 1.1, making it ten times slower than the industry standard USB 2.0. Also, since this recorder is not recognized as a Mass Storage Device, you MUST use the rather clunky software packaged with the recorder to perform the downloads. I rarely use the download capability, though, so this is of little concern to me. 4) An integral speaker with decent sound quality, an excellent quality integral microphone, and a microphone jack and headphone jack. 5) A clock with date that allows file dates and times to reflect exactly when they were created, as well as for the timer. 6) A timer function that allows the user to precisely set when the recorder automatically starts, then automatically stops - I use this function daily to record talk radio shows to listen to later. 7) Four folders to allow the user to separate his recordings to better organize them - This should come in handy for organizing interviews or lectures. Each folder can contain up to 100 recordings. 8) Up to ten index marks per file - These are basically like bookmarks for the audio files that allow instant access to any point that has one inserted, and they come in extremely handy for jumping to specific points for later study. As for the recorder itself, the interface is quite easy to master, and the instructions are only really needed to better explain some of the more advanced functions that most users will never employ. Also, for those of you who are out looking for something to make CD quality stereo recordings, look elsewhere. This is a mono recorder intended mainly for speech, even though it works extremely well for that purpose. Also, anyone intending to use the headphone jack should know that the audio plays only through the left channel, but that is fine with me, as that lowers power consumption, and because I only listen through the left side anyway. I have also used the VN-480PC, the lower capacity version of this, for over five years, for six hours combined record/playback time EACH DAY! That would be unbelievable in a recorder that was kept in a padded box, but I carry mine around on my person the entire time I am listening to it, bumping it occasionally and even dropping it about six times. It's the Energizer Bunny, even though I have put it through upwards of 10,000 hours of use already! That is remarkable, to put it mildly. I still use that old recorder daily, but this will be there to replace it when I either somehow destroy it (one wonders...what would it take?) or lose it altogether. One last vendor specific note is that my particular recorder was posted on here as brand new, but arrived in opened packaging and was damaged. I contacted the vendor about a return, then (just to see if I could do it, since I am very good at repairs) very carefully disassembled it. I figured out how to make it work by very carefully straightening a thin plastic pin on the backside of the controller, although I am extra careful with it now because the plastic pin is now weakened, but the vendor already refunded the full price in that time without asking for a return. I appreciate the honesty of the vendor, but I will hang onto the recorder, since the vendor apologized for the inconvenience and declined a return. Consider it just the cost of doing business.

BEWARE! If you order this item, it comes via Office Depot. If you expect it to be the Olympus VN-4100PC, which is as it is listed (and on the shipping slip/invoice, you will get the VN-4100, not the PC version. I ordered this to be able to download to my computer. The non-PC version does me no good. I don't know if Amazon just has it marked wrong or what. If you're ordering this in order to download to a computer, you will be surprised. Now, in fairness to Amazon, their customer service was wonderful and has told me to ship it back. ("The wrong item was shipped" is not one of the reasons available to pick.) I was told to call Office Depot's customer service number to see if I could get shipped the correct number. I did just that. I was instantly put on hold by their computerized answering system with no indication that my call would be picked up...no music, no reminder messages to hold on, no "your call will be answered in X minutes" message. MULTITUDES of minutes later, still nothing...just blank nothingness on the phone. I am HUGELY unimpressed with whatever Office Depot passes as customer service...so totally opposite my numerous wonderful experiences with Amazon.com. This may well be a wonderful item...if you're lucky enough to actually get what you order.

What a cool recorder! Unbelievably small! About the size of a small cell phone! Like a video recorder it has 4 record modes; XHQ, {the best play back and over eleven hours of recording time, then HQ with about 24 hours of recording time, and then SP, 72 and then LP at 144 hours!!!!!! I guess you'd use this setting on a slow boat to China! It also has four folders, A,B,C,D. which can hold about 100 separate entries. That means if you are in A folder, and push record and speak for 3 minutes that would be A-1. When you push record again it creates A-2. and so forth and so on. When you want to play back your recordings you can go thru them 1, 2, 3 or click ahead to 10 or 26 or 100! Also, you can jump or select a different folder from the dedicated button {folder/index} and record and listen to whatever different subject you spoke about in those other three folders with their 100 entry possibilities! I think the entries are limited to amount of time remaining in XHQ to LP. After playing back in XHQ and HQ, I didn't even try SP or LP because XHQ is so much better than HQ that I would not care for the lower quality play back in SP/LP modes. Also, you must know that in XHQ at over eleven hours of recording time, which is the equivalent of, say, eleven cassette or micro cassette tapes, that that is a WHOLE LOT of PLAYING BACK TIME! Which is about 2.75 hours for each folder or more than eleven straight hours in one folder! OUCH! My poor ears! Just who could handle 24, 72 or 144 hours??? Sound quality is very acceptable to me, though not as good as a larger speaker on even a micro cassette player, but hey I knew that going into this. But it's pretty good and it functions well and I have no trouble understanding what is being played back! I tried it at 16' away, talking at a normal pitch and could understand every word I spoke without straining to listen! But the room was quite and still. Usually a person would just hold it in their hand like any other hand held recorder, right? This model, the VN 4100PC has software and you can download all of your "tapes" onto a hard drive. Be aware that in XHQ a 2 or 3 minutes record can be 1.5 MB. So one hour might be 45 MB? You'll need a BIG hard drive if your intent it to download your conversation with Goddard! But, you can edit if you have time. Playback with my small Dell speakers on my XP PRO was very impressive from OLYMPUS software wav playback! It Really Sounds Great! Again... what really caught my eye was just HOW SMALL this puppy is! It must be 3 times smaller than my micro cassette player and I will not hesitate to carry it with me most of the time! But I have no intention of sitting thru hours of recordings on this or my PC. I use it to catch pithy sayings that I utter after enlightening moments of clarity! These are rather small in length, ha ha, so at eleven hours I would have to have a revelation from the mountain top to use all that time up! Very pleased and very good price too!

This is a great recorder and the best part is you can transfer your recordings to your PC computer, send them to a blank CD, and even listen 2 it on your iPod. I needed this for class as i can barely stay awake when class is in session so this was the best thing for me and Amazon has it such a nice affordable price (Of course 20 bucks lower wouldnt hurt either lol). You dont have to be sitting right next to the person your recording to pick up everything as it picks up very well even at a far distance. Just check your settings for the best options that suit you. Very user friendly and very dependable. Im so glad this device is getting me an A in all my classes and the best part is the recordings are all on my iPod 4 me to listen to whenever i need to study or take notes that i didnt when class was in session. Only reason for the 4 star rating was because Amazon sent me the 4100 regular and not the 4100PC which is the version you should get if you plan to save this to your computer or listen to it on your iPod. As soon as i called the correct replacement was sent, but poor amazon needs to work on inventory as an extra bar code sticker was added on the 4100 to state its a 4100PC when its not. Enjoy this thing cause i found it soooo handy.

The Olympus VN-4100PC is an excellent value. It's perfect for tasks such as recording a lecture or meeting, making verbal to-do lists, practicing a speech or presentation, and so on. Some reviewers criticize it because it's not very good at recording music, and the play-back is monaural, and they're right. It's not really designed for professional-style, stereo recording. As is the case with all machines, you have to live within its design limits. The VN-4100PC has some very nice features that make it an excellent value. It is shirt-picket small and very light weight. The controls are simple and intuitive enough that you can operate it out of the package, without even reading the instructions. (However, the instructions tell you how to perform important setup functions, so you should read them.) In short, it's a nice, small, light personal audio recorder. The built-in microphone is actually pretty good, but if you leave the recorder in your pocket while you're recording, you'll get quite a bit of ambient noise. The same can happen if you prop it on a book. There are two ways to work around this limitation, which is inherent to all similar recorders. Either put the machine on something soft on the desk, such as a coat, or buy an external microphone. The external microphone is probably the best way to go; you'll get far superior electronics, and it's easy to clip or place the mic so you can avoid the ambient noise. This certainly isn't a high-end, professional-grade recorder. It wasn't designed to be one. Rather, it's a convenient, low-cost personal recorder that does exactly what it's supposed to do. It's an excellent value for the money. I'm very happy I bought it, and I'd do it again. ----------------- Added June 9, 2009: When I bought my recorder in December, 2007, it cost about $50. That's why I called it an excellent value; the feature set at that price was unmatched by any competitive recorder. However, now it's up to $175. Wow! There's no way on earth I'd pay that much for it! For $175, it should be gold plated!

I have had a bad experience with this product. Well, first of all, it's not Mac OS compatible, so I was not able to use it at all. I should've researched it more, so it's my bad. However, I gave it to my boyfriend who has a PC, but I could not find the CD-rom that this item came with, so after several days of trying to find this software online (no chance of finding it on the Olympus website..) we both gave up. His computer wouldn't even see that the device was connected and there was absolutely no way of finding the software to be able to make it work. It eventually made its way to the trash can. So, a big fiasco.

Bought this so that my daughters can take it with them to their music class and record the teacher's singing for practice. The quality of the recording is excellent for this purpose. I have also used it to record the minutes of a long meeting at work and I could transcribe the minutes from this recorder without any problems whatsoever even though some of the speakers were more than a dozen feet from the recorder in the room. Operation is also intuitive and simple (even though the use of the record button as a pause button during recording is not intuitive). The user's manual is short and succinct and I don't have any sympathy for people who complain about the product without reading and understanding the manual. The PC software that comes with the recorder is not anything to write home about, but it works as advertised. The resulting files on the computer can be used as is or they can be transcoded into mp3 using simple and free tools like audacity or mediacoder. The product comes with batteries, USB cord and a software CD, so it is good to go pretty much out of the box. No extra stuff to buy before you can use it. I have used the product only in the highest quality recording mode so far (XHQ) because it provides about 11 hours of recording even in that mode and I can't imagine needing more recording time than that before I either transfer the recordings to my PC or listen to them and discard them. I am guessing that the lower qualities will be usable for speech, but perhaps not for music. Overall, the product earns a full 5 stars out of 5. I would buy another without hesitation if I had to.

I bought this because I thought it was the same DVR I use at my university. However, it clearly is not the same one, because even though it has a USB connection, it doesn't work with Macs for some reason. This was so disappointing (especially because I found out AFTER I had recorded a two-hour interview that I needed to transcribe for a research class). I like the recording quality - the mic picks everything up really well. Also, this model has plenty of space for hours and hours of recording. It's also easy to use. Of course, all of that won't do you much good if you need to get the audio files onto your Mac - so I'd recommend this only if you have a Windows-based computer. But really, this product is flawed because it ought to work on any computer, so I'm giving it two stars for that reason.

Received this 10 mins ago - set up in a minute (just time and date), software loaded without hitch (on Vista 32-bit using supplied disk). All in all, very happy. Compact, lightweight, simple to operate. Quality of recordings seems fine. Transferred files to PC without fuss - WAV format - converted to mp3 with Audacity in seconds. What I thought might be a headache to source proved to be simple and surprisingly inexpensive. Thanks to all that wrote reviews before me which helped me decide.

Love this product! Delivery was very prompt. Received within a couple of days of ordering. Compact design without too many complicated buttons to play with. Very easy to set up and use. Got mine done in less than five minutes! Not bad for a middle aged guy! Instructions were very easy to follow. Once I'd put my glasses on! The range of the internal mic is suprisingly good. I could pick up people talking normally from 5 or 6 metres away! All that you would want from this kind of product and at a very reasonable price. I'd recommend this item to anyone looking for simplicity and value for money.

I purchased this digital voice recorder last month from one of the Amazon partners. The speech quality on playback through my PC is excellent, and the unit includes software which allows you to do this. Once your recordings are downloaded to PC this means you can go into the folder and send the sound files (which are in .wav format), to work colleages, friends or even put them on a website. The software does not include the facility to edit these files to a manageable size for e-mail etc, but I am sure this software is available should you need it. I can think of several uses for this device and I am glad I purcahsed it.

I first bought this product a few months ago and unfortunately had it stolen. I had no hesitation in buying the same model again as soon as possible. The sound is crystal clear (once you listen back to it on your PC) and it's extremely easy to operate. If you are a student who prefers to record lectures like me, then this product is a MUST. I would not hesitate to recommend this product to anyone who's thinking of buying it :).

The recorder does just what I need it to do - to record me singing at my chorus. Not brilliant quality sound but quite good enough. Would recommend as it's good value for the money.