Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42 in Office Product
• Brand: Olympus
• Model: WS-321M
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .10 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
The compact WS-321M digital voice recorder is a new addition to the stylish and multi-talented Olympus WS series. This smart device not only allows the recording and playback of voice notes, lectures and interviews, it can also play music and store a variety of other media. The incredible versatility and user-friendly interface makes the Olympus WS-321M more than just a voice recorder. From business professionals to students - today's digital world demands digital solutions. With the WS-321M you can take notes as quickly as you can speak them and play them back in an instant. You can also choose from six recording qualities, STXQ for stereo extra high quality to LP for maximum storage capacity. With 1GB of memory a potential 277 hours of recording can be made through the built-in stereo microphone. Thanks to the ample memory and music playback facility, you can travel light and combine business with pleasure. As with all WS series models, the WS-321M is immediately recognised as an external hard drive when connected to a PC or MAc via the integrated Hi-Speed USB connection. MEanwhile the SRS 'WOW XT' audio enhancement technology in combination with 'TruBass' (deep bass) maximisation) provides a richer, more powerful and brilliant audio experience

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Olympus WS-321M
This tiny gadget will revolutionise your recordings. Up and running in minutes, its familiar menu and scrolling arrangement is easy to use and no cable is required to connect it to your USB port to download files.A lock facility prevents files from being accidentally erased (my fear!) and it gives you 35 hours of recording time - enough for most purposes.

Recording telephone interviews or other sources can be achieved with a simple standard microphone to jack plug arrangement, and there's a built in microphone for external recordings. The files are in easy WMA format and, most importantly, the sound quality is great and can be adjusted at playback to eliminate any background noise.

Useful for conferences
Amazon had an excellent price on this (the 512mb model costs more in some places). I used it for a conference, recording 28 talks in 2 days. The battery gave up on talk 29 but as meatloaf never said 28/29 ain't bad. I was sitting three rows from the front and used the built in mic to record in stereo HQ. Overall the recordings were pretty good, the major determining factor for quality was the diction of the speakers. Some had loud clear voices that made for great recordings whereas others mumbled and background noise became intrusive. An external mike would increase the quality of the recordings. Overall, very satisfied but the instructions that came with the recorder were laughable. You can download a full manual in English from the US Olympus site, but I can't see why this could not have been included in the first place.

Lovely kit but limited functionality
We decided to move away from analogue tape dictation in our office (we're accountants), and this has had good reviews on the www.

The sound quality is excellent, and the ability to e-mail dictation files to my secretary makes life much easier.

She finds the sound clearer and even found some freeware which enables her to use a USB foot pedal and headphones to work on her pc. Slowing down or speeding up my voice can be done without me sounding like I'm on helium and without loss of quality.

My only gripe is that whereas with an analogue tape, when you get tongue tied you can rewind and over-record, continuing where you left off.

That functionality is, so I am now told, only on the top end machines.

So now if I have to correct a mistake, I either keep talking and say I made an error, or cut off that sound file and start a new one.

Not an ideal workaround, but I will live with it for the ease of use and a happier secretary! If they had the rewind function this would rank as a 5* machine.

If all you want to do is eg record interviews or similar, then this would be perfect. For professional office us I'm afraid you'd have to spend the extra and go for a professional quality machine unless your diction is 100% perfect!!