Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4 in Office Product
• Brand: Olympus
• Model: VN-5500PC
• Dimensions: 4.02" h x 1.46" w x .75" l, .14 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
The VN-5500PC notetaker provides the ultimate in digital recording simplicity.  One large, centrally-located button gives access to the most commonly-used functions and a clear LCD which provides important file information graces the front of these sleekly-designed recorders.

Thanks to the indexing facility, users can mark particularly important parts of recordings for easy location during playback.  Voice notes can be reviewed at variable speeds, thereby ensuring optimal versatility - irrespective of wishing to transcribe the file or just wanting to quickly review the file contents.

For added versatility, the VN-5500PC allows hassle-free connection to a computer via Hi-Speed USB.  The top-quality WMA format files can be transferred with ease and then played back on just about any PC-based audio player.

The VN-5500PC comes with an impressive 512MB internal memory.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Olymus VN-5500 (it's only my thoughts)
Before purchasing I had viewed Various voice recorders from numerous sites including manufacture sites (of course theirs is the best). I was looking for ease of use, battery life, and possible file segmentation.
This little baby has it all !. I am more than pleased with the simplicity of use. Easy record, easy playback, ability to move between 4 folders storing info in various folders, for the various tasks that I do.I have had mine now for a month now, I use it most days and I am on the original batteries, For somebody with heavy or excessive use rechargable batteries would probably be advantageous. I am more than happy to have de-cluttered my work area from post it notes and lost post it notes, if the machine is on my desk I have used it, check it!!. You know the situation you forgot to do something or lost the note. this machine really helps. And it is easy to use, I am NO tecno-phobe.

Good enough for me!
Just got this and played with it for 20 minutes or so. It seems to do everything well. You set the date and time and it displays the time you made each recording. A tap of the folder button lets you choose which folder A to E to save your next recording in. Tap record and it instantly starts recording. Tap record again to pause recording, and again to resume. Recordings are just numbered, but you can see when each recording was made. Choose a recording by pressing left or right. Tap Play/Ok to play back. Pause by pressing the stop button and resume playback with play. Fast forward and rewind by holding the relevant button. Buttons press easily and there's no on/off switch but there is a hold switch on the side that disables all the buttons.

There are a couple of settings of interest. Access the menu by pressing and holding the menu button, then it's just left, right and Play/Ok to navigate. There is a quality setting. I'd leave this on high quality all the time and it says it can fit over 35 hours of recordings in the memory. The other setting is microphone sensitivity. Conference setting records everything in the room -- it seems sensitive and clear enough but I haven't tried testing it in a noisy room. Dictophone setting is less sensitive and also what sounds right when using the Olympus telephone microphone Olympus TP-7 Telephone Pickup Hands-Free Cable.

There don't seem to be any missing features and the sound quality is pretty good.

Works well...
Got this today. Nice and dinky with good sized controls. Has mic and earphone sockets. 512MB is fine. Easy to operate. This is for ideas, a quick way to record song ideas (go into a music shop...), conversations to recall or keep, etc. Great way to add to one's brain memory. Voice activation is good (you can set sensitivity) as are marker points. You can buy add ons if you like. I like and like it.

The manual is in the recorder's flash memory; so plug in the supplied USB cable and it's there - it is not online for some strange reason. As far as I can see, it operates as it says. In playback mode, press and HOLD >>| to FF or |<< to FR; you can see the time elapse +/-. It will stop at any marker points you created. Sound quality is fine. The internal speaker is not the best (it's of necessity tiny) but it is okay and headphones improve the sound a lot as does listening on a PC. One other point is turn the back where the speaker is to face you during payback since the sound quality improves. Obviously, I have not yet used it a lot but was interested to verify the two main complaints aired here and they don't stand up - imv...