I own another Olympus recorder which I bought years ago and I paid a ton of money for it. It was money well spent. I was intimidated by the "digital" part of it for a long, long time, but once you get the hang of it, these are so fabulous.
There's a button on the front that lets you move between folders A-E. That letter will appear on the screen and you can work on 5 different projects easily---just press the little button and it will take you to the folder you want where you can store all your notes for that project.
Within each folder are 199 files---I know this sounds confusing if you are new to the digital world, but the recorder does it all for you. You just go to the folder (tap the far right top button several times and it will go from A to E on the screen. You stop at the letter you want). Then press record and Talk! Easy!
When you are done, you'll see on the screeen 1/1---which means two things: you have just created a file and there are a total of 1 files in your folder, 1/1. The next time you record, it will say 2/2---which means you are in the second file and there are 2 files in your folder and on and on it goes until you get 199 files.
Now let's say you want to go back and listen to file 1 of your 199 files. You click back through them manually with the (<---) arrow which is on the front wheel until you get to it. The screen will say 1/199 and you will be at the first file and know you have 199 files total. I think that is just so easy and so cool!
To record, you press the top button in the middle which you can see in the picture (it's just below the screen) and talk---that's it. You don't press two buttons at the same time like in the olden days.
If you want to pause, click it again. If you want to stop recording, the top button on the left is stop and you click it. NOTHING could be easier.
At first, I was afraid to buy a recorder with the buttons on the front because my old one had them on the side, so I went to a store and looked at the product. THE FRONT IS BETTER. You have to remember that this little guy is the size of a heath bar. It's small! And holding it in your hand makes it super easy to click all the buttons with your thumb. Another reviewer said they were too small---I think they are PERFECT...go and look at Office Depot and you'll see the size. If you can't read them, the red one is record and the black one is stop. I can see them just fine, and if you can't remember this few buttons, then you probably are not reading this review.
Now, this gadget has all sorts of hidden menus to do all sorts of detailed things---I flip through the menus now and then and check them out, but basically, I just want to record and download.
It comes with a foam pouch which is really nice. My old one didn't have that.
It comes with a rechargeable battery and it's supposed to recharge anytime you have it hooked up to your computer. I haven't taken the time to charge it.
The second reason I bought another olympus is because my first one had 1/4 of a gig and this one has 4 Gigs! I filled the old one up in a week, so I'm thinking this one should last two months!!! Unbelievable for the price I paid which was $109---my old one cost over $300, I think.
Olympus makes a ton of these little recorders and I went to their website to try to figure out what was what. They could do a lot better job of telling you.
I narrowed the choices by the USB port. The old one I have snaps apart (too cool) and one side is a usb insert (like a flash drive). This one has a little USB thing that slides out of the bottom and then retracts. This was a deal breaker for me with the other models---I will lose a cord and I wanted the USB thing to be built in. The whole point of having a digital recorder is to hook it to your computer.
I like the voice activated feature(unlike another reviewer).
The other reviewer is right that you do have to go through several buttons to erase, but if you think about it, better to be asked to confirm, then to erase by mistake. I *think* (but I'm not sure if I remember this correctly) there might be an erase for the whole folder on one of the menus.
At this price and this size, there's no reason not to have one with you all the time. It will work with Dragon and actually type up your files, but I am here to tell you that the Dragon people are as unfriendly as they come. After I spent DAYS trying to figure out why my Dragon software would not work when I was trying to train Dragon with their mic, I paid the $20 to talk to someone who
He/she finally said it was an issue they knew about and that I could not use their headphone/mic that came with the software. They refunded my $20 and I bought a new mic---but what about all MY TIME!? The DAYS I lost!?
I think they owe me for that. And Dragon ruined one of my audio drivers on my computer causing it to crash over and over---GRRR and I had to pay to get that fixed by the Geeks, like I will ever see that money back from Dragon.
If anyone knows of any voice recognition software that actually works and is made by a company that's nice, responsible, and friendly, please comment to this post. I paid Dragon to figure out how to convert the wma files this recorder produces to wav files (I know it can be done because I've done it), but he said it couldn't AND took my money. Yes, I love them. If anyone knows how to do it, please also comment. Using voice recognition with this recorder is a very important reason for getting it.
UPDATE: If Olympus reads these (and they should)---could you please make one with more files---5 is not enough. I work on a lot of projects at once. Give me 10! And could someone please explain what the index thing does?
ANOTHER UPDATE--May 22, 2010: Amazon just sent me a product update on Dragon, since they now make software that converts WMA files to print. In other words, I won't have to convert the voice files I make on this recorder to WAV files before they will print---at least that's what the box says. We'll see. I'll be back with an update after I use it.
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This Item  Olympus WS-510M 4GB Digital Voice Recorder and WMA/MP3 Music Player |  |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | — | $225.00 | $197.99 | $299.50 | $184.50 | $299.99 |
| Delivery | — | Get it May 17 - 23 | Get it as soon as Saturday, May 18 | Get it as soon as Friday, May 17 | Get it as soon as Friday, May 17 | — |
| Customer Ratings | ||||||
| Sold By | — | Recording-Solutions | Lady and the Gringo | V.A.T. | Flex Panther | Flex Panther |
| hardware interface | usb | usb | usb | usb | usb, usb2.0 | usb, secure digital |
| memory capacity | 4 GB | 0.5 GB | 256 MB | 64 MB | 256 MB | 2 GB |
| format | wma | wma, mp3 audio | wma, mp3 audio | wma, mp3 audio | wma | — |
| battery quantity | 1 aaa | 1 aaa | 1 aaa | 2 aaa | 1 aaa | 2 aaa, 2 aa, 1 lithium ion |
| weight | 1.6 ounces | — | 0.12 pounds | — | 46 grams | 0.23 pounds |
| mic form factor | Built-In | Built-In | Built-In | Built-In | Built-In | Built-In |
| mic operation mode | Stereo | Stereo | Stereo | Stereo | — | — |
| headphones jack | 3.5 millimeters | 3.5 millimeters | — | 3.5 millimeters | — | 3.5 millimeters |
| battery average life | — | 15 hours | 12 hours | — | — | 303 hours |
| model number | WS-510M | 141852 | 141847 | 141592 | WS-110 | v403121su000 |
