Buy Olympus WS-200S 128 MB Digital Voice RecorderOlympus WS-200S 128 MB Digital Voice Recorder Product Description:
- Professional-grade digital voice recorder
- Record up to 56 hours of digital audio
- 128 MB of internal flash memory
- Can be used as a USB mass storage device
- Convenient USB 2.0 direct design for fast data transfer
Product Description
***OPEN BOX*** This NEW product you are browsing has been inspected by our certified technicians to ensure that it meets factory specifications; it is guaranteed to be in perfect working order.The Equipment is sold in AS IS condition and returns will not be accepted so please contact us with any questions BEFORE placing an order at 1-800-572-3224 Ext: 243. We accept PayPal and all major credit cards. We do our best to describe each item we are selling to the best of our ability. Bear in mind that the Item is sold as-is with no warranty. Use the contact us page to request additional info or images on this product. With up to 55 hours recording time, a built-in stereo microphone, and a compact and slick design, the WS-200S has a lot going for it. But when you consider the recorder can also be separated from its battery unit and plugged directly into a PC's USB port - without a USB cable - for quick and convenient downloading of audio, documents, images and more, you'll also see it has a lot going for you, too. BUILT-IN STEREO MICROPHONE. Record lectures, conferences and more and listen back in high-quality stereo sound to make it seem as though you never left the room. DIRECT PC http://amzn.com/dp/B0009HMR6E/?tag={ucomicscom}. Separate the recorder from the battery unit and plug it directly into your PC for quick and effective file downloads without a USB cable. FIFTY-FIVE HOUR RECORDING. Record up to 55 uninterrupted hours in LP mode so you never miss a beat?or sound. WMA DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER. Records audio in widely used Windows Media Audio (WMA) format so it can be easily and conveniently listened to and shared. Features Built-in stereo microphone PC link via USB Direct design where recorder actually separates from the battery unit and plugs into the USB port on most PCs for a direct connection 55 hours of recording time in LP mode Records in popular Windows Media Audio (WMA) format 128MB of interna...
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
145 of 145 people found the following review helpful.
Very good product, but falls short in some ways
By Michael R. Groh
I recently purchased a WS-200S to replace my aging Olympus DS-2000 recorder. I had hoped to use the WS-200S to record dictation for Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) transcriptions. DNS (a very, very good voice recognition product) works very well with recordings made on my DS-2000, and I'd expected the same performance.First of all, the WS-200S is a typical Olympus product: carefully designed, excellent construction, etc. It's a marvel of miniaturization, measuing less than 3.75" tall x 1.5" wide. It weighs next to nothing.This small size comes with a price, however. There are five controls (Rec, Stop, Play, FF/Rew, Volume) along the right side (sorry, lefties!). As you can imagine, these buttons and rockers are very small. I have found it difficult to operate this recorder without looking to see which button I'm pressing.It's unfortunate that Olympus chose WMA (Windows Media Audio) as the recording format for this recorder. Although WMA is extremely compact, it also causes considerable loss of audio detail. In fact, DNS cannot reliably transcribe a recording made at the WS-200S's default recording speed (SP).I have to use HQ (high quality) mode for DNS transcription. The problem here is that HQ yields less than 9 hours of recording time on the WS-200S's 128 megabyte memory. I had been hoping for more usable recording time than that from 128 megs of memory.Also, because DNS does not recognize WMA files, I have to use a conversion utility (I'm using [....] excellent "AudioConverter Studio" product for this purpose) to transform the WMA files before transcription. I fully expected this extra step, and it's more of a problem with DNS than the DS-200S, but you should be aware of it.The WMA recordings at LP are so "lo fi" and full of noise that they're painful to listen to. In my opinion, the LP recording mode (which yields 55 hours of recording time on the WS-200S) can't be considered a viable recording option.The SP recordings have a funny "hollow" sound (apparently caused by the WMA compression), making them sound very odd. This is true even when using a good headset microphone (Parrott VXI TalkPro Xpress).However, the HQ recording mode is crystal-clear and gives very good results with DNS, especially when used with an external microphone.Finally, and I know it's a trivial issue, but the built-in microphone picks up every sound generated by handling the recorder. What I mean is that, while it's recording, you have to be very careful not to tap the side of the recorder or to allow your fingers or hand to "slide" over the recorder's surface. If you do, the recorder picks up and adds very distinct (and loud!) noises to the recording. My previous Olympus recorder had much better microphone isolation than the WS-200S and I'm finding this issue to be a real problem. It's difficult, for instance, to make recordings as I walk around with this recorder in my hand because of all the "handling" noises that get added to the recording.So, the bottom line is that I'll probably be using this recorder for meetings and interviews and not for DNS transcriptions. I really like the USB "plug" for transferring files to the computer, and am very happy with its construction and overall quality. Olympus cannot be beat in these regards. I just wish Olympus had chosen a less "lossy" recording format and had spent a bit more time on ergonomics.
40 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
Good Quality, Convinent, but some drawbacks
By J. Zhang
Pros:good quality,roomie (can record alot of lecture time),pretty good detection,slim designUSB drive very usefulno extra software needednice functionsCon:records sounds when handling (need to leave it somewhere undisturbed for recording)right side of stereo headphones stopped working the first dayfiles are not numbered by date / good info, just in increasing numbers
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
A Podcaster's Delight
By Bernie DeKoven
I bought this recorder because I needed something that would produce near-broadcast quality for my CDs and podcasts. This one was relatively cheap (around $100), with amazing battery life (read on), could record up to 5 hours (more or less) continuously, and plugs directly into the USB port for uploading (works on a Mac, too, but you need a WMA converter). And it records in SsTtEeRrEeOo. After much hemming and hawing, I finally accepted that I was going to need to make one more purchase before I was satisfied. Turns out that the onboard microphone, though wonderfully sensitive, is too sensitive to the case it's in - producing an unacceptable, tinny noise. So I bought a microphone, for more than half-again the price - a tiny ME-50s, also from Olympus. And my dreams have all been realized - small, powerful, clear sounds, more than ample for a podcast or voice CD, not quite as high-fidelity for music, but for my purposes, well nigh unto perfect. O, the battery life seems a little shorter with the microphone. It draws its power from the single AAA battery that powers the whole unit, so a sllightly earlier battery demise is not worth mourning over.
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