Sony ICDMS515VTP Memory Stick Digital Voice Recorder with Voice to Print bundle

Rating:
Summary: Terrible Recorder! Don't buy it!
Review: 515VTP include voice to print software plus 515 voice recorder. First, voice to print software is a joke! It can only work if you are willing to spend hours in training it. By that, I meant that one has to read/record its supplied articles to your own recorder, upload it, and then you may pray that the software can do voice to print job in the future. It takes at least an hour to teach the software! I bought it for recording lectures notes. I can not go to all speakers and ask them each to spend couple of hours to train my software. It is totally impossible and useless if your are looking for voice to print function. The recorder is also terrible to handle. One key/button can be pushed down in 5 different directions. And, every direction will pop up different window. When it is supposed to be pushed straight down, you have to make sure that you push down straight. If you miss a little bit angle, undesired window/function would pop up, and you have to restart again. It is just totally horrible! The screen's back light only lit when you use power cord. Who bring power cord all the time? Without back light, I can hardly see the words on the screen. It simply hurt my eyes after 10 minutes. The sound is not stereo either! Stay away from this recorder unless you are ready to throw away money. This recorder is expensive too! I am returning mine after on ly couple of hours trying, It is simply a bad recorder! I am going to lose $20 in shipping and returning! I wish that the product specs has warned consumer about its voice to print function. Now, I hope that you won't make the same mistake as i did.

Rating:
Summary: To Record Yourself
Review: I bought this for my mom (a doctor) last year and she loves it. The point of having a recorder with a translating software is to record yourself and have it turn it to text. My mom uses it for patient charts, and after (much) training it works fine. I think this year I'll get one for my dad (a professor) who can record his OWN voice for lectures, etc. I originally gave this 4 because it was really expensive, but I guess it's meant for people who can afford it.

Rating:
Summary: Very good recorder for lectures
Review: Used this recorder for lectures using an external mic and the quality and ease of use is outstanding. Uploading the recording to a PC and burning a CD is simple and easy. This unit is so compact and can hold all my recordings on a 256mb memory stick (30+hours in the highest quality). One complaint is the play/pause button as I would have preferred a seperate button. The all in one - play, pause, ff, rr - button is a bit of a pain. All in all the best recorder I've used.