Rating: 
Summary: Great product, very happy with it
Review: It works very well as a voice recorder and an MP3 player. The sound quality is awesome. The SRS WOW sound is very good with my Sony headphones. I seem to be getting more than 8-10 hours of playtime from MP3s, but I haven't really kept good track of time. At 64Kb (FM quality) MP3s, I've downloaded 35+ songs with room left over for some voice recordings on the included 64MB card.
Rating: 
Summary: Great device. Should be less expensive.
Review: Long battery life, good storage, easy to use, usb connectivity works great on Apple Macintosh computers, only down side is you have to download playback software at Olympus website. this should be shipped on CD. there is no excuse for that omission as this software is over a year old when i bought recorder. there also seems to be no way to easily convert their audio format into the more common mp3 format. The price is a bit much too. Other than that, i highly recoomend this product.
Rating:
Summary: hard drive and flash memory comparisons for mp3's ....
Review: Okay. Here is a write up, that I did, on the comparisons/contrasts on MP3 players. Mainly, the Harddrive versions (I.E. Rio Riot/Apple IPOD -both of which I own) and the flash memory type... (I.E. Memorex 3642 Mp3 Player, of which I own as well).
What prompted this little jaunt (of which you may send to as many people as you like) My (expensive) Apple IPOD died during a sync last month. Just me copying files over to it, and the battery ran out of juice. I would have not attempted to copy music had I known the battery was low, but the battery read FULL STRENGTH. Anyhoo, I called Apple, they said return it for maintenance.
I did. Sent it back.
They returned it, still broke.To my suprise, there is only a TEN DAY return policy. TEN DAYS. I did not realize this at all... and will not ever buy another apple product. So, after a month or so of messing around trying to find another MP3 player... I decided to go with a flash memory MP3 player, the ones that use memory sticks. SO, here are the pro and cons of these devices. Pro's for the Memory Stick Mp3 players -Cheaper. WAY CHEAPER than Hard drive types. -If you go into music match and file convert to MP3 Pro and shrink the size of your MP3 to like, say 3o percent... you can really make a good Kompression. Example. My Memorex MP3 player has 32mbs of memory on board. It is expandable to 256mb. 32 mb will basically let you put one cd's worth of music. It is easy to put music on and off of them, due to your computer reading the USB as just another hard drive, so you drag and drop to put on, delete them to take them off. But, after you shrink your files to MP3 Pro 30 percent, you can put twice as many. So, basically a 256mb chip will allow me to put 208 songs on my little less than palm size MP3 player. And it wieghs like 3 ounces. - More on memory. These little chips are the size of the upper part of your thumb, at least my thumb anyway. They come in 128mb, 256mb, 512mb and even though there aren't any MP3 machines out there to handle them YET, you can even buy a 1.5gig thumb size chip thingy. Considering the size of the chips and the shrinking kompression I told you about earlier, I could shrink my whole KOLLEKTION down to 10 of those 1.5gig chips. At the current shrink rate I am at 5 DVD's, which are way bigger and more fragile than these little chips. - Not as fragile as hard drive type. You can drop one of these chips and not scratch it. I wouldn't stomp on one with my foot, nor get one in water, but they are encased in plastic. Ruggedish. - Batteries last for like two days. There isn't much going on here, no moving parts, no laser or hard drive to put power to. Most of these flash Memory types have a single AA battery. I use a rechargeable type, so we are talking very low cost here.
In comparison to the hard drive types, where you will get a solid 8 hours of playing, this really whupps up. - Size. Small. Very small. Mine is three inches by three inches. A square. But, you can get smaller ones. And the memory chips that go in them are the same ones you use for your camera. And you can put files on them. If you want to put a word doc on your memory chip, you can. Your Mp3 won't recognize it, but it is nifty storage. COMPARISON/CONTRAST - Size does matter. In the case of hard drive Mp3 players... lets face it, you can, if you so chose to, put a library of congress on these monsters. They are the caddilacs of the hand held devices, and guzzle batteries like gasoline. But when it comes down to it, size is the only thing they have going for them. I don't mean to downplay the hard drive types, but don't drop them, don't shake them, and after shelling out $499 to Apple you might consider insurance. Apple doesn't care about you or your apple after 10 days of ownership. - Price/Komparison. IPOD ran me $499 bucks. My memorex MP3 player ran me 45 dollars. The 128 memory chip runs you 50 bucks. Owch. There really isn't a comparison to the two. The memory stick Mp3 players just kick ? on this issue. And, you get MORE than a ten day return policy, since you buy these things at Target/Wal Mart etc... So, that is my review in a nutshell
Rating: 
Summary: I want my money back!
Review: Please read the other 2 star reviews before buying! I didn't and... I wish I could have my money back. The product is just average. Hardly deserving the Olympus brand.
As a recorder it... records! No editing, no inserting, if you want to see the date/hour data you have to go to the begining of the recording and be fast as the info will vanish in a split second. Also, if you rewind when listening at low volume, the volume will decrease! There are small software bugs like these, not serious but annoying. The bateries will run out much faster than expected (sometimes only 3 to 4 hours use if you happen to leave them in the recorder for a month). The buttons are cool but seem fragile: you'll never be confident while pushing. MP3 player: since I'm not a expert on computers, I had to ask for especialized help to have the mp3 player to work: it needed a specific Olympus program put inside the DM-1 card. I don't find this a problem: what is a problem is the fact that nowhere in the instructions such requirement was mentioned. Playing games, are we? The sound? Not all that pleasant, noisy and sometimes "metalic". I always relied on Olympus for my dictation/recording needs but this product is a non buy. There is better at half the price (at least).
Rating: 
Summary: No MAC support
Review: Pretty cool if you have a pc. However if you have a Macintosh there is absolutely no way to listen to music on this thing. The only software (musicmatch) you can use to transfer music to the device never supported the DM-1 for Macintosh and now they have discontinued even making musicmatch for Macintosh. One would think you could just transfer the mp3's over using a smartmedia card drive but then one would be wrong. There is no way to transfer music without the musicmatch sounds dangerous to me. What if Musicmatch goes out of business? Then were out of luck for the PC's too and you've got [an expensive] voice recorder.
Rating:
Summary: Great value and performance far exceeds my 2 other digital's
Review: Purchased the DM-1 for lectures as I wanted a voice recorder with a substantially longer recording time than my other two digital and two micro-cassette recorders.
I found that the transfering of files from the unit to my pc to be flawless and convenient.
The recording quality of the DM-1 is much better than my other recorders. Playback quality through the built in speaker is ample. Through earphones (the supplied earphones were average, get a better set) or your pc's speakers sound was fantastic and clear.
Unit seems sturdy, great design which allows simple one-handed operation. The supplied case is great BUT the clip is attached to your belt via velcro, which in my opinion just begs for it to be lost sooner or later.
Serves dually as an MP3 player. In my opinion and needs, this makes the DM-1 great value.
More than ample battery life.
Rating:
Summary: it's NOT an MP3 recorder! & Mac Software IS downloadable
Review: The box say it's compatible with Windows, but I discoved that they DO HAVE MAC 9 & OSX SOFTWARE, a free download on the Olympus web site. Even without any Mac software installed, the DM-1 easily mounts to the (9.1) desktop via the included USB cable. It shows up as a small hard drive. However you need their software to play this compressed audio format (dss) on your computer. Voice quality is totally decent, and 11 hours of audio on a 64MB smart media card is really great. (22 hrs at lower quality, but where do you draw the line?) Use headphones, not the built in speaker for better sound. Oh, don't be fooled by the product name; this is NOT an MP3 recorder. It can play Mp3's but it only records in the mono dss format. The Mac software can convert these unique dss audio files into much larger, more compatible AIFF files, which you can import into any audio editing program. It's great to be able to archive your audio in the computer, instead of a million little tapes!!
Rating:
Summary: Good Quality-Lacking basic features
Review: The DM-1 appears to be a high quality device. The recording and playback sound quality is acceptable with internal speaker and mike.
The playback quality in the Music mode with WOW is better than expected.
However, for dictation, the basic ability to rewind and "edit" a voice file after it is recorded is missing. That is a serious limitation for using this for dictation.
Also the Music Match Jukebox software necessary to load Music files is limited unless one pays another $20 to upgrade. The limitations are bad enough, but the constant nagging messages about upgrading are disruptive and offensive. Also transfer of files to the device is very slow using the Music Match Software.
Also of note, drivers for Windows Media Player are not available.
The best way to transfer files between the DM-1 and PC is to use a card reader. That is much faster.
The concept of a voice recorder with MP3 capability and removable media is great but the missing voice file edit capability and crippled Music software are disappointing and very limiting. I expected more at this price.
Rating:
Summary: Good Quality-Lacking basic features
Review: The DM-1 appears to be a high quality device. The recording and playback sound quality is acceptable with internal speaker and mike.
The playback quality in the Music mode with WOW is better than expected.
However, for dictation, the basic ability to rewind and "edit" a voice file after it is recorded is missing. That is a serious limitation for using this for dictation.
Also the Music Match Jukebox software necessary to load Music files is limited unless one pays another $20 to upgrade. The limitations are bad enough, but the constant nagging messages about upgrading are disruptive and offensive. Also transfer of files to the device is very slow using the Music Match Software.
Also of note, drivers for Windows Media Player are not available.
The best way to transfer files between the DM-1 and PC is to use a card reader. That is much faster.
The concept of a voice recorder with MP3 capability and removable media is great but the missing voice file edit capability and crippled Music software are disappointing and very limiting. I expected more at this price.
Rating:
Summary: Once bitten, twice shy
Review: The Good: A nice unit that does voice recording well. The Bad:
1) Does not play back high end mp3 (i.e 256 kbit)
2) Requires use of dumb software to load mp3. You seem to be stuck with it too.
3) Software does not work on Win 2000 server/Terminal server
4) No Linux support I never understand why a company shots itself in the foot and limits the appeal of it product. When you attach the unit to a computer via the USB, all operating systems I tried can read the drive via a file manager (Linux, Win, and Mac). You can also drop MP3 onto the device easily. However, you can not play them back unless you use their software to place the music onto the device. It like they purposely introduced a feature to make me dislike the product. In my situation I did not have a computer that would run their software correctly since I run Linux and Windows 2000 server via terminal server. This setup has served me well since I am a developer and may not represent the typical computer owner. However, why force your customers to use software when they should simply be able to drop mp3 onto the device using the file manager? What appears to happen is they need to place something on the smartcard to enable mp3 playback by the device. This is probably some copy protection utility. Why Olympus cares about this is beyond me. Personnally, I believe in copyrights and believe if you want something you should pay for it. That said, it up to Olympus to provide a product that does not aggrevate their users with special setups. Once bitten twice shy - My number one concern that has bit me in the past is when your dependent on a very specific piece of software. In a few years who knows if the software will be upgraded or even if you can get a copy. I have lots of old software that no longer runs properly or is so dated that I can not use it anymore. Sadly, this also means I would lose important features of this device such as playing MP3. The lesson for Olympus is just to stick to the standards and don't treat your customers as criminals. You should be able to drop mp3 onto this device using a file manager and play them back as you see fit. (Note: Buried in their manual about half way back is a Microsoft license agreement. Why I have to agree to a Microsoft license agreement when I purchase an Olympus recording product is hard to understand. If Olympus want to work with Microsoft I am all for it but they should make their own agreements with Microsoft and leave the consumer out of it. I bought this device for the hardware not the software. )
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