Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for Recording Lectures
Review: I bought this mostly to record lectures digitaly for pesonal use and public distribution. The sound quality is excellent, even recording at 32 kbs in a conference room, it sounds like a sound studio. At this recording rate an hour takes about 14M, or 50 hours worth on a 700M CD.The size is great, the fact that it records directly to mp3 format is very convenient, and it is easy to convert old tapes to mp3. It also runs fine on rechargeable batteries. I would give it five stars if it included two things, a bookmark feature (if you leave off in the middle of a one hour lecture you have to remember where you left off and then fast foreward to get back) and if it included some kind of mp3 editing software. But if you are in the business of distributing lectures this is an excellent product.
Rating: 
Summary: slow delivery
Review: "2 weeks and I have receive nothing, nowhere to contact"
Rating: 
Summary: Good product, provided that you understand the limitations
Review: I have been using my PogoProducts RipFlash 128 for a few weeks now, and I have to say that I am very impressed. It really satisfies my needs, and I have been impressed. My needs were:- A digital voice recorder that would allow me to upload recorded files to my computer for storage.
- A good quality built-in microphone.
- A reasonable built-in speaker (so that others could hear recordings). The RipFlash satisfies all of these requirements, and more. For digital voice recording, the quality is surprisingly good. At medium sensitivity, the microphone will pick up voice discussions easily, even when 6-8ft from the speaker. There is only limited 'hiss' (probably because it's a solid state device), and recordings are clear and easy to understand. I use it for recording meetings and conferences, and it works admirably. It records at 32bps, which is too low a quality for recording a concert, but more than adaquate for speech. I haven't maxxed out the memory yet, and I have recorded some conferences that have lasted an entire day (>6hrs of speech). For copying CD's and tapes, this little unit is surprisingly good. Just plug one end of the line-in cable (supplied) into the RipFlash, and then the other into the headphone jack (or line-out) from your source machine, and start recording. I recorded some old audio tapes, and was genuinely surprised at how good they sounded when I played them back on the RipFlash. The only difficulty associated with this, is that it takes a little experimentation to get the recording levels effectively worked out, but that's not a really big problem. The other issue is that, as it records a CD, tape, radio or TV broadcast, it's all stored as a single (MP3) file, unless you continually press start and stop at the beginning and end of each track. This is a little laborious, but necessary unless you want a huge single MP3 file of the entire tape/CD. Of course, you can always download some MP3 splitter software, and seperate the tracks after recording. The manual is pretty AWFUL. It does provide some general information, but you really have to learn how to use the device through trial and error. I was actually thinking of writing an 'alternative' manual for the device, and I would if there was lots of interest, but, its reasonably intuitive, so perhaps it isn't necessary. A word of warning, once you load (and format) an external SmartMedia card into the unit, the card WILL NOT be usable in your digital camera. You cannot switch between the two formats. So, buy another SMC if you want to do this. Also, the software the comes with the unit only works on MS-Windows operating systems. I loaded it onto Windows-XP, Windows-98 and Windows-2000, and had no problems. But, when I tried to get the device to be recognized by by Apple PowerBook, I had no luck. For me, this is a nuisance because my PowerBook is my main machine, but it won't be all of you PC users. Overall, this is a very nice little unit. Compact, ergonomically pleasing, easy to use and effective. It only has very small memory, but enough to hold a couple of hours worth of music MP3's or several hours of speech recording. I recommend it. If anybody would like to ask me a question about it, send an email to Aperius@Hotmail.Com. Make sure that you type the subject in capitals in the format "QUESTION ABOUT RIPFLASH 128" or else the message will be deleted by my spam filter.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Tool
Review: I got the RipFlash to record classes. When it works it does a great job. But the documentation is a bit sketchy and if I get it set up to make individual tracks of each "song" it spends all its time making one second recordings and I end up with nothing. So you have to be careful what settings you use. The internal microphone does a good job but I have not had any luck plugging an external mic into line in. It would be nice to be able to use a directional mic to reduce the ambient sounds from people other than the lecturer. Recording CDs is fairly straightforward and they sound good to my ear. There is no way to name anything that you record so youhave to remember what each track is. Tracks are numbered sequentially beginning with those in internal memory and then switching to the Smart Media card. If you later add another track to the internal memory it gets inserted in the numbersing sequence before the first track on the Smart Media card so it can be confusing keeping track of things. The batteries seem to die quickly at times and I think it is when I have had it plugged into the PC moving files around or ripping a CD. NiMH last longer than Alkaline as usual.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy it now!
Review: Don't waste your time looking any further - this is the best digital recorder for the money hands down.
Rating:
Summary: no pause button?
Review: An earlier review mentioned that the device has no pause button. Simply press the Play button and the music pauses. I figured that out after 10 seconds... otherwise it tells you in the manual.
Rating: 
Summary: finicky and unreliable
Review: Having owned one for several months, I can't recommend it. I use it as a recorder, mostly with a line-in jack from a telephone. The audio volume on playback is low (and yes, I do have it turned all the way up!). The software for transfering files to PCs is clunky - a real Windows 3.1 feel about it. Worst however is that if the battery runs down while recording, it will trash not only the file you have been recording, but every other file. Even with recharged batteries, the unit is completely unuseable until it's been reformatted. There is a battery indicator, but it doesn't give you very much advance warning. The 10 hours playback time may or may not be accurate, but it certainly does not translate to anything like 10 hours of recording time.
Rating:
Summary: works great - unless you were hoping to record something
Review: i bought this product in early january. i tried to use it for audio recording (from the radio). after two hours,i pushed the stop button to stop the recording. it continued to record. i pushed the button again. same result. i pushed the button a third time, and held it down longer in hopes this would get it to notice it was being pushed. this time the device printed out Good Bye, and shut down. when i restarted it the two hours of recording i had hoped to store was gone. not having a feature in the shutdown mode that would first save any open file, given that they chose to make the same button function as "stop recording" and "shutdown", is a piece of programming so profoundly stupid that i would like to see - though i'm somewhat afraid to speak to - the person who wrote it. i have contacted customer support to find out if the malfunctioning stop button is a flas in my particular device or endemic to the product, and if they have a revision to the device software that does have a save file feature.
Rating:
Summary: Great player, worth every penny.
Review: I chose this player because I had $... worth of gift certificates and this fell exactly under that price range. Otherwise, I might have gone with a slightly more expensive one. The only negative aspects of the player are as follows: 1. No arm-band or belt-clip. When I lift, I have to keep the player secured against me by the elastic of my shorts, and sometimes it will fall out. Cardio with this player would be nearly impossible unless you held it in your hand. Im sure you can purchase some sort of carrying case or armband, but something other than a small worthless strap shouldve been included. 2. No track names. Of course, if you read the reviews, you know this going in that the player will only show the number of the track. This is sometimes annoying when I have 2 or 3 CDs stored and im trying to find the first song in the CD. 3. Battery life. Granted, the battery life for this player is probably average of all players. However, its not fun having to put in new batteries every week. One up side is that the batteries can die on your player and it wont destroy or delete anything (in my experience anyway, I read this happens with some other players). All and all this was a great buy. Pretty easy to set up with the included instructions. Get musicmatch to rip your CDs to the player if you dont already have it. On slower machines (like mine), my computer would freeze if I had my ethernet connection plugged in and tried to run the MP3 manager. If you have over 128mb of ram (as the player recommends), then this shouldnt be a problem. I have 128mb and it works just fine with my computer. I havent used the voice recorder (other than playing around) or the in-line yet. The external speaker is a lower volume than when you have headphones on, and is not of the same audio quality, though there are few situations in which you would need a loud, high-quality, external, audio source and would expect to turn to a portable MP3 player. If you have $... to spend, this is certainly an excellent buy.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Review: I had no problems with software or setup, as did some other reviewers. I also find the sound quality and ease of use to be just fine, though not exceptional. The device's biggest weakness is it has no pause button. This is a serious downside if you get interrupted, or just want to take a break, when listening to or transcribing a lengthy voice recording. You'll have to restart and the beginning and fast-forward back to the point where you left off.
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