Olympus VN-4100PC Digital Voice Recorder

I have had this recorder's nearly identical little brother, the VN-480PC for well over five years of very heavy use now, and I wanted to move up to this, the largest capacity version of Olympus recorders with the exact same feature set.While the VN-480PC has just short of three hours total record time at the highest resolution "HQ" setting, this has just short of twelve hours total at its highest resolution "XHQ" setting.I wanted the extra capacity, plus the possibility of slightly better sound quality over that of the already excellent VN-480PC.There are a few other minor features of this recorder, such as two variations in playback speed, but I will detail only the features I use often.1) Five way controller that even a first time user can understand for fast forward, rewind, playback, and volume adjust.2) Five separate buttons for other purposes, including folder selection/index, display/menu, record, stop, and delete.3) Two settings - HI and LOW - for recording level settings - I use LOW for recording up close and HI for large rooms or even arenas.3) USB port to allow download of the audio files to computer - While this does work, the port is only USB 1.1, making it ten times slower than the industry standard USB 2.0.Also, since this recorder is not recognized as a Mass Storage Device, you MUST use the rather clunky software packaged with the recorder to perform the downloads.I rarely use the download capability, though, so this is of little concern to me.4) An integral speaker with decent sound quality, an excellent quality integral microphone, and a microphone jack and headphone jack.5) A clock with date that allows file dates and times to reflect exactly when they were created, as well as for the timer.6) A timer function that allows the user to precisely set when the recorder automatically starts, then automatically stops - I use this function daily to record talk radio shows to listen to later.7) Four folders to allow the user to separate his recordings to better organize them - This should come in handy for organizing interviews or lectures. Each folder can contain up to 100 recordings.8) Up to ten index marks per file - These are basically like bookmarks for the audio files that allow instant access to any point that has one inserted, and they come in extremely handy for jumping to specific points for later study.As for the recorder itself, the interface is quite easy to master, and the instructions are only really needed to better explain some of the more advanced functions that most users will never employ.Also, for those of you who are out looking for something to make CD quality stereo recordings, look elsewhere.This is a mono recorder intended mainly for speech, even though it works extremely well for that purpose.Also, anyone intending to use the headphone jack should know that the audio plays only through the left channel, but that is fine with me, as that lowers power consumption, and because I only listen through the left side anyway.I have also used the VN-480PC, the lower capacity version of this, for over five years, for six hours combined record/playback time EACH DAY!That would be unbelievable in a recorder that was kept in a padded box, but I carry mine around on my person the entire time I am listening to it, bumping it occasionally and even dropping it about six times.It's the Energizer Bunny, even though I have put it through upwards of 10,000 hours of use already!That is remarkable, to put it mildly.I still use that old recorder daily, but this will be there to replace it when I either somehow destroy it (one wonders...what would it take?) or lose it altogether.One last vendor specific note is that my particular recorder was posted on here as brand new, but arrived in opened packaging and was damaged.I contacted the vendor about a return, then (just to see if I could do it, since I am very good at repairs) very carefully disassembled it.I figured out how to make it work by very carefully straightening a thin plastic pin on the backside of the controller, although I am extra careful with it now because the plastic pin is now weakened, but the vendor already refunded the full price in that time without asking for a return.I appreciate the honesty of the vendor, but I will hang onto the recorder, since the vendor apologized for the inconvenience and declined a return.Consider it just the cost of doing business.

BEWARE! If you order this item, it comes via Office Depot. If you expect it to be the Olympus VN-4100PC, which is as it is listed (and on the shipping slip/invoice, you will get the VN-4100, not the PC version. I ordered this to be able to download to my computer. The non-PC version does me no good. I don't know if Amazon just has it marked wrong or what. If you're ordering this in order to download to a computer, you will be surprised.Now, in fairness to Amazon, their customer service was wonderful and has told me to ship it back. ("The wrong item was shipped" is not one of the reasons available to pick.) I was told to call Office Depot's customer service number to see if I could get shipped the correct number. I did just that. I was instantly put on hold by their computerized answering system with no indication that my call would be picked up...no music, no reminder messages to hold on, no "your call will be answered in X minutes" message. MULTITUDES of minutes later, still nothing...just blank nothingness on the phone. I am HUGELY unimpressed with whatever Office Depot passes as customer service...so totally opposite my numerous wonderful experiences with Amazon.com.This may well be a wonderful item...if you're lucky enough to actually get what you order.

What a cool recorder! Unbelievably small! About the size of a small cell phone! Like a video recorder it has 4 record modes; XHQ, {the best play back and over eleven hours of recording time, then HQ with about 24 hours of recording time, and then SP, 72 and then LP at 144 hours!!!!!! I guess you'd use this setting on a slow boat to China!It also has four folders, A,B,C,D. which can hold about 100 separate entries. That means if you are in A folder, and push record and speak for 3 minutes that would be A-1. When you push record again it creates A-2. and so forth and so on. When you want to play back your recordings you can go thru them 1, 2, 3 or click ahead to 10 or 26 or 100!Also, you can jump or select a different folder from the dedicated button {folder/index} and record and listen to whatever different subject you spoke about in those other three folders with their 100 entry possibilities! I think the entries are limited to amount of time remaining in XHQ to LP.After playing back in XHQ and HQ, I didn't even try SP or LP because XHQ is so much better than HQ that I would not care for the lower quality play back in SP/LP modes. Also, you must know that in XHQ at over eleven hours of recording time, which is the equivalent of, say, eleven cassette or micro cassette tapes, that that is a WHOLE LOT of PLAYING BACK TIME! Which is about 2.75 hours for each folder or more than eleven straight hours in one folder! OUCH! My poor ears! Just who could handle 24, 72 or 144 hours???Sound quality is very acceptable to me, though not as good as a larger speaker on even a micro cassette player, but hey I knew that going into this. But it's pretty good and it functions well and I have no trouble understanding what is being played back! I tried it at 16' away, talking at a normal pitch and could understand every word I spoke without straining to listen! But the room was quite and still. Usually a person would just hold it in their hand like any other hand held recorder, right?This model, the VN 4100PC has software and you can download all of your "tapes" onto a hard drive. Be aware that in XHQ a 2 or 3 minutes record can be 1.5 MB. So one hour might be 45 MB? You'll need a BIG hard drive if your intent it to download your conversation with Goddard! But, you can edit if you have time. Playback with my small Dell speakers on my XP PRO was very impressive from OLYMPUS software wav playback! It Really Sounds Great!Again... what really caught my eye was just HOW SMALL this puppy is! It must be 3 times smaller than my micro cassette player and I will not hesitate to carry it with me most of the time! But I have no intention of sitting thru hours of recordings on this or my PC. I use it to catch pithy sayings that I utter after enlightening moments of clarity! These are rather small in length, ha ha, so at eleven hours I would have to have a revelation from the mountain top to use all that time up! Very pleased and very good price too!