Product Description

Take it here, there and anywhere. The compact brushed silver WS-300M is equipped with 256MB of internal memory for up to 68 hours of recording time and stores up to 120 music tracks. Users can enjoy a great sense of freedom, not being bound by cables, docking station or special software, simply plug directly into any PC and you are ready to upload and download your files as you choose.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9064 in Consumer Electronics
• Color: Silver
• Brand: Olympus
• Model: 141847
• Dimensions: .43" h x 1.50" w x 3.73" l, .13 pounds

Features

• Compact, high-quality digital voice recorder with 256 MB internal flash memory
• Records up to 68 hours of WMA audio; built-in music player stores up to 66 WMA or MP3 files
• USB Direct design plugs directly into PC USB port; 4 recording modes (HQ, LP, SP, and HQ Stereo)
• 5 separate file folders with 199 files each; voice activation mode enables hands-free recording
• Runs for roughly 15 hours on 1 AAA battery; 1.5 x 3.73 x 0.43 inches (W x H x D); 1-year warranty

Amazon.com Product Description
Slim, attractive, and highly functional, the Olympus WS-300M digital voice recorder packs 256 MB of internal flash memory into its lightweight housing, letting you record up to 68 hours of high-quality audio in WMA format. It's ideal for recording notes or long lectures, interviewing sources for an upcoming story, or capturing spur-of-the-moment song ideas before they disappear into the air. As an added bonus, the WS-300M can store up to 66 WMA or MP3 songs for high-quality stereo playback, letting you listen to your favorite tunes between (or during) classes or while waiting in line at the DMV. All this in a tiny body that measures 1.5 inches wide by 3.73 inches tall--roughly the size of a pack of gum.

The WS-300M features five separate file folders capable of holding 199 files each, so you can organize nearly 1,000 files by subject, theme, or other categories. Users also have the choice of four recording modes: HQ, which minimizes background noise and is great for recording people with low speaking voices; LP and SP modes that offer extended recording times; and the unique Stereo HQ mode, which makes two-channel recordings. And thanks to the voice activation option, users don't need to press a single button to start recording. The WS-300M will instead record as soon as the built-in microphone picks up sound.

Perhaps the most convenient feature, however, is the built-in USB connector. To attach the WS-300M to a PC, all you need to do is remove one end of the recorder's body, which reveals a male USB plug. This USB Direct design eliminates the need for a USB cable (the male plug connects directly to your computer), making the device even more portable. Once connected, you can download music files, images, or documents, in effect turning the recorder into a small hard drive, or you can transfer voice recordings to your computer for storage or multimedia use.

The unit also offers built-in WOW sound enhancement to produce rich, three-dimensional audio with a nice bass component. Additional audio improvements include a user-selectable equalizer that lets you tailor the sound to your taste or environment, along with Olympus's innovative noise-canceling technology, which makes the audio even clearer by removing unwanted hiss and background noise. You can even adjust the built-in stereo microphone's recording level to meet your needs.

Every bit as important are the playback functions, which include fast (50 percent) and slow (25 percent) playback, random play, and repeat play. And should you need to identify and quickly retrieve important sound bites, all you need to do is insert an index mark and refer to it later. Additional features include a locking function, which keeps important data from being erased; an easy-to-read, backlit, full-dot LCD; and a pair of stereo headphones.

What's in the Box
WS-300M digital voice recorder, stereo earphone, one AAA battery, USB cable, user's manual.

Customer Reviews

Great sound, compact, and quadruple the memory - same price
As a marketer doing a lot of research interviews, customer feedback, PR work, and the like, my share of recording interviews has made me all to familiar with botched recording, bad microphones, tinny sound, etc. After years of trying different audio recorders, I was left wondering if there was such a thing as good audio quality without shelling out some big bucks.

Finally, fed up after burning the midnight oil on trying to decipher one too many bad recordings, I decided to give it another go, and did a little homework. I relied heavily on the reviews in David Battino's blogs (he writes for O'Reilly and you can find him with a simple web search) and bought the Olympus DS-2...wow, what a change. The only drawback for my purposes was that the 64 MB memory was on the low side for storing long interviews.

Enter the WS-300m series, with 256 MB memory - for almost the same price! What's not to love? The built in microphone is amazing (as good or better than the already impressive DS-2), managing files went from easy to easier, it's even smaller, even lighter, and this one uses one AAA battery to spare you from having yet one more electronic to charge.

Separate the battery compartment from the main section and *voila* A built-in USB connector plugs your WS-300m directly into your computer, with no extra cables to worry about. I carry mine with me all the time and have started using it for things like diary and memos, memorization, and jotting down ideas for new material.

I only wish this was around years ago.

Convenient pocket-size Digital Voice Recorder with lots of room
Out of the box this pocketsize digital voice recorder by Olympus lets you record over 8 hours of material, however you can tweak things to get more juice out of it. Still, if you want to record interviews (for instance) for later semi-professional use (or even re-use, as in the case of an audio podcast) this little one MORE than does the trick. And when you are ready, just plug it into a USB port in your computer and pull the audio files from it much like you would from any other portable storage device.

So far, I've only encountered one "issue" with it (and it's not something you cannot circumvent easily by throwing the files at a file conversion utility). It generates WMA files for every audio track it creates. Since I could care less about these Microsoft audio formats (I prefer my audio tracks to be in MP3 or AAC formats), I ended up tossing the files into iTunes, which did a nice job of converting them back into MP3s. Other than this minor inconvenience, getting this d.v. recorder/player has been nothing but joy!

Update (02/26/2007): I have gotten asked this question a couple of times, so I am posting in here how you go about converting the WMA files to MP3s using iTunes.

1) You drag the files and drop them (literally inside iTunes).
2) You get a screen saying "One or more of the songs you are adding to iTunes... are in the WMA format. iTunes will automatically conver them to the MP3 format so that they can be added to your iTunes library."
3) Past that point, they become available through your library as MP3 files.

It's Good, But Beware A Few Flaws
I bought this unit to replace a perfectly working Sony ICD-MS1, because of Sony's propietary file format. This unit records in WMA (Windows Media Audio), which makes it much, much easier to convert recordings to CD format or to MP3. However, I have a few misgivings about it, as follows:

1. It's light, but it's TOO light, so that it feels almost flimsy. I was therefore kind of forced to purchase the case to protect it. It is well made, but I think it could use a bit more weight. I worried that if I dropped it, it'd be finished.

2. It's very noisy if you're using the internal mic, unless you set it somewhere and don't touch or move it. Because I use it to record sermons (yes, I'm a preacher), I solved this by getting the external, clip-on microphone and keeping the unit in an inside pocket while speaking.

3. I love the idea of separating the battery compartment from the unit and plugging it directly into a USB port to copy the files to my computer for processing, but the unit loses the time when I disconnect the battery unit. I finally tired of resetting the time each time, so I just don't worry about it, since I only use the device for recording, then as soon as I can I dump everything to my PC.

Those are the majors. Otherwise, I do like the device quite a lot, but I wish the case were of a sturdier plastic (looks like it might scratch too easily) or even metallic. It's also a little pricey for only 256MB and no expansion capability, but since I only need to record at most a bit over an hour or so, that's really no issue. Total recording time is something like 17 hours in the highest quality MONO mode (I don't need stereo). Like another reviewer, I haven't tried the music player function so can't comment on that.

All in all, I think there are better units available, and my only reason for purchasing this one was because of the file format. If the issues raised above are not vital to your situation, I think you'll be adequately satisfied with this, but I'd strongly recommend shopping around thoroughly first.