Olympus DM 420 Digital Voice Recorder Review

I have my Olympus Digital voice recorder, the DM 420, for some time now and decided to write this review to allow others see whether it is a good buy and one of the best voice recorders..or not.

Olympus DM 420 features

I have the 2 gigabyte version (there is also a 4 gb one) and I must say it has served me pretty well. It features

• Built in microphone (stereo)
• Around 50 hours of battery life
• Windows media audio (WMA) and MP3 recording
• Recording time of approximately 530 hours.

It only weighs about 11 ounces and what I have always liked about it is the microphone which is a really high quality stereo one.

Apparently it has great editing software-I am not very technical-but I have always found it easy to use and reliable which is critically important in my job as I do a lot of transcription work in a high pressure office.

One of the best features of the Olympus DM 420 is that it can be run on bothe batteries and from an external AC power supply. However you can’t make recordings when it is plugged into the power and you will need to go through the manual closely to see how to configure the USB connect settings to prompt it to ask me whether I was charging it or wanted to record something.

There is also a microSD slot which allows me to listen to audio files when I am walking the dog or just going shopping.

One thing I would advise strongly is to read the manual carefully, all 128 pages of it, as there are a lot of hidden configuration options that you can use.

For example there is a monoaural zoom microphone which is really useful if you are trying to record people speaking in a room and you will probably only find out how to configure this be scrutinising the manual which comes in a disk format.

The audio editing software that is supplied is excellent and can really help with joining up files or playing around with the sound.

What is included?

With the Olympus DM 420 you also get

1. The software (Sonority) on disk
2. A quick start guide
3. Instruction booklet
4. A carrying case
5. The recorder itself obviously
6. Headphones
7. A strap and a
8. USB cable

When I was doing this review I headed over to Amazon.com to see how much it is now and Amazon.com are offering it at a 51% discount of less than $130 which is great value because when I bought mine I paid the full list price of $250.

I took a look at the reviews as well and of the 58 people who supplied reviews for this recorder the average rating was 4 out of 5.

I myself would give it 4.5 and would rate it amongst the best digital voice recorders that I have used. Some of my colleagues in work use Panasonic, Phillips and other models but I really would not swop my Olympus with any of them.

You can check this voice recorder on Amazon here.

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