Panasonic RR-US430 Voice Recorder, Thin Style, PC Software 33 Hour Rec

I have had this for years. I have recorded hundreds of hours of dictation, notes, conferences, and meetings with it. It picks up the audio well. The files are all MP3 and so you can download easy. I used this mostly to dictact my scripts or books into. If you do things right, then your dictation software can take it and transcribe it for you if you have a version that will allow it.

No complaints at all. Origionally bought this to bring to parent teacher conferences, however, my wife used this at the toy store she manages for some EVP work due to suspicion of a new haunting by a recently deceased co worker. anyways, the thing picks up every pop, bazng, scratch, and voice. Excellent product, works great for meetings as well, the software is intuitive and flexable.

I would not recommend this unit for three main reasons: 1. the sound quality is pretty bad with the internal mike and speaker. For taking notes an external mike and speaker is too bulky. 2. It does not work when powered by the USB port. You have to unplug it and run off two AAA cells (put in backwards) to play or record. 3. There is no USB driver either in firmware, on the CD, at Panasonic or built-into Windows 7. So could not use the computer software to edit sound, or convert sound to text, or manipulate the clips in the device. The notes talk about Win2K and XP. I suspect this is quite an old design, and they have not kept up to date with drivers. Operating is easy. You hit record, talk, hit stop. Hit record, talk, hit stop. Each time you hit record it starts a new numbered snippet. You select which clip you want to hear by spinning a wheel, then hit play. You would never guess it was that simple from the plump instruction book.

If all you want is an easy to use voice recorder that's inexpensive and doesn't have to sound good for music, this is it. I've only had this for a couple of days, so if it lasts for a year, it'll be a bargain. However, as compared to my tape recorder, it is vastly superior in every way.