Olympus WS-200S 128 MB Digital Voice Recorder Review

Olympus WS-200S 128 MB Digital Voice RecorderI recently purchased a WS-200S to replace my aging Olympus DS-2000 recorder. I had hoped to use the WS-200S to record dictation for Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) transcriptions. DNS (a very, very good voice recognition product) works very well with recordings made on my DS-2000, and I'd expected the same performance.

First of all, the WS-200S is a typical Olympus product: carefully designed, excellent construction, etc. It's a marvel of miniaturization, measuing less than 3.75" tall x 1.5" wide. It weighs next to nothing.

This small size comes with a price, however. There are five controls (Rec, Stop, Play, FF/Rew, Volume) along the right side (sorry, lefties!). As you can imagine, these buttons and rockers are very small. I have found it difficult to operate this recorder without looking to see which button I'm pressing.

It's unfortunate that Olympus chose WMA (Windows Media Audio) as the recording format for this recorder. Although WMA is extremely compact, it also causes considerable loss of audio detail. In fact, DNS cannot reliably transcribe a recording made at the WS-200S's default recording speed (SP).

I have to use HQ (high quality) mode for DNS transcription. The problem here is that HQ yields less than 9 hours of recording time on the WS-200S's 128 megabyte memory. I had been hoping for more usable recording time than that from 128 megs of memory.

Also, because DNS does not recognize WMA files, I have to use a conversion utility (I'm using [....] excellent "AudioConverter Studio" product for this purpose) to transform the WMA files before transcription. I fully expected this extra step, and it's more of a problem with DNS than the DS-200S, but you should be aware of it.

The WMA recordings at LP are so "lo fi" and full of noise that they're painful to listen to. In my opinion, the LP recording mode (which yields 55 hours of recording time on the WS-200S) can't be considered a viable recording option.

The SP recordings have a funny "hollow" sound (apparently caused by the WMA compression), making them sound very odd. This is true even when using a good headset microphone (Parrott VXI TalkPro Xpress).

However, the HQ recording mode is crystal-clear and gives very good results with DNS, especially when used with an external microphone.

Finally, and I know it's a trivial issue, but the built-in microphone picks up every sound generated by handling the recorder. What I mean is that, while it's recording, you have to be very careful not to tap the side of the recorder or to allow your fingers or hand to "slide" over the recorder's surface. If you do, the recorder picks up and adds very distinct (and loud!) noises to the recording. My previous Olympus recorder had much better microphone isolation than the WS-200S and I'm finding this issue to be a real problem. It's difficult, for instance, to make recordings as I walk around with this recorder in my hand because of all the "handling" noises that get added to the recording.

So, the bottom line is that I'll probably be using this recorder for meetings and interviews and not for DNS transcriptions. I really like the USB "plug" for transferring files to the computer, and am very happy with its construction and overall quality. Olympus cannot be beat in these regards. I just wish Olympus had chosen a less "lossy" recording format and had spent a bit more time on ergonomics.

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Product Description:
With up to 55 hours recording time, a built-in stereo microphone, and a compact and slick design, the WS-200S has a lot going for it. But when you consider the recorder can also be separated from its battery unit and plugged directly into a PC's USB port - without a USB cable - for quick and convenient downloading of audio, documents, images and more, you'll also see it has a lot going for you, too.

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