School me on pocket digital sound recorders

[230RN]

Well, as I said before, "But it's kind of new and I don't have hours and hours to probe around the net for other juicy info on it."

My tendency lately is to learn only whatever I need to learn to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

So it may take years for me to know it as thoroughly as "the back of my hand."  For now, I'm eminently satisfied with it, and impressed with the reviews.  The onboard manual seems to be OK, but (pardon a lifelong habit) I have a hard time scrolling up and down a PDF to look up stuff --I prefer to flip through actual paper pages to learn stuff.  (I may print out the whole thing and put it in a three ring binder, like I did with the camera.)

My comment in a previous post about the tone quality is moot.  You can vary that.

Sooooo, conclusion:  I'd go ahead and get it.  I have the 821, as mentioned, but the 822 and 823 have even more capabilities --like having broadcast radio reception, among other things.

I got got mine through Radio Shack, but it's a couple of bucks cheaper through Amazon, I saw from your link.  No matter, I needed it right away.  I brought it home, stuck a battery in it, and started recording and playing back right away.

I do like the standard extendable USB plug --real handy. It sounds like no big deal, but it is a real convenience, I found after dinking around with it on the laptop.  It seems as if they actually put some thought (or consumer research) into it to make it as user-friendly (even given its complex capabilities) as possible.  <snark> As opposed to things like, say, Windows 7. </snark>

I see that they have available some kind of sooper-dooper external microphone for it, but I don't need it and apparently, with the 1/8" jacking for that and earphones, you can use any standard set of 'phones and mics.  

That was one thing that ticked me off about the microcassette recorder I already had: the phone and mic jacks as well as the power jack were all sort of proprietary.  Screw that.

It has a tiny lanyard loop hole in it which I may use, but it doesn't come with a lanyard and I may have to jin something up for that.  I hate dropping expensive equipment.

All in all, I'm real happy with it.

Terry, 230RN

[zxcvbob]

Mine (older model Olympus, similar to yours but not as fancy) has a "Hold" slide switch on the side.  "Hold" prevents it from accidentally being turned on.  I can't check it right now cuz it lives at the church, but it maybe if you slide it to the hold position while it's recording that prevents it from accidentally turning off.

[230RN]

^
By gum-golly, you're right.  I looked it up.  Page 10 in the PDF (bolding mine):

Setting the voice recorder to HOLD mode maintains the current operation and disables button operations. HOLD mode is a handy feature for preventing unintentional operation from accidental button presses when the voice recorder is carried in a bag or pocket. It is also useful for preventing the voice recorder being accidentally stopped during recording.

Thanks!  

vaskidmark, did you see this post?  You remarked:

I just recently learned that if you poke and stuff things in the same shirt pocket as your recorder there is a possibility you will hit the playback button and folks will wonder why your shirt is talking to them.

Terry, 230RN

[Doggy Daddy]

How sturdy is that extendable USB plug?  Is it a rigid connection?  By that, I mean is the USB link subject to all of the leverage that could be put against it by the weight of the recorder and mess the whole thing up?

[230RN]

^ That concerned me a little, too.  But it weighs only 54.4 grams (1.92 oz) and has a full lever arm of 10.16 cm (4").

But I decided that the plug/jack frailty was no worse than with the cables I have plugged into other USB ports.  Yeah, the cables are cheap, but damage could also occur to the the jacks in the laptop with either the cables or the tape recorder.  

The real danger, in my opinion, would be bumping into it or dropping something onto it, rather than just the weight of it in in the jack.

If you're concerned about the forces involved in pushing the buttons on the recorder while it's plugged in, you're supposed to turn it off when you plug it in, and the only operations performed are from the computer keyboard or mouse --you don't have to touch the recorder at all when it's plugged in.

I finally decided to just be careful with it.  After all, it's only in the laptop for a couple of seconds to transfer files, then I eject it.  If I were more concerned I would use a USB dongle for it, but I don't see it as necessary at this point. (I'm more concerned with stupid old me forgetting to go through the USB disconnect regime before yanking it out of the USB port.  The aforesaid stupid old me did that with the camera once, to stupid old me's regret.)

So, you have a valid point, but it's just one of those things you have to watch out for, like keeping your bugger hook off the bang switch, with guns.

Terry, 230RN

NOTE: I weighed it with an almost-empty memory.  I don't know how much heavier it gets with a full memory.

[vaskidmark]

^
By gum-golly, you're right.  I looked it up.  Page 10 in the PDF (bolding mine):

Thanks!  

vaskidmark, did you see this post?  You remarked:


Terry, 230RN

Hory clap!  I'll be doing that from now on.  Thanks for the pointer.

stay safe.

[zxcvbob]

dont you charge the NiMH battery from the USB port?

[230RN]

Oh, good point.  I hadn't thought of that.  I just went alkaline AAA cell.  Got a zillion (10eZ) of 'em around and it just takes one, no charging necessary.

There's a selection in the menu for AAA vs. NiMH cells.  Power switch must be OFF when changing the cell, and you have to do it within one minute or time and date may go away.  As usual, they say you have to use their NiMH cell...

• When replacing the battery, use an AAA
alkaline dry cell battery or an Olympus
nickel-metal hydride rechargeable battery
(model BR404).
• When buying rechargeable batteries,
always select model BR404 nickel-metal
hydride rechargeable batteries. Operation
is not guaranteed. If a battery from another
manufacturer is used.

... or the earth will 'splode and the sun will get all red gianty and then collapse and get all white dwarfy.

Battery life will be lower with the memory card in it.  I'm wondering if it was worthwhile getting an 8 gig memory card, since my habit seems to be to transfer the recordings to my laptop pretty much right away and the built-in memory is pretty big.

Gee, you guys are making me actually RTFM.  But that's a good thing anyhow.

Terry, 230RN