Home > Consumer Reviews > Olympus WS-300M 256 MB Digital Voice Recorder and Music Player

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.

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.

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.

- SMALL size
- mp3 playback
- Roomy memory
- Good quality
- Easy to use
- Compatible with MAC
- No additional wire but built in USB port

I'm quite happy with this little recorder - and I do mean little. It's amazing how so much functionality can be included in a device this size. The sound quality is very good when recording voices. The recorder's design makes setting functions easy and intuitive. I especially like the integrated USB plug that can be used to upload the sound files to a computer. You simply separate the battery housing from remainder of the case to expose the USB plug.

Even though the recorder is not really intended for it, I also tried recording music - but found the results less than satisfying. It is possible to use a higher quality external microphone, but I have not done that yet.

So far, my impression is that it uses extremely little battery power. I have been amazed how long it goes on a charged battery.

The recorder does not come with a carrying case, or even a lanyard to allow hanging it around your neck, so you'll have to be creative to use it and store it securely.