Home > Consumer Reviews > Remanufactured Olympus VN-960PC 128 MB Digital Voice Recorder with PC Link

I am an author who gets the majority of her ideas during inopportune times. The voice activation feature means all I have to do is talk when my hands are soapy from doing dishes. The voice activation shuts off the machine when you stop talking (unless you bang some dishes and create more noise.) Voice Activation would be more accurately named "Noise activation."
Even though it looks as if it would be complicated, it's really simple to use.
The alarm feature is nice and even goes off when the unit is not on. When you hit the stop button when the alarm is going off, it plays the associated file you recorded.
It doesn't have an "OFF" button, instead it's called "HOLD." There is no extra little watch battery to "hold" the settings when you switch the battery, so this setting is necessary if you want to keep your settings. It doesn't seem to affect battery life much. I'm still using the battery it came with, no problem.
The main reason I got this model was because it hooked up to the PC; transferring my story notes to the story folder on my PC. I was expecting text files to come out, but it gave me .wav files. The software needed to download the sound files is the Olympus Wave Player, included on CD. It is for Windows 98/2000/ME/XP. I have ME and had no problem either with loading the software or downloading the .wav files from the recorder. The whole thing is smaller than my cell phone, yet people with large fingers don't dispair. The buttons are easy to use.

This small, exceptional, gifted device is a life saver. Literally. I drive for a living and many times need to make notes to remember later. Writing and driving can lead to bad discussions with state employees who want to hand you pretty pink paper. This device saves all those moments and makes life SO much easier. You can record a LONG time on this little device. It takes each recording and puts a number for it. So the first recording you make is 1, the second is 2, and so on. You also get "folders." So you can have folder A, B, and C and have messages 1, 2, 3, under those folders. Then there is the easy fast forwarding of recorded messages to seek to the exact info you needed. THEN we get to the ability to download your recorded messages to the PC.

For the price it is hard to believe. I bought a refurbished one so I saved even more and the one I got looks (and works) like it is brand new. Very happy with this purchase and now I have backup to my pen and notepad, especially for when I am driving...

I've been using this recorder since fall 05. It has served me well. I use it for class lectures. I record and upload lectures for classmates and I have gotten so many compliments on the quality. It records in wav and I convert to MP3 using free software from [...] . This was the only downside-that it doesn't record in MP3. It is very easy to use and I can usually get almost 3 weeks of battery life. I wish the warning light gave more time-I leave my recorder at the front of the class so I have missed the warnings a couple of times. Now, I just change the batteries after 2-3 weeks of use to be on the safe side. Overall, this was a great investment and a huge help in school.

Excellent little recorder. Amazing amount of storage space. Functions are easy to access. So far (1 month) - good battery life and no problems. Good software. Very reasonably priced.

It does what it's designed to do. What more can I say! It's an excellent product.