Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony ICD-MX20DR9 32MB Flash-Based Digital Voice Recorder

It does everything well. The built-in microphone is very good quality. I also bought a 4 GB memory stick because the default memory is barely enough for a good quality two-hour recording.

I would have given it a five-star rating if it weren't for the fact that both the hardware and software (Digital Voice Editor 3.0) are not compatible with Windows Vista. They work fine with XP.

I hope that Sony would allow for upgrades of the software and hardware to Vista. It would go a long way toward building customer brand loyalty.

This is a great ICD that does a very accurate job of voice to text translation. However, the product does not come with Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred as described. Instead it comes with a very abbreviated lite version called Naturally Speaking Recorder Edition. You'll have to take advantage of a "special offer" from Nuance, fork over another $30 and reinstall the product to get the benefits of the Preferred edition. If you plan to dictate from a headset or use MS Word, you will want to upgrade.

I am disappointed in this product. Sony ICD-MX20DR9 32MB Flash-Based Digital Voice Recorder

This is the only Sony product I ever purchased that was disappointing to me.

I have two reasons I have been disappointed with it. The first is I have never found a combination of feature selections that allowed my to satisfactorily record a lecture in a classroom. If it was set sensitive enough to pick up the professor in front of me (a few feet away) it would pick up all the sounds of people shuffling papers, my breathing, my writing on the desk etc. If it was set less sensitive it would miss what the professor had to say. So, I never found any combination of settings that worked for my intended use. The second problem is I am not able to use the little joy-stick-button. It has five functions. It can be pushed up, right, down, left, or depressed. I am always having problems getting it to do what I intend to do. I have used a lot of devices like that and I never have had this problem. It has cost me accidental erasures, delays in starting recordings, and a lot of frustration.

I find even the "high quality" recording, which eats up a lot of memory, to be of poor quality.

I also misunderstood the way the Naturally Speaking 9 would work. I thought I could use it to transcribe my recorded notes. Wrong! It is only able to learn one voice. So I have worked with it to learn my voice and after months of use it still performs so poorly I spend more time correcting than if I just manually type to transcribe the recording. Since I have owned this unit, I have used several other DVR and I have liked them all better than this unit.

I do like the combination of skipping silents and fast play back. It is nice to be able to review an hour class in a fraction of the time.

I do like the computer connection convenience.

I would not advise it to anyone who wants it to record classroom lecturers.

This is the best ICD on the world. It's very powerful and it's microphone is very sensitive. Also, the Sony software is controlling every thing and has many powerful controls & options. This Sony ICD-MX20 is the best one. It's very small as a pocket size. I am using it for my business meetings and lessons. I am using the Dragon software to convert my talking into written documents in seconds. The Dragon is the powerful recognition software. Also, you can use an extra mic and headphones if you want. You should purchase the Sony 3V 1000 ma AC-E30A (AC power adapter) for home use and a AAA rechargeable batteries for your external use. I am using the Sony Memory Stick PRO DUO 4GB to let me able to record more than 340 hours. It's batteries work for about 8 hours working time and this is enough. Finally, I recommend this Sony ICD-MX20 for you.

When I received my order the software enclosed was the recorder edition NOT the preferred edition promised in the spec sheet. Since you can get the recorder for about 200.00 elsewhere the selling point for me was the preferred software. After multiple calls all over the world and getting a whole new shipment of exactly the same wrong thing, Amazon finally saw the light and through a very convulted process was able to satisfy the order. Basically they refunded me the price of the Dragon 9 preferred software form my ICD order and then I bought the software from another one of their listings. So in the end - thanks Amazon (although I do think things could be a lot less complicated)