Home > Consumer Reviews > RCA RP5120 256MB USB 104 Hour Recording Digital Voice Recorder

I bought this at a Wal-Mart for $20, and it's pretty much like the title says. While it has a great battery life and disk space (over 8 hours of recording on one set of batteries) it is too quiet to work for a lecture on the dictation setting, and on the conference setting it picks up just about everything in the room, including shuffling papers and creaky seats. I have to run every lecture through a DAW to make the presenter audible. If a clean, understandable recording without a lot of work is needed, I would not recommend this device unless you sit in the front row.

Bad File Format, UNUSABLE files are randomly produced on this recorder.

In my case the most important College lectures!

Thought it was associated with recording length, which would have at least provided a workaround, but no. It's random.

You have been warned.

I purchased an RCA recorder a week before this semester of classes started but it broke within the first week. I returned the recorder and purchased this model RCA recorder. It worked for two weeks or so then broke. All I did with the recorder was take it out of my bag and put it on my desk for class then I'd put it back.

I contacted RCA about a refund or replacement a few weeks ago and I'm yet to hear back.

A friend of mine is using a Sony recorder and it still works and he has had no problems with it. I would recommend a Sony over an RCA.

I bought this recorder to record chemistry lectures. this thing is amazing. the considerably low price comes from the fact that it only records 104 hours maximum, and there are plenty of recorders which can record far more, but this one does the job fantastically. i do not need more recording time than this because i immediately upload the lectures to my computer, so it rarely has to hold more than 3 or 4 hours at a time. the sound quality is as good as one could expect from any voice recorder; anything better would be rather remarkable. if you are hoping to do more than record the human voice or something comparable, this is not for you. beyond this, every feature is easy to use, especially if you thoroughly read the manual. uploading files is extremely easy. the recorder itself is tiny, about the size of an ipod nano, but about twice the width, making it easy to carry in a pocket if necessary. there have been some bad reviews of this, but apparently some of those who reviewed this item expected it to play mp3's.. which is rather silly. i can find no faults with this item, and the price is the lowest i have seen. i would recommend this to anyone any day of the week.

I purchased the DVR for my daughter to record classroom lectures. She is satisfied and from my perspective it was an ideal price for its purpose. If I had the need, I would purchase one for myself.