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

The sound quality is not too bad for the price of this thing, but the software to download the files to your PC is junk. I also own an RCA RP5030 which this was meant to replace. Alas, this one is not as easy to use. The RP5030 saved in MP3 format while this one saves in something that can ONLY be read by using the included software. And that software is not upgradable, nor available for the Mac or Linux.

The only reason for the 2 stars is the mic quality which isn't too bad. Otherwise, 0.

The recorder has a lot of nice features, and is simple to use. I like the price, and the fact that it can be connected to the computer (the most important aspect, to me).

However, transferring files eventually started to fail for me producing "Bad File Format" errors preventing me from listening to the recorded files or ever being able to transfer them again. Customer support indicated that I must reformat the recorder... thus losing the files (although I could sometimes continue to listen to the recordings on the recorder, once the errors began, they continued to get worse making transferring the files impossible).

Also, battery life proved short. I tried many great brands. After several recordings, the battery meter would indicate the batteries were nearly exhausted. This was pretty much consistent.

When the recorder works, I like the ease of use. I like the folders. And the sound isn't all that bad, even in an auditorium setting. Not great either since voices often sound a bit muffled at times while environmental sounds seemed somewhat magnified.

Unfortunately, dependability is the issue. The recordings become more valuable than the recorder, and if you cannot access them or transfer them to a computer, then you are doomed to listen to them on the recorder (if that hasn't failed either). I have gone through a couple of these and so have my colleagues. The "bad file format" issue is clearly an issue that happens, seemingly, frequently. And if your recordings are important, I could not endorse this product for purchase at all (for that matter, any RCA recorder since their support team was less than stellar or helpful).

I wanted to give this a 4-star review, but had to go with 1 because of it's lack of dependability (I would give it a zero for this, actually). But if you're willing to gamble, and you want a cheap recorder that has some nice features, you might get a recorder that doesn't fail. As I mentioned, the failings have happened to me far too many times and it has become costly.

I've had this unit for awhile and even though this is my first digital recorder, I like it. It holds 18 hrs of audio. You can download to your pc and convert to a .wav which I import to itunes and listen to class notes on my ipod. Even though I could listen (or talk) through a headset, I like a continuous reading on my ipod.

Battery life is really good, two AAA's. The transfer and conversion process could be better. I can transfer entire folders, but I can only convert one file at a time. My notes are short and I have a bunch. A bit of a pain, but quick.

Audio quality is good enough and I'm sure the fast forward and things like that could be better, but for the price and a basic unit that works, I like it.

I don't normally write reviews of products, but this recorder has driven me nuts. Very poor battery life. Most of the time I can not download files to my computer or they will not play through RCA's Digital Voice Manager. I've reformatted it several times and it will work fine for one use and then go out again. Do yourself a favor and buy something else.

I bought this recorder locally and am taking it back. It worked fine up until a professional interview that I had conducted lasting an hour and twenty minutes was somehow corrupted within the recorder. I could not convert VOC to WAV or EXE at all through the included software. Strangely, I could listen to the first ten minutes or so of the interview straight off the recorder, and then the rest of the time consisted of continually looping through about a minute and a half of the interview. This tells me that there's a serious bug in how the internals of the recorder create VOC files. Hardware glitch or microcode? I vote microcode, but it doesn't matter. Fail me once in a professional setting and I'm taking the sucker back, never to trust the manufacturer again. I've ordered a higher priced Olympus recorder that does MP3. Maybe I'll have better luck with that, being as MP3 is not a proprietary file format. The RCA was only my second digital recorder, and so far 50% that I've tried failed. Can lightning strike twice? If so I'm back to casette tape. Hopefully this was a one-time experience. I do like digital recording above tape for the greater capacities and lack of maintenance such as cleaning heads.

This failure cost me time, money and reputation. This product is suitable for your own use such as taking notes or creating audios for the family, perhaps for school. Pros should stay away from the VOC file format, which is my advice. Stick to something that's well understood in the microcode development world, which is MP3 for now.