Olympus DS-2600 Digital Voice Recorder, Rechargeable Batteries, Case & OM Digital Solutions Dictation Software, Black

Pros: Great battery life Easy to use, easy and quick sliding controller Index feature is a great feature for long recordings Ability to quickly switch between fast play, normal, or slow play for dictation. Ability to record only when sound detected Cons: Built in speaker is horrible. Can barely hear anything Unable to tell mic quality because speaker is so bad No timestamps nor dates nor ability to rename files. Impossible to tell which file is what No ability to trim large recordings down for content Impossible to quickly scrub through a long recording. It takes forever to fast forward or backward. Time consuming and difficult when trying to find something or search for a particular recording. Overall seems a little overpriced for missing some very obviously needed features. If slow play and a sliding switch is not necessary for you, probably go for something cheaper.

When searching for actual digital dictation devices, the options are slim and this option should be avoided. For most who dictate the slide switch which allows quick backup to correct errors or to modify the dictation is a must. While this device has a slide for play, stop, record and rewind, the rewind is slow and at times it will not work at all. The recording quality is barely adequate and overall the device is a headache and certainly not worth the money. A shame that you can purchase a digital recorder for $75.00 that is far superior to this Olympus, but when you add the slide switch the price sky rockets to above $250.00 and to obtain one that will work smoothly you will spend $500.00. Avoid this device.

This device is handy to use. But the sound quality is just about average, and not too great. I have purchased recorders that are much less expensive and works much better than this particular unit does. This unit is just too expensive and delivers below average quality results.