Customers Love The New Olympus WS-110

The Olympus WS-110 has been out around three weeks now (Nov 2007) and I have to say the response we are getting from our customers is that this is a fantastic little digital voice recorder.



Already this model is very very popular and they are flying out of the door. Being such a new model this has to be down to its great low price, it's good looks and the fact that it is very simple to use.

We have spoken to a couple of customers who have mainly commented on the great audio quality and above all how easy it is to get the audio from the digital voice recorder onto the PC/Mac ready to listen to or to transcribe.

This little unit is fantastic for single speaker notes and dictation and can also pickup audio from one-on-one meetings.

Click here to grab a copy of the instruction manual for the Olympus WS-110 to get an overview of its functions and just how easy it is to use.

The New Philips 9370 Digital Pocket Memo

Philips Dictation Australia recently announced the end of life of the Digital Pocket Memo 9360 replaced by the new and very smart 9370 model.



At Dictate Australia the 9360 was a very popular model as it was the cheapest way to get your hands on a digital voice recorder which has an audio review function, the ability to rewind a little bit to hear what you have just dictated. We have alot of people call us who are moving from analogue tape dictaphones to digital and who must have the ability to rewind the audio. Unfortuantly this very useful function only starts to appear in the higher end models of both Philips and Olympus.

On the 9370 the slider switch on the side has been replaced by push buttons, also on the side making audio rewind and review a breeze.

Product Highlights

SpeechExec Dictate
SpeechExec Dictate is the perfect download software to manage voice files. The intuitive user interface makes job retrieval simple and fast, and the job status information allows the tracking of all the work in progress.

Smart Buttons
Two smart buttons let you scroll through menu options and quickly make selections.

Large Display
A large graphical display lets you view all file information, such as keywords (author name), length of dictation, position within the file, and other vital information at a glance. A backlit display shows all information, even in poor lighting conditions.

Intuitive design
The Digital Pocket Memo’s asymmetrical and ergonomic design delivers unparalleled user-friendly operation. The push button switch allows quick control and single handed operation.

Designed around standards
The Digital Pocket Memo is designed around standardized technologies. From SD (or MMC) cards, mini-USB cables, batteries and sockets to the industrystandard .dss file format for speech processing, Philips employs non-proprietary accessories and technologies for the ultimate compatibility.

Digital Speech Standard (.dss)
The .dss file format is the international standard for professional speech processing. Offering excellent audio quality for recorded voice, .dss files allow a high compression rate, reduced file sizes, network traffic and required storage capacity. The format also allows additional information, such as the author name, to be stored in the file header, further facilitating file organization.

For those of you who love product specifications (and who doesn't) here are the in's and out's of the 9370:

Connectivity
Docking connector: 8-pin female
USB: Mini USB 2.0 female (full speed, 12 Mbit/s)
DC in: 6 V
Microphone: 3.5 mm, impedance 2 kΩ
Headphone: 3.5 mm, impedance 8 Ω or more
Memory card: Secure Digital (SD) and Multimedia card (MMC) / expansion slot for barcode module

Display
Type: TFT-Transreflective
Diagonal screen size: 1.71 in. / 44 mm
Resolution: 128 × 128 pixels
Backlight color: white

Recording specifications
Recording format: .dss (Digital Speech Standard)
Memory type: Secure Digital (SD)/Multimedia Card (MMC) up to 2 GB
Recording modes:
Standard Play (SP)
Long Play mobile (LPm)
Recording time (SP/LP):•
44 / 65 hours with 256 MB card
349 / 523 hours with 2 GB card
Sampling frequency:
Standard Play mode: 12 kHz
Long Play mode: 8 kHz
Compression rate:
Standard Play mode: 13.5 kbit/s
Long Play mode: 9 kbit/s
Frequency response:
Standard Play mode: 200 to 5 500 Hz
Long Play mode: 200 to 3 500 Hz

Speaker
Built-in: 30 mm round dynamic speaker
Output power: 200 mW

Green specifications
Compliant to 2002/95/EC (RoHS)
Lead-free soldered product
Operation conditions
Temperature: 5° - 45° C / 41° - 113° F
Humidity: 10 % - 90 %

Power
Battery type: two AAA batteries (LR03 or R03)or two Philips AAA Ni-MH rechargeable batteries (LFH 9154)
Battery life (Standard Play mode):
17 hours with Philips Ni-MH rechargeable battery
15 hours with Philips alkaline battery
Charging time (full charge): 2.5 hours with optional rechargeable batteries and power supply

Specifications
Product dimensions (W x D x H): 50 x 116 x 17 mm / 2.0 x 4.6 x 0.7 in.
Weight: 106 g / 3.7 oz, including two Philips AAA batteries

PC requirements (SpeechExec)
Recommended: Pentium III, 500MHz, 512 MB RAM (1 GB RAM for Vista)
Hard disk space: 60 MB for SpeechExec, 100 MB for Microsoft .NET 1.1 Framework
1 free USB port
Recommended minimum transfer rate for LAN: 100 Mbit/s
Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows XP (with SP 2), Windows 2000 (with SP 4)

Package contents
Digital Pocket Memo 9370
Speech Exec Dictate software
Philips Secure Digital (SD) memory card
2 Philips AAA batteries
USB cable
Pouch
User manual
Quick start guide

Accessories
USB Docking Station 9120
Philips rechargeable AAA Batteries 9154
Philips Power Supply
Philips Secure Digital (SD) Memory Card

Finally - Olympus WS-110 Hits Australia

Since the end of life of the great WS-100 in October we have been desperate to get our hands on the WS-100 replacement, the Olympus WS-110.



Imagine the excitement at our office today when our first box full arrived (how sad are we !). The first thing that hit us was the new image for the boxes. Gone are the nice blue boxes that the other voice recorders came in the WS-110 looks like it means business in a sleek black box.



We will be testing our office unit over the next couple of days and will release a video shortly showing how it looks and interacts with your PC.

How To: Install Olympus Digital Wave Player With A VN-2100PC Voice Recorder

Here at Dictate Australia we are in the process of creating some tutorial videos on the products we sell. This is a taster of things to come and shows how to install the Olympus Digital Wave Player software, which comes with the Olympus VN-2100PC Digital Voice Recorder onto a Windows PC.

This voice recorder is a breeze to use and for anyone on a budget planning to use a recorder for single speaker note taking the VN-2100PC is and obvious choice.

The VN-2100PC records in .WAV format and using the Olympus Digital Wave Player software you can easily and quickly transfer the audio from the dictaphone to your PC. One of the great features of the Olympus Digital Wave Player software is the ability to record via the VN-2100PC direct to your PC's hards drive, I love that feature.

So here is the How To: video.