Olympus WS-500M

The Olympus WS-500M is a digital voice recorder that comes with 2GB internal flash memory and is available in Pink, Silver and Blue. This entry level offering is similar to the Olympus WS-321M, having the same price but twice the memory and a battery that is rechargeable via USB.

Speaking of which there is a flip-up USB connector built in so no cables are needed, just plug and play. The WS-500M records high quality stereo WMA (Windows Media Audio) through an internal stereo microphone while a jack for hooking up an external mic is also included. At highest quality, almost 35 hours of audio can be recorded with the total record time moving up to 555 hours at the lowest rate. 5 storage folders are located in memory each containing up to 200 files and the possibility of uploading 500 songs of either MP3, WMA or WAV format is supported, although the unit only records in WMA format.

Variable Control Voice Actuator, or VCVA, is a battery and memory saving feature which will only engage recording when it senses sound, stopping again when it sense a period of silence. Ideal for students, journalists and even writers and musicians for recording lectures, speeches or ideas. During down time it can be used as an MP3 player and also a USB storage device since any file type can be loaded.