Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

PROS- -outstanding voice quality - Small and light -unobtrusive - easy to download recordings to your computer - Long record time with 2 GB of memory - 22 hours at highest quality. Does anyone need more? - Memory cards give virtually unlimited record time. I popped in a thumbnail sized 8 GB Sandisk micro sd (about $10) for a total of 10 GB of memory. That gives a total of more then 110 hours of record time at the highest quality level (at lower fidelity levels, record time is higher, as much as 2700 hours with 10gb of memory). Not enough? You can put in a 32GB card, which will give nearly 400 hours of top quality record time. At lower fidelity settings, 32 gigs will give up to around 9000 hours. Amazing, 32 gig in a thumbnail sized memory card. - recordings are easily transferred to your hard drive - Simple to operate The basic buttons are Record/pause, Play, Stop, Fast forward, and Rewind. -Mike is quite sensitive, but well controlled- able to record well in a conference with many people at different distances. - Lanyard hole in case - Helpful - Get one or put a string through the hole. - works with Dragon voice to text software CONS - Case is made of smooth slippery plastic. Nowadays you can buy a $1 pen with a grippy rubbery outside. A grippy rubber surface on the sides and back would make this easier to hold! - a lanyard should be included - Instruction manual is ridiculously long - this is not a complicated device to operate. The manual is too verbose. - Cannot modify existing "scene" modes or create my own. A "scene" mode is a collection of record settings geared toward a particular task. For example, lectures, meetings, dictation - software that comes with it is lousy, and for most people unneeded. You can use your regular file management tools on your computer to name different folders for recordings (very handy), move them around, delete, play, etc. - The date format is bizarre. The screen shows, "11y 6m 7d" to show the date we know as 6/7/2011. An annoyance, file dates are, however, properly displayed in your computer - mike sensitivity setting is buried in too many menus, and there is no scene setting with the mike at maximum sensitivity. SUMMARY Recommended. I like it. It works well and can be very very useful. Sony should fix the little things I mentioned. I considered giving it four instead of five stars because of these little niggles. But it is so outstanding in other ways that I gave it five anyway.