Great Idea That Doesn’t Live Up To Expectations.
Written: Feb 11 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to use.
Cons: Drains the iPod’s Battery, Bad at recording and playback sounds bad
The Bottom Line: Due to the poor record abilities and playback sound issues, I would skip this product.
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| Brettkatt's Full Review: Griffin Technology ITalk (4020-TALK) Voice Recorde... |
Several years ago, when I had a part time, at the local Apple store, we (the employees) were given iPods. We were aloud to use them for both personal use and for business (demonstrations to customers). Around that time I decided to return to college (on top of a full time job and the job at the Apple Store) so that I can finish up a degree. Anyway, I didn’t have a tape deck to record the lectures. I didn’t need one; in the store we sold something called the Griffin iTalk. I purchased one for about $40.00.
The Griffin iTalk is an attachment for your third and forth Generation iPods (the one with the red lights and the one with the click wheel (before the video iPods came out)). Its job is to turn your iPod into a digital recorder. The iTalk is designed to be connected into the earphone opening and the small port next to it. This is not designed for the dock connection (the long port on the bottom of iPods).
It is a simple device. It measures about two inches wide, about half and inch deep, and about three quarters deep. On the face of it a small opening for the microphone, the power light, the name of the product, and a silver plate that is the speaker. The speaker plate takes up about half of the width of the unit. On the bottom of it is a jack for the earphone port and the connector that goes into the small connector on the top of the iPod. On the top is a jack to connect ear buds. That is it folks.
Working it is very easy. Simply plug it into the iPod and you are set for digital recording. Once plugged in the iPod, the iPod will notice. The LCD screen will change over to a display for “Voice Mode.” A timing display, a record option, and a cancel (takes you out of recording and into playback mode) option appear on the screen. To record, just simply click the center button of our wheel and the recording will stop. At this point of time, the timer starts displaying how long the recording has been taking place (think of a stop watch), pause, and stop and save. Pause temporarily stops the recording. Stop and save will save the recording. When a recording is saved, the display will show the date and time of the recording. This can’t be changed. Deleting a recording (called a memo) is relatively easy. When in the playback screen, simply select (scrolling with the click wheel and then pressing the wheel’s center button) the desired memo to delete. The screen will ask you if you want to play or delete memo. Once the delete is selected, you are taken to a second screen where you can choose between cancel and delete. If you pick delete this second time, the memo will be gone forever.
The nice thing about the Griffin iTalk is that it is lightweight, easy to use, and doesn’t need its own batteries. With that said, lets move on to the negative. The iTalk does need power so it will feed off your iPod’s battery. Say that the iPods battery last for 12 on a charge; the iTalk will knock that down. I have personally experience it knocking the battery charge down to about 8 hours. Others have seen their charge knock 6 hours or less. One person reported that it drained his battery in three hours. Another issue is that I have experienced is that the recording and playback are very poor. I have found that the the microphone can’t capture fainter sounds. If it does, it is a struggle to hear them. Finally, Playback through the iTalk’s speaker is poor. The sound is distorted and fuzzy.
Using external doesn’t help. The sound is poor no matter what I have used to hear it.
In conclusion, the iTalk is a great idea but it is not a great product. Being easy to use is all it has going for it. The drain on the iPod’s battery, the poor sound quality during playback, and the fact that it can’t pick up fainter sounds really detract from this product. In my opinion I would recommend skipping this product. There are newer versions of this out on the market. If you need to something to record digitally, do yourself a favor, skip this and purchasing something that is designed for the specific task at hand; like a personal digital recorder.
Thank you for reading,
Brett
Recommended:
No
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Brettkatt
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Member: Brett
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