Classy recording system excels at recording but not very user friendly
Written: Sep 04 '03 (Updated Aug 13 '04)
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Pros: Long record time capability, Phone record, compact size, FM, excellent sound, VOR
Cons: Menus cumbersome, non standard connectors, proprietary battery
The Bottom Line: Excellent recorder for preplanned recording sessions, but NOT very user friendly for spur of the moment, on the fly recordings. Cool, sophisticated look to it-
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| wingerr's Full Review: Pogo RipFlash Trio (128 MB) MP3 Player |
I purchased this as a supplemental recorder for the Ripflash DX that I had to send in for service, mainly because it has a modular phone jack accessory that allows recording of phone conversations, and because it has a voice operated record mode, which wasn't available with the DX. My primary use for it is as a recorder, and not as an MP3 player, so I'll focus on its capabilities in that regard. The major difference with this recorder is that it records and encodes directly to mp3 files, which allows it to record for much longer times than a standard voice recorder with the same memory and without mp3 encoding.
For even longer record capability, a Ripflash DX, with WMA encoding, surpasses even this, but with other tradeoffs.
Sound quality
This recorder has three quality modes, low, medium, and high, which records at 8kbps, 16kbps, and 32kbps. I find the 8kpbs to be hollow sounding; though it's still understandable, I wouldn't use it unless there was a pressing need for maximum record time. The unit has 128M internal storage, and is non expandable, which I considered a drawback, but realistically, it provides plenty record time. The expansion cards on other units are much slower in transferring the data, so even with the expansion capability, it's better to use internal memory due to the speed.
The 32kpbs record rate gives the best quality, as expected, and I generally just leave it at that setting, because that gives you 9 hours of record time- the 8kbps gives you 36 hours, but the battery wouldn't last that long anyway, so it tends to limit its usefulness for that purpose. The 16kbps may be a good compromise if you really need to maximize record time without sacrificing too much sound quality.
The record quality from the internal microphone on 32kbps is very good, and you can also use the supplied external microphone to avoid the noises that will occur from handling the unit during the recording.
Connectors
The input jack for the external microphone uses a non standard smaller connector, so they supply a short adapter cable, which must be used to hook up to use either the microphone or the earphone jack, which is a big annoyance to me- you can't even just leave it permanently attached for safekeeping, because you have to shuffle it back and forth to use the external microphone or the headphones.
If it gets lost, which I fear isn't too unlikely, you won't be able to use any of the accessories, because they all use the standard personal stereo size connectors. A very untidy arrangement, which is a major detraction from the unit's elegance, in my opinion- I would much rather have sacrificed a larger physical size for the unit than have to constantly leave this dongle adapter attached to it. But, that's the design, so it has to be dealt with-
When recording, a blue LED lights up on the front, which I hope they can make optional in a future firmware release (the unit can accept firmware updates, if they come up with any in the future), because the battery life necessarily gets reduced from it being on. The display has an electroluminescent backlight, which comes on briefly when the buttons are pushed, or optionally turned off, to conserve power.
VOR
It has a selectable VOR mode, which allows the unit to turn on when it detects sound, and stop recording after a user selectable time of silence (I use the minimum of 5 seconds, options are 5 to 25 seconds in 5 second increments).
The implementation of the VOR works very well; there's no appreciable lag before recording starts, so once you start talking, it records it without chopping any words out. Also, the threshold is fixed, but it worked very well at stopping when there was no speech and starting immediately when there was, even at a relatively low speech volume. It's apparently set to speech frequencies, and doesn't get as easily triggered by higher frequency sounds and noise.
Excellent feature which makes effective use of the record time, without your needing to post-edit files to cut out dead time.
Power
I haven't been impressed so far with the battery life on a charge; it doesn't seem to really last tremendously long, though I haven't quantified it yet. What exacerbates it is that the NiMH battery pack isn't a standard AAA size like the Ripflash DX, so if it goes dead when you need it, you're stuck. A spare pack can be purchased, for about $10, but this is where the other units have an advantage, because their batteries are readily available anywhere. The proprietary battery was another concession made to minimize size, and another that I would not have preferred.
Charging
The Trio is supplied with a separate quick charger for the battery, so it can be charged outside of the unit, which is nice, especially if you were to get a spare battery. A red LED goes out when the charge cycle is completed. The battery indicator on the Trio's LCD display doesn't really give you a good sense of this either, because it'll fluctuate as you use it, going down under high drain use and going back up on standby.
Ease of operation
Compared with dedicated voice recorders, it's less user friendly, because it has only 7 buttons handling many features and options. There are many menus that have to be sequentially selected, so you can forget about operating it without looking at it, as you could with a voice recorder like the Sony ICD's for instance. The mode button steps through 6 different menus, and you need to hold it down to switch between the available operating modes (Voice recording, FM radio, FM recording playback, delete, and MP3 playback). To switch from voice recording mode to delete, for instance, you need to press and hold the mode button three times, before it enters the delete mode. The delete function itself is much harder to work with than regular voice recorders, because you'll need to remember the file number(s) of the one you want to delete before entering the delete mode. There is no audio available when using the delete function, so you have to rely on the name of the file to delete it. With the Sony, for example, it will play the first few seconds of the recording you're about and prompting you for confirmation. With the Trio setup, you really have to be careful not to accidentally delete something you didn't want to. Far more cumbersome to work with, especially if you need to switch back and forth between the voice record mode and the delete mode, because there's always a lag passing through the FM mode while it searches for a signal, and locks out the controls for a while. Pen and paper would serve you well if you have a large number of recordings to delete for maintenance, so you can write down the file numbers..
FM
The FM capability works well, and reception is decent (though you have to make sure your earbud is connected before you go into that mode and hit search, because it locks out all the controls until it finds a signal, which apparently is an oversight in the programming. The only way to exit out short of pulling the battery is to connect up the earbud and pick up enough of a signal that it can lock onto (the earbud acts as the antenna).
Update: this has been changed with a firmware update released, and isn't a problem any longer-
You can easily record a FM program by hitting the record button, and it'll record it for later playback for transfer.
Phone Recording
The phone record capability works very well- a modular phone adapter is supplied, which has two modular jacks, one for the phone line, and the other for your phone.
If you set it on VOR, it will remain on standby until the phone line is picked up, at which time it begins the recording. However, you can't just leave it on full time, partly due to the blue LED being on all the time and using up more battery power. So much for spy work (unless you were able to rig up an external pwr source, which won't be easy due to the lack of a power jack)
Recordings/Playback
The recordings are named VOICExxx.MP3, with the XXX being numbers that increment sequentially as you record. FM recordings are named RADIOxxx.MP3, and played separately in their own mode, as are the MP3 files that you download from the PC.
Playback speed can be selected, fast, normal, or slow, by holding the mode button down during playback to toggle to the playback speed selection mode, and then using the volume buttons to select fast/slow speed playback. To return to volume control, you need to hold the mode button down again, to toggle out again.
Internal Speaker
The internal speaker is necessarily low output and tinny, but it's a definite asset compared to the DX, which requires the earbuds to hear anything. It requires more battery power than earbuds, so for extended listening, you probably would be better off with the earbuds. Much better sound quality that way also. When the earbuds are plugged into the jack, the external speaker will automatically turn off.
The lack of a timestamp on the recordings is another drawback that prevents me from replacing my Sony voice recorder, because it makes it harder to sort the recordings out afterwards. I've adopted a practice of just verbally notating the recordings with the date and time for that purpose.
There are some other features, like A-B repeat, to repeatedly play back a segment of the recording, sync, which will create a separate file or track when the silence between tracks is detected, hold function to lock out the controls from accidental operation.
Data Transfer
The provided program to transfer recording files works well enough for its purpose. Files are transferred by dragging and dropping the selection to and from the directory you choose, and from one of the three Trio storage areas (Music, Voice, and FM), which will show up when the unit is connect via the USB cable. Note that there's a restriction on tranferring recorded MP3 files back out of the unit, for copyright issues. This one-way file transfer makes it less useful for moving files between PC's.
Customer Service
My experience with the customer service revealed a strange dichotomy; depending on who I happened to get, either via phone or by email, they were either very helpful and courteous or very brusque, with the distinct impression they were operating out of a back office somewhere. Someone there should be informed that it's probably best not to use a speakerphone to handle customer service calls- An email question was independently responded to by two separate people also, for some reason- not very systematic, apparently. Dichotomy withstanding, helpful won out, and the questions and issues were answered quickly enough.
Summary
In summary, this may not be as practical as some purpose-built voice recorders for spur of the moment recordings, but for preplanned, long term recordings, it excels. Consider it as a recording system with many capabilities- phone conversation recording, lectures, CD to mp3 converter, FM player/recorder.
Update: A firmware update was made available on the pogoproducts.com website, which makes switching between the modes easier by decreasing the duration of the mode button press required. This makes it more usable, by eliminating the agonizing lag needed to switch to the other modes. If you have one of these units, download the update and follow the simple process to update the firmware; well worth it-
You may want to make sure the battery is fully charged, as is generally recommended with most firmware updates, to make sure it doesn't stop midstream and leave you with an inoperative device.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 125
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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Epinions.com ID:
wingerr
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Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 2 members
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