imreasztar's Full Review: Sony ICD-MS515 (8 MB, 2.5 Hours) Handheld Digital ...
I had a lot of expectations regarding the Sony MS-515, on the feature list, it nearly had everything I wished for. However, when in hand, many things disappointed me about this device.
My first major complaint is the poorly designed buttons. It has a 5 way navi button for play/forward/rewind and menu navigation, which was impossible to me to press correctly. Volume controls were also miserable, instead of a hardware wheel, it has two +- software buttons, which react very slowly. What is more, they are positioned on the back of the device, where they are hard to reach.
Portability is excellent, it sits silently in my pocket without notice, can be placed on the table for recordings without taking up a lot of space. My micro cassette recorder was bigger and therefore was easier to press the buttons and was more comfortable to have it in hand, but here I prefer smaller size for better portability.
The Sony ICD-MS515 has sophisticated editing features, like split, join, erase parts of recordings, insert parts from other recordings, you can make new folders and give custom full character names (not only numbers, but real long names), etc. However, it reacts a bit slowly and the buttons are so hard to press that I gave up using them. It is nice to know that they are there in case I need it, but in fact, all time I started to use them I stopped doing it after a couple of minutes. It consumes so much time and the result is so small... it is better to do that on the PC.
Sound quality also wishes for many improvements. When talking directly to the mic, like making notes for myself, it works properly. However, when I wanted to pick up an interview, or a meeting, or a classroom presentation, it failed. The digitally recorded sound was so much distorted that although I heard the voice, I did not understand what the speaker said. My old Sony tape voice recorder performed much better here! I think that if the recording quality could be improved (not only 16 kHz sampling, but full 44 kHz), there won't be any problem recording other things than your own voice. My old Olympus digital voice recorder can record in 22 kHz sampling mode and the quality is much better! As the Sony ICD-MS515 has a mic-in jack, I could try to make recordings with a microphone, however, I did not want to invest in a mic and it is unlikely that I carry around an extra accessory – then I would just go for a cassette based recorder with a proper mic.
Recording music is out of question, as the ICD-MS515 picks up sound only in the 170-7000 Hz range. For speech, it is really adequate though.
PC connectivity is excellent, here Sony shows what he is capable for. The voice recorder is mounted as a mass storage device over USB and also can be used as a card reader. I was happy to forget the times of my former Olympus voice recorder that required its proprietary drivers to communicate with the PC. The Memory Stick Voice Editor Software is a joy to use, excellent transfer/organization/editing features. What is more, you have the option to make changes on recordings without copying them to the PC, you can erase, split, join, organize the files also while on the MS card. You can also copy things back and forth transparently. I love this, this is how editing software should have been done for all recorders! In fact, reviewing/editing recordings on the Sony MS 515 itself are very uncomfortable to use and I just don't bother myself using them. Instead, I connect to my laptop or desktop PC, make the changes quickly and there I go.
Unfortunately, it records in Sony's proprietary voice recorder format (.msv, Memory Stick Voice file)- you can only play/edit the files in Sony's software. Mp3 or wma would have been a much better choice, as many flash memory based mp3 players do, then you could play around with your recordings in whatever software you like, like Cool Edit.
There is an upgraded version out there now, the Sony ICD-MS525 voice recorder, however, it still records in Sony’s proprietary format and has the same poorly designed buttons. The Sony ICD-MS515VTP is the same, but with Dragon Naturally speaking bundled. It allows for voice recognition, however it would also need the 44 kHz high sampling rate for proper voice recognition. Unfortunately, the software does not support Hungarian to recognize.
Check out my longer in depth review of the Sony ICD-MS515 here:
http://www.foxpop.co.uk/accessories/voice_01.htm
Check out my digital voice recorder round-up here:
http://www.foxpop.com/imre/2004/almostvoicerecorders/almostvoicerecorders.html
To summarize, I do not recommend the Sony ICD-MS515 to buy. It has fancy features for gadget fans, some of them are even useful, it has a wonderful PC connectivity background, but it fails in the two most important criteria - it is hard to control because of the small buttons and voice quality is not sufficient for interviews or to pick up classroom presentations. If you just need to record your own voice, record kids talking around, make occasional recordings, a $50-$100 device does the same job for you.
Instead I recommend to have a look at the Sony ICD-BM1 voice recorder, it has basically the same software features, but has a very good "slider" type button, similar to that on micro-cassette recorders. What is more, finally it is able to make recordings at 44 kHz sampling rate, allowing you to pick up sound from distance or in noisy environments.
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