Olympus WS300 (256 MB, 1 Hours) Handheld Digital Voice Recorder

Pros: Good sound quality, price, recording times and easy file transfer. This recorder is TINY!
Cons: Plastic construction, no carrycase, no removable media, LCD screen hard to read.

::: OVERVIEW ::: The Olympus WS-300M packs surprisingly good audio recording capabilities into a tiny package that works very much like a 256MB USB thumb drive on either Windows or MAC. It's very easy to transfer files. The ...

Pros: Great sound in ST-HQ and HQ. Very compact.
Cons: Garbled sound in LP and SP. Flimsy battery to unit connection.

I bought the WS300 as a replacement for the stereo cassette recorder which fell apart and is discontinued. The sound quality through headphones is very good, on a par with a good cassette when in ST-HQ. With 8.75 hours of recording time in the ST-HQ mode, this is usually more than adequate for school or meetings, but if this is not, the mono HQ will easily do the job. The LP mode is accurately named with 68.75 hours, but is hopelessly garbled. The SP mode is only slightly better than LP. When the battery compartment is detached, the USB plug is exposed, and can connect to a computer. When the WS300 is so connected, up to 24 hours of ST-HQ files can fit on a CD, 166 hours can fit on a DVD, and nearly 37 days can fit on a Blu-ray disc. In the LP mode, one week can fit on a CD, 54 days can fit on a DVD, 9.5 months can fit on a single-layer Blu-ray, over a year and a half on a double-layer Blu-ray disc.