Customer Reviews:
 great recorder May 21, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
i dont know about people complaining. but i have the voice editing CD and it works great, its transferred as a wav file but you can switch it to mp3 if you want to. great for the price.
 no software support or driver downloads on site. April 19, 2006
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Product works OK for the price.
Problem is that I lost the software and after a computer crash I am unable to download the info. PANASONIC HAS NO DRIVERS FOR THIS PRODUCT ANYWHERE ON THEIR SITE - PERIOD. Many other people have complained about this as well on various sites, I found all of them because I searched so much for the drivers. If anyone can burn me a copy of the Installation CD I will gladly pay you for your time as this product is now useless to me becuase it is stored with information of value to me that I cannot download :(
If you can send me a copy of the CD - please let me know at baltimorerealestate "at" yahoo "dot" com and how much you would want for your time.
 Overall good deal for as inexpensive as it is March 30, 2006
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Overall, this unit does exactly what I needed. For 20 years, I have used micro cassette units. This is generally better in terms of overall operation (you can go directly to diferent dictation events, instead of having to run through a whole tape), recording times are longer, unit is much more compact, etc. Of course, you can't take the tape out and store it away. You either need to download it to your computer or delete it.
The voice quality is about what you would expect from such a compact unit. No real frequency response to be proud of, but voices are clearly recognizable - especially in the dictation mode. Keep in mind its a voice recorder, not an audio recorder.
Another reviewer has commented about the lack of support from Panasonic. In general, their support is weak. I was upgrading to a new computer and couldn't find my Voice Editor software disk that came with the unit. I logged onto Panasonic.com and was stunned to find they didn't provide a copy online. However, not giving up easily, I found that when I go to the english version of the panasonic site in Japan, they not only have the software, but also had different and enhanced versions of it. That site is at http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/cs/soft/download/pro.html
The software is really meant for Windows XP. ME reportedly works, but panasonic is clear that 95/98/2000 and Mac are not supported.
It was interesting that their US site didn't mention or link to this software, but that seems typical of panasonic. They make you work too hard to find and get support.
Technically, I would give the unit four stars (there are better units on the market - but not for the price), but the lack of service is part of the overall product experience, so I gave it three stars overall.
In the end, you get what you pay for. This is a remarkably inexpensive unit and it performs very well for the price.
 Good quality nice small recorder March 11, 2006
Nice small recorder. Very good quality. Battery live is good. i compared sony and olympus. But this one is the only one under 60 bucks came with the PC link (USB cable). and it's small then Olymus. I highly recommend it.
 Recorder OK but can't share the sound files December 18, 2005
30 out of 33 found this review helpful
This is a versatile recorder but it is NOT recommended to anyone that wants to send their recordings to other people or even keep their recordings for the future. The recordings can only be read and edited using a Panasonic software (Voice Studio) which is incompatible with anything else. If you want to save your recordings in mp3, first you have to save to .wav using the proprietary software, then transform wav to mp3 using another software. On top of that, if (as it happened to me) you lose or damage the CD with the Voice Studio installer, there is NO way to get a copy from Panasonic or anyone else. It is absolutely mind-boggling why Panasonic would not offer this software for free, as you cannot use it unless one buys the recorder first.
Bottom line: if you want to keep your recordings in a computer, make sure you buy a recorder that records directly in a known format (preferably mp3). Do not buy this product.
|
