Olympus Voice-Trek V-40 and V-50 voice recorders

So Olympus has the perfect solution for those 11 hour lectures you've been sitting through, obsessively writing mountains of notes for, and having an all-around not good time in. Just pop a Voice-Trek V-40 or V-50 on the desk and sink into oblivion while the built-in stereo mic does all the listening. A single AAA should keep this thing hopping for 11 hours or so, and once you're done being edumacated you can spend some quality time with a few PlaysForSure WMA tunes or some MP3s. The recorders come in 512MB and 1GB varieties, which isn't exactly cutting edge for music, but certainly a nice bit of flash for a voice recorder; you can cram 35 hours of stereo voice into the 1GB V-50. Of course the built-in mics on some of these things can really ruin your day when your precious note taking sounds like crap on playback, and there doesn't seem to be a line-in, so only time will tell if your ¥20,000 ($175) or ¥30,000 ($262) investment will be worth it. We sure hope so, because paying attention (in real time) is way lame—it's obviously time to time-shift that presentation.

Update: There does indeed appear to be a line-in. [Thanks, "correction" and OniHanju.]

[correction @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

of course it has 3.5mm stereo line-in jack for external mic. hello, its a voice-recorder.

[OniHanju @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

"there doesn�t seem to be a line-in" just isn't true. According to Olympus' website it has both 1/8" Mic-in and line-out/headphones. It's over-priced though. You get all the same features - a few hours recording time with the WS-100 plus I got mine for under $100 at circuit city! WS-100 works great BTW, good internal mic, WMA, 27hrs, built-in USB w/ mass storage support.

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_vr_digitalrecorders.asp

Seems the V-series is just a rehash and a paint-job. Lamo.

[Blue_Nile @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

seems a little pricy considering a 1gb Iaudio5 is only 135.