Review on SEO-Optimized Digital Recorder: Olympus DM-420 Voice Recording Device by Darryl Jennings

For professional reasons I sometimes have to record interviews and lectures. I already had an Olympus DM-520 (an excellent product) and settled on this DM-420 which is essentially the same but has half the recording capacity. If you need to record important interviews, lectures, etc., it's better to use 2 voice recorders at the same time to have a backup just in case: double recording is much cheaper than possible data loss. The reason for choosing the DM-420 over another DM-520 was the colour: the DM-520 is black and the DM-420 is silver, making the recorders fairly easy to identify. And actually I think for most users 500 hours or 1000 hours will mean the same thing. Remember: 500 hours means about 21 days of continuous recording, and the battery does not last 1 day. As previously mentioned, the DM-420 and DM-520 are very similar. They use the same technology, the same microphone (which is the most important component of a digital recorder) and the same software. These are by far the best portable non-professional digital recorders I've seen for several reasons: 1. The microphone is very, very accurate. Other cheaper recorders (including other Olympus models) distort the sound and in some cases are not easy to hear and understand; 2. The batteries last a long time (I'd say around 20 hours of continuous recording); 3. The software is good. Of course it could be better, but at least it's ok and represents a huge improvement over previous Olympus software versions;4. They are so light and small and come with a stylish protective case; 5. The operation is very simple and intuitive. Management is reasonable; 6. Voice activation function (meaning recording will automatically pause when voice stops) is very useful for both saving recording time and facilitating further transcription of recorded content; 7. The headphones are of excellent quality, comparable to iPods and the like. But Olympus made a big mistake: when I first tried these DM-420s, I thought they were ineffective. In fact it wasn't, but it came with completely dead batteries. They had no problems in production: they were simply discharged, so they had to be charged before use. When I bought the DM-520 a few months ago, I received it with fully charged batteries, which I think is the right way to go. I think this error is not enough to prevent a five star review as the product itself is very useful. Olympus could have been more careful with such details. I recommend this product for its excellent performance and very cheap price compared to excellent quality.