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Review on EVISTR 16Gb Digital Voice Reorder by Nick Andep

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Ideal for lectures or meetings!

First the bad news and the reason why it doesn't get 5 stars. The manuals for this line of recorders are still difficult to follow, but this is the worst. And you don't have the option to go online to download a more complete manual like you did for their other recorders. This is not only difficult to read, but appears to be wrong on at least a few points. This is fine for helping you understand the basics, but not for more advanced operations like repeating part of a recording. To do this, you just have to solve it yourself. Now the good news. This recorder's menu function is best of all - you can access most of the recorder's functions by simply pressing the menu button and then working your way through the menu - no confusing graphics, just nice text and logical sub-menus. Almost every key wakes up the radio. The Play button starts playback of the last recording. The record button starts the recorder recording in the last configured format - there are three of them - MP3, High, Medium. They are selected via the "Recording" submenu. One of the features I miss on this recorder is the ability to adjust the recording level - the level is set using the automatic gain control. This can be problematic, but works surprisingly well with this recorder. There is not much "breathing” in quiet places, and loud speech does not have a pronounced "pinch” effect. For lectures or classroom meetings, it seems to work very well. This voice recorder has a RESET hole on one side. I had to use it once when I couldn't get the recorder to respond to button presses. With the built-in 16 GB memory, the device records for many hours even at the highest recording resolution. External storage is available via TF card (Micro SD card). The literature says 16, 32 and 64GB, but I've used both a 4GB card and an 8GB card with no problems. You can choose which storage to record to, but the setup isn't very intuitive. You can do this to share the recording with the other party - this can be done by writing to a TF card and then sharing. I was impressed by the recorder's size and weight. My record time didn't reach the advertised 70 hours, but it was enough for weeks of college classes. Also, my use involved a lot of menu experimentation, which left the LCD backlit, which probably draws as much power as the rest of the recorder. If you're recording a critical meeting or lecture, I would definitely charge for it in advance. It doesn't take long to fully charge - one less hassle. I've tried several recordings of live music events, but the quality of the built-in microphones is optimized for speech, not instruments. Also, AGC isn't ideal for anything with quiet passages. However, if that's all you need to record an event, use it. It's better than having no records at all. This device has a line-in function, so you can record sound from your cell phone or any device with a headphone output - it even comes with a short cable to connect it. Also included is a USB cable to connect the recorder to a charger or computer to download recorded files and headphones to listen to the recordings.

Pros
  • Storage: 8GB + 32GB
Cons
  • Little things