Review on Olympus DS 2300 Digital Voice Recorder by Chris Meers

I bought the DS-2300 on August 1st, 2006. It works great and I like it BUT it doesn't recognize newer memory cards. And the Olympus customer service center can be tricky to navigate (although some representatives are very knowledgeable and helpful). An M or H format card simply will not work on the DS-2300 without a firmware update. You have two options: 1) send the device to Olympus (at your expense) and they will update the firmware for free and send it back within a week or two; or 2) Download the firmware update from the WINDOWS section to download the DS-2300 on the Olympus website. No, there is no Mac version. So if you're a Mac owner, you'll need to find a PC and download the software onto the PC before downloading (which I did). Very Important: Before flashing an update, you MUST install the latest software that you received on the DS-2300 CD. Therefore, you need to download it in addition to downloading the firmware update from the website. Otherwise, when you try to run a firmware update and you are prompted to connect a device, the device will not be recognized and the firmware update will be aborted. But as soon as you get the latest software on the PC and then run the firmware, everything works great and the firmware is ready in about a minute. Nothing with it! And after that, the device recognizes higher density cards. Conclusion: I like this device. The only thing stopping me from giving this a 5 star rating is the inconvenience of updating the firmware. But if you know how to do it and you have access to a PC, it's very easy.