Do you use you dic ta phone?

Advantages: Great recording and playback quality.
Disadvantages: Too complicated and 'busy'.

...itself to use to record and playback, and in fact playback can be played back up to 20% slower, handy for taking notes.The recorder easily picks up any noise in the room so two people talking (which is what I use it for) is very easily recorded at a distance of a couple of metres and plays back really clearly. Everything is easily erasable and up to 3 recordings (each up to an hour) can be held in the recorder before transferring them to PC. The other functions and funtion buttons (alarm etc.) get rarely used and I wonder if they are all a bit uneccessary. To transfer to PC is easy, to store and collate is easy, though they are not easily saved to a CD, special software (which comes with the system) has to be used, and it is all a bit faffy, it would have been much easier if they could have been saved as, say MP3 files. This, in my...

paulhanton 24.03.2008 · Read review
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Review of Olympus VN 480PC

Neat little thing

Advantages: small, tidy, good sound quality
Disadvantages: feels cheap, not rechargable

...I got this little gadget for £39.99 for a counselling course, where I need to be able to record "practise" goes (with other students!). So, it needed to be discreet, have good sound quality and I wanted to keep the voice files on the PC to review later and work out how I'd progressed. Manufacturers say you can record up to 480 minutes long play on this, but I've not tested this! It's quite flexible as you are able to store files in three separate folders plus one that will put a specific recording in a specific date for you - perhaps to remind you to do something. Software loaded easily and is very self-explanatory. The only thing I would say is that if you need to transcribe from the recording - letters and memos for example - the software is not adequate. For transcription you would need a separate transcription kit...

wimblejigs 10.04.2007 · Read review
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Review of Olympus VN480PC

OLYMPUS VN-3100

Advantages: Record upto 36 hours, digital sound quality, compact device with mic
Disadvantages: Microphone not as effective as I thought

.... The OLYMPUS VN-3100 is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/VISTA. To use the device it is recommended to install the required software with the provided CD. Install the CD by following the simple instructions, it will take you about 5-10 minutes to install the software depending on the speed of your computers processor. The devices software will not be installed on your desktop, but instead in your list of programs under the name OLYMPUS DIGITAL WAVE PLAYER. Once the software has been installed, connect the device to your PC or laptop via the provided USB cable. Your computer may come up with a message stating that you need to install driver software, do not ignore the message and accept driver software installation. After the driver software has been installed you will be able to transfer your sound recordings onto your PC or laptop...

yassarikhan786 26.04.2008 · Read review
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Review of Olympus VN-3100

Samsung F480

Advantages: Innovative, fun to use
Disadvantages: takes getting used to

...I got the Samsung F480 recently as a free upgrade from my contract provider, I don't think I would have paid for this phone as I'm fairly clumsy and wouldn't have been convinced the large screen would have lasted more than a month. The phone itself however isn't as fragile as it looks and I haven't managed to do any damage to it yet (Despite dropping it on several occasions and sitting on it once.) I'm not going to go in all the technical details of the phone as I don't think they provide you what you really need to know about the phone so I'll stick to the stuff that I use a mobile for. Navigating you way round the menu's on the phone is fairly easy and I find the touchscreen quite innovative, the menu's follow the standard Samsung format and you can find everything you need quite easily, the phone is obviously an attempt to rival...

skipper6 05.09.2008 · Read review
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Review of Samsung SGH-F480

Olympus VN 960 PC

Advantages: Tiny, sensitive microphone, incredible battery life
Disadvantages: Software provided isn't too good, no pause button

...I bought this digital dictaphone about a month ago to help me when it came to revising lectures at university. The size of it is so small that it can easily be hidden in a pencil case, and the microphone is so sensitive that it can even pick up the lecturer's voice when sitting halfway back in a massive lecture theatre. Battery life on this machine is incredible - it only uses two AAA's which last for well over 10 hours recording. The software it comes with doesn't agree too well with my Windows XP - it keeps asking me for the installation CD every time I plug it in to transfer the .WAV files to my PC. That's another disadvantage - I needed to download a .WAV to .MP3 converter software, because 20 hours of lectures a week ended up taking up quite a meaty chunk of my hard drive in little time. Overall, I'd thoroughly recommend...

cheesemouse 19.02.2007 · Read review
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Review of Olympus VN 960 PC

Samsung F-480 (Tocco)

Advantages: Incredibly stylish and functional
Disadvantages: None as of yet!

...At first a little apprehensive, after always having Samsung products i wondered if it would live up to it's rivals! It does! The F480 (Or Tocco as commonly known) is an excellent example in it's class. The camera at first glance is a little dissapointing but with a the correct settings and when pictures uploaded onto your computer, the quality really shines through. Simple, easy to use functions and the ultra responsive touch screen are an asset to this mobile phone. The widget feature is brilliant, although a little too responsive and sometimes frustrating! Basic menu functions include, text messages, phone book, my files, applications, music player etc and more! Little hidden extra gems included, such as world clock (which can be viewed in the widget) converter, video editor, voice recorder and the uber impressive music...

Linseyanne 27.10.2008 · Read review
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Review of Samsung SGH-F480

The Samsung SGH - F480

Advantages: Looks great, has lots of useful functions and you can personalise it to your exact needs.
Disadvantages: Slow internet, hardly ever get a 3G signal and the text messaging keypad could be improved.

...The Samsung SGH - F480, also known as the Samsung Tocco is an ultra-stylish touch screen mobile phone. With its great looks and its 5 mega pixel camera the Samsung Tocco is one of the best choice of touch screen mobile phones out on the market today. It is so simple to use yet there are so many different functions built into it so you can do to it to make it exactly how you want. Like many other phones, as soon as you turn the phone on you are greeted with your home-screen. On the tocco's home-screen there is a sliding bar along the side called the touch wiz where you can store all of your favourite applications, such as your music player, and simply drag them onto the main screen of the phone when you want to use it. This is a great function as if you like to have a clear home-screen on your phone it allows you to have one just by...

T.Johnson 22.07.2009 · Read review
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Review of Samsung SGH-F480

VAIO BZ12VN

Advantages: pretty decent laptop
Disadvantages: quite expensive

...This Sony VAIO BZ12VN is another new laptop from sony. Its one of their full sized laptops rather than the smaller notebooks that they have been bringing out and seemingly concentrating no recently. The installed ram on this laptop is a massive 4gb, meaning its not just fast, its extremely fast. Loading up and running even the most demanding programs seem a breeze. Also above average is the amount of hard drive that this laptop has. It has a fantastic 320gb of storage space for all those media needs and data needs too. This amount of space is well more than enough for me and should be enough for nearly everyone too as it is quite a spacious hard drive. The laptop also has a quite nice 15.4 inch TFT screen, this is the average size for laptop screens, it might make the laptop a little bigger, and therefore less portable but it...

techno_man_37 09.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of Sony VAIO BZ Series VGN-BZ12VN

Samsung F480 - Its good but its not great

Advantages: Good features and applications, good looking phone
Disadvantages: Touch screen too sensitive, poor battery life, poor flash facility on camera

...The Samsung SGH-F480 is a great looking, slimline sleek little phone, but in my opinion these touch screen mobiles are vastly over-rated. The F480 has a wide range of features, camera, mp3, radio, camcorder, bluetooth etc etc and the quality of the features is never in doubt, its simply too sensitive! For instance when making a phone call, you push the phone too closely to your ear and you cut off the caller! Subsequently, you cannot hear the caller as you are trying not to press the phone too hard against your ear. You need to access touch buttons whilst in call and it takes you 2 or three buttons before you can access this. Also beware when the call requires you to select numeric options - after you have finally accessed the keyboard on the screen you may have been cut off or if you do get it to work in time the automated caller...

cheesytola1 20.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Samsung SGH-F480

"Samsung Tocco F480" A review - My best phone yet

Advantages: Smart, modern and professional - perfect
Disadvantages: Can take a while to get used to, but tell me something that doesn't!

..., you'll also notice you get some CD's with it. Pop these into your computer and install the special program just for this phone. This then allows you to move files from your computer to your phone, which is great for putting the music you love onto your phone for when your off and about. A cable comes with the phone, of course and the program is quick and easy to set up. Also, the program can be password protected incase a naughty little brother or someone came along and wanted to get at it, or maybe I'm the only one again... Anyway, I think this is a good phone all round and I charge mine every other night, so it's not at all bad. Thanks for reading, Connor...

ConnorH 19.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Samsung SGH-F480