iDictate – Digital Voice Blog

Olympus Voice Australia have just issued another new wholesale price list to its Australian resellers confirming three more discontinued voice recorders, a huge price cut for one popular recorder and the official launch of the new WS series recorders earlier than expected.

Discontinued: In the digital note taker range the very pricey but sheek WS-331M finally gets the chop along with the very popular WS-210S, which of course had to happen just as I wrote a huge review on the recorder! Also removed from the product range is the J300 analogue micro cassette dictaphone.

Price Cuts: The J500 analogue micro cassette dictaphone has been dropped to the same price as the axed J300 and is RRP $149.00 incl. GST now. But of note is a huge price cut for the WS-110 digital note taker dropping from RRP $355.00 incl. GST to only RRP $195.00 incl. GST

Launched: As reported in my last blog post “Olympus Australia Revamp Entire WS Series Range Of Digital Voice Recorders” the new replacement WS series digital note takers are now officially launched in Australia and their pricing has been confirmed.

• WS-450S (replaces the WS-210S) – RRP $295.00 incl. GST
• WS-550M (replaces the WS-311M) – RRP $395.00 incl. GST
• WS-560M (replaces the WS-321M & WS-331M) – RRP $495.00 incl. GST

The release of these new recorders came a week earlier than expected.

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Today I finally heard what is being planned for the WS series digital voice recorders in Australia. If you have been reading my posts over the last few months you would have seen many changes in the Olympus Australia recorder line up. We have seen the DS range or digital dictaphones fully replaced and just recently the same was on the cards for the WS series.

Already the WS-311M and WS-321M recorders are discontinued and I hear that the WS-210S and WS-331 are close to being retired also in the coming week or so. These massively popular recorders are going to need something pretty special to take their place and here they are:

A complete new range of WS series recorders soon to hit Australia, the WS-450S, the WS-550M and the WS-560M. Yep they look similar, they are a similar size and carry the same features as the old recorders like multiple folders, multiple recording modes and amazing audio pickup. The main differences I can see from my first look are:

• More available memory.
• Retractable or slide out USB connector.
• Battery recharged while USB connected (WS-550M & WS-560M only).

More available memory

Only to be expected as the price of solid state memory falls and becomes more affordable that Olympus cram more into their WS series recorders. By having more memory available the recorders can start to again compete to be multi function devices, not content with being some of the best digital note takers around they can also act as your memory stick for storing your digital media and also, in the case of the WS-550M and WS-560M, will function as your music player.

Maximum recording times for the new WS series recorders:

Olympus WS-450S – 1Gb of built in flash memory

• [ST XQ] mode: 17 h. 20 min – stereo
• [ST HQ] mode: 34 h. 45 min – stereo
• [ST SP] mode: 69 h. 35 min – stereo
• [HQ] mode: 69 h. 35 min – mono
• [SP] mode: 137 h. 00 min – mono
• [LP] mode: 272 h. 25 min – mono

Olympus WS-550M – 2Gb of built in flash memory

• [ST XQ] mode: 34 h. 30 min – stereo
• [ST HQ] mode: 69 h. 40 min – stereo
• [ST SP] mode: 139 h. 25 min – stereo
• [HQ] mode: 139 h. 25 min – mono
• [SP] mode: 247 h. 10 min – mono
• [LP] mode: 544 h. 55 min – mono

Olympus WS-560M – 4Gb of built in flash memory

• [ST XQ] mode: 69 h. 30 min – stereo
• [ST HQ] mode: 139 h. 35 min – stereo
• [ST SP] mode: 278 h. 10 min – stereo
• [HQ] mode: 278 h. 10 min – mono
• [SP] mode: 547 h. 25 min – mono
• [LP] mode: 1,088 h. 05 min – mono

Retractable or slide out USB connector

This is something new and from me something very welcome. The old WS series design, although ingenious, did not lend itself to blokes like me. The units themselves used to pull apart seperating into two pieces, one held the battery the other the USB connector and display unit. The release button which had to be held down while pulling the unit apart was small and for large handed people like me a bit tricky. This new design looks fantastic, its simple and doesn’t require you to have small fingers to operate it successfully. A slide switch on the side of the new WS series models extends out a high speed USB 2.0 connector from the bottom of the unit.

Battery recharge while USB connected

Oh Olympus you were so close to perfection with this one. The WS-550M and WS-560M recorders come with a single rechargeable AAA battery (BR401 is the code if you ever need to order one) which can be recharged by the unit itself when USB plugged to a computer, very handy. What I would have loved to have seen would be the units actually powered by USB, never mind, USB recharge of batteries is a step in the right direction. From a single battery you still get an impressive 15 to 20 hours of recording time (depending on the recording mode selected).

No news as yet on the price of these new Olympus models or their release date. I would expect them to all be available in Australia before the end of August and I would estimate that they will come in at similar pricing to the outgoing WS-210S, WS-311M and WS-321M models.

Olympus Europe press release announcing the new WS series digital voice recorders.

For more information on these and other Olympus voice recorders in Australia contact us via:  twitter.com/dictates – sales@dictate.com.au or on the phone at 1300 787 092

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The little Olympus WS-210S digital voice recorder has been around in Australia now since October 2007 and is easily our most popular digital voice recorder at Dictate Australia. So why is this little recorder so popular?

• Small and lightweight
• Very easy to use
• Excellent audio pickup and quality
• Great price point for a quality voice recorder
• Compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking v10 Preferred
• Both Windows and Intel Mac compatible
• Fully featured with variable voice activation (VCVA) and low cut noise filtering

These are just a few of its qualities. So lets look a little closer at this recorder and what it can do.

Click image for larger view

More

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Well they have done it again, Olympus Australia announced on Friday (10th July 2009) that the Olympus WS-311M (512Mb) and WS-321M (1Gb) digital notetakers were now discontinued in Australia. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, not so much the WS-321M as being a middle model (sandwiched beween the WS-311M and WS-331M) they very rarely get sold, but the WS-311M was a very popular choice at Dictate Australia.

When you compare them, there were only a few minor differences between the Olympus WS-311M and the Olympus WS-210S. Apart from being different colours, the WS-311M had it’s record button on the side, mimicking the digital dictaphones, as well as an additional stop and play button on the side, the WS-210S only has buttons on the front panel.

The WS-331M and WS-321M also had noise cancellation which was available via the DSS Player software, the WS-210S does not.

There was also a very slight difference in max. record times, this was due to a slightly higher frequency response used by the WS-311M/WS-321M recorders, not enough to be noticeable.

The WS-311M/WS-321M could also direct record to a Windows PC hard drive instead of the onboard memory using the supplied software.

The WS-311M was one of my personal favourite recorders and will be sadly missed, if you can sadly miss a digital voice recorder!

Usually we have an inkling that something is likely to change. We keep a very close eye on the Olympus America and Olympus Europe websites and quite often we can see up-and-coming new models. There appears to be no replacement coming for the WS-311M and the WS-321M so I think it is safe to say we are just going to be left with the WS 210S and a very classy looking piano black Olympus WS-331M in the small digital notetaker class.

This blog post was written using MacSpeech Dictate – Voice Recognition of Intel Mac

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