That is it, our stock of the DS-5000 has gone and a quick phone call to Olympus in Sydney confirmed that they too have none left, the Olympus DS-5000 is now officially discontinued in Australia.
So what are we to make of its replacement the new Olympus DS-7000. Well to be honest a close look at the specs doesn’t show anything too hugely different. This is a good thing, anyone who deals with professionals who dictate will know that big change is not always welcome – experienced dictators don’t have time to learn new devices and those already used to the older Olympus digital dictaphones (DS-5000/DS-4000) will feel right at home with the DS-7000. For those new to digital dictation, people moving from the analog micro and mini cassettes should also feel comfortable moving to the new generation of Olympus professional digital dictaaphones, especially the DS-7000 thanks to that slide switch control.
The stand outs for me with the Olympus DS-7000 are:
- New larger colour screen
- New rechargeable battery that charges quicker and lasts longer than the DS-5000 battery
- Improved microphone
- Better integration with Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows directly via the ODMS (Olympus Dictation Management System)
- Improved Dragon accuracy score assigned by Nuance themselves – scoring five our of six Dragons
Full details of the complete comparison between the Olympus DS-5000 vs DS-7000 can be found by clicking here. This shows the changes between the two models.