Olympus WS-210S Digital Voice Recorder Review

The Olympus WS-210S Digital Voice Recorder is an affordable recorder that can be used for many different purposes. Despite its relatively cheap price, it has many features and records in good quality.

This Olympus digital voice recorder is tiny at just about three inches in length, one inch wide and maybe a quarter of an inch thick. In the picture above you can see how it compares to the size of an average wallet.

All of the easy to use buttons and commands are located on the front of the player. A quick look at the manual will teach you how to navigate the menus and from there using the Olympus WS-210S is very intuitive and easy to master.

The Olympus WS-210S Digital Voice Recorder comes with a 512 MB capacity, which translates to well over 125 hours of recording time. This ensures that you never have to worry about running out of space. It operates using just one AAA battery. The battery life seems pretty solid as I've used the digital recorder on many occasions and have not yet needed to change it out. You do need to be careful though, as you're warned that if the battery dies while you are recording something that recording is lost permanently.

The recorder itself easily pulls apart to reveal a USB connector. You can plug it straight into your computer and instantly copy or transfer your recordings to your hard drive. On the recorder itself, you can create new files and store them in one of five different folders. In this way you can always keep track of where certain recordings may be. It's very easy to toggle between recordings and between folders.

This digital voice recorder enables you to play back what heard at a variety of slow and fast speed settings. The slow speed settings make it easier to transcribe your recordings, whether from a lecture, an interview or anything else.

Since I use the Olympus WS-210S to record some interviews over the phone, I opted for an optional accessory known as the Olympus TP7 TelephonePickup. This is basically an ear piece microphone that lets you pick up both what you say and what the person on the other line says easily and without having to use speaker phone.

The price for the Olympus WS-210S digital voice recorder is currently about $60 although that's sure to change as time goes on. You aren't getting the best quality that the expensive digital recorders can produce, but you're paying a fraction of the price. It has great capacity to handle short range conversations and you can switch between settings to capture more or less background or distant noises.

If you're looking for an affordable digital voice recorder that's going to be able to handle almost any basic situation, the Olympus WS-210S is a great choice. If you're looking for more features or absolute top quality, you will have to look for pricier models.