Sony ICD-P520 Digital Voice Recorder with 256 MB Built-in Flash Memory and USB | List Price: $69.95
Discount Price: $79.50
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Brand: Sony
Binding: Electronics
Warranty: 1 year warranty
Features: - Digital voice recorder with comprehensive recording capabilities in any situation
- PC-compatible via USB connectivity; 256 MB capacity holds up to 130 hours of recording
- Large LCD display for maximum visibility; intuitive button scheme
- Date and time stamp on each recording for easy organization
- Editor 3.0 software
One step forward, two steps back [Posted on 2008-02-19]
You would think a technologically advanced company like Sony would make great progress over time, but judging by the ICD-P520 they have actually taken several steps backward in important areas since I bought my ICD-70 about ten years ago. My aging voice recorder has been serving me most faithfully through the years (and still is!), even though I have dropped it many times and it now has rattling parts inside and looks quite battered.
The main reason I bought a new recorder recently was to make sure I had a replacement ready when my old one is bound to give up some day. I'm not unhappy with my P520 but looking at ergonomy and user friendliness my old recorder is clearly better. Not what you would expect after ten years.
The ICD-70 had a very good ergonomic shape fitting the hand perfectly with good access to all important controls. Try googling "sony icd-70" and you'll find a picture immediately. Compared to the P520 it had larger and easier to use buttons, it showed both the time and date for recordings where the P520 displays just one, it was much easier to select folders, it had a jog wheel that allowed me to select and play back messages in one place and it had a display light.
The most annoying - and perplexing - difference however is that the P520 needs up to three to four seconds processing time after a recording has been finished! There is no immediate response to pressing the stop button after a recording - you have to wait till processing is finished before you get your beep.
If you're not watching the recorder (which will be the case in many situations) you won't know for several seconds if you actually managed to hit the quite tiny stop button or not. And of course you can't start any new recording during this waiting period. My old ICD-70 does all this instantaneously and it is hard to understand how Sony can produce a much slower product ten years later.
That said, the P520 delivers a vast increase in recording capacity, it has fewer mechanical parts and the recording button is now recessed, meaning my quite frequent accidental recordings are a thing of the past. It also has longer battery life and better sound quality.
Fortunately the accompanying PC software really shines compared to my old recorder. Recordings can easily be transferred to your PC in native, MP3 or WAV formats. But even high quality MP3 files have a notably lower quality than the originals, so much so that I would recommend against using MP3. A nice software function lets you increase playback speed, a very useful feature for journalists like myself when working with recorded interviews. You can also access all recorder settings from the program.
Because of the decline in ergonomy and user interface I would give the P520 no more than three stars. But since it offers excellent value for money and has good software, I'm awarding four stars - with some doubts.
As a final point the P520 will definitely do the job for most people looking to take notes or record interviews or lectures. No need to buy a much more expensive model with functions and frills you'll never use.
do not do it [Posted on 2008-02-28]
It is so very tiny you can't put a finger on the extremely tiny buttons I tried to stop the delivery 5 minutes after I purchased and Amazon and ANT whom I got it from all but ignored me and sure enough,,there it was anyway at my door...a week later I opened it, reluctantly...ugh..can not even hear the sound all the way up!!!
Retro Style Without an On/Off Button [Posted on 2008-03-12]
The styling of this product makes me laugh. In appearance, it's a throw-back to the 1970's transistor radio. Functionality is quite fine, although as a few others have noted, it is slightly non-intuitive. The one thing I don't like is that it does not have an on/off button. You can however, place it in 'hold' mode which turns off the display.
Sony digital voice recorder [Posted on 2008-03-17]
Sony ICD-P520 Digital Voice Recorder with 256 MB Built-in Flash Memory and USB
Awesome product! Great item for the cost.
Horrible, not what you expect from Sony [Posted on 2008-03-18]
I don't know if the copy I purchased was bad, but the sound quality was just terrible. There was a hiss sound present during all recordings that really starts to drive you nuts when you want to listen to a recording. I was driven to purchase this recorder due to the Sony name and I became tired of using my MP3 player with a built in recorder as my conference recorder. Long story short, I'm going back to the MP3 player as my recorder. The initial purchase price was lower and the sound quality of the recordings is stellar in comparison.
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