This is a wonderfully working voice/memo recorder, with some small exceptions. The weight it has for its small size gives it an obvious feel of being sturdy and solidly-made. I'm very glad it's made of metal that isn't wimpy and light. The recording level/volume is also very good seeing that it has 7 gain levels although I always use the highest gain level to make sure of the recording volume being enough so the playback volume doesn't have to be the max. There is a plastic screen protector adhesive stuck to the back when you buy it, and if desired can be cut to the size of the screen so as to protect it from scratches. You can leave it at full size and cover the entire front, but covering the speaker greatly reduces playback volume and after a short while it won't stick to the buttons.
Here are suggestions for the company who makes this, and also things to be mindful of for potential buyers. Although I of course wish these following things were different and to me would make this recorder to be absolutely on the top of the world perfectly ideal, to me it is still a recorder that works well and is made solid and sturdy or rugged.
1) The font of the menu options and filenames, should be a Sans Serif font instead of a Serif font, and should be able to be increased at least by 1 or 2 point sizes. The lacking smoothness at certain places in the characters makes it necessary to look longer and sometimes also use a magnifying glass or reader glasses, while a Sans Serif font is smoother and easier to read.
2) Certain places of text have a background that is between regular green and light green. This background is too light for the white text and it is necessary to use a magnifying glass or be in a darker room to make out the white text. In the menus, it is necessary to move the highlight off of the option that is selected in order to read it and then move the highlight back, until the menu options are memorized.
3) The standby timer and power off timer do not function together, something is wrong as though a programming bug. Regardless of what I set the standby timer to, it does not obey it or else changes the setting on its own, by itself, and the recorder does not go into standby mode but instead just turns off. If the power off timer is set and the standby timer is turned off, then it turns off after that number of minutes.
4) There should be brightness levels that are brighter than it goes to now. For indoor use or if it isn't very bright outside like on a dark cloudy day or at night or in darker shade, the maximum brightness is OK. However, for outdoors on a clear day with bright sunlight, even the max brightness isn't good enough. Even when I'm turned with the sun at my back, it is very difficult to read the screen, made more difficult by a Serif font that isn't smoothe and needs thicker lines or semi-bold.
5) It would be very helpful if the recorder would display whatever the actual folder names are instead of only the default names of "A" & "B" & "C" & "D". I tried this by connecting the recorder to my computer and renaming the folder "A" to be descriptive of what my memos are for. The recorder still displayed the folder name of "A". It would also be helpful if there was an option to create a new folder in case of the unexpected need to make recordings about something that is realized when not at home and with no computer available. As it is now, a person must remember which of the four lettered folders are used for each particular topic that recordings are being made for (i.e., instead of being able to rename each folder to describe the topic), and if all 4 folders become used for a certain purpose then there is no option to create another folder
6) Because of the small screen, the filenames should be able to be named shorter. The part of the filename that is off the screen is most of the time-stamp when the recording was made on the date portion of the filename that is visible. Which means the only way to see the full filename is to select it and then wait for it to scroll into view, but the greenish background makes the white text of the filename to be very hard to see except with a magnifying glass or in a dark room and with the brightness at the max level. There should be an additional format options for the date and also the time: for the date, MM-DD-YY (i.e., a shortened year) and MM-DD (i.e., for people who deal with their recordings soon after making them and then delete them, thus making the year unnecessary), and for the time, HH-MM to not include the seconds since it's not necessary to see what the seconds are for knowing when the recording was made.
7) Since the filenames are a long sequence of numbers, an option should exist for those who would like the date and time to be separated in the filename, by a heiphen/dash between the date and time.
8) The playback position should be remembered in the file being played, so it doesn't have to be fast-forwarded to while doing your best to clearly read the time as its fast-forwarding.
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