I did not get this device for the camera. At 0.3Mp, it is not as good as my Philips key019 at 2Mp (too bad they don't make those anymore). It came with it, so I have it Picture seems ok. Probably comparable to some phones.It seems to offer all the settings that one may want for a voice recorder: Quality control (3 settings), mic sensitivity (conf, dictation) and AVR with AVR level setting.
I do not intend to use less than the HQ (best) level recording as you can already put more than 8 hours of it on there. At that level, the sound is clear. It seems to pick up well with the internal mic and maybe better with the provided external mic (but the difference would not justify going through great length to use the external one).
I saw some other review for other RCA voice recorders on the quality of the sound where people could not make the difference between 's' and 'f' and what not, but I don't experience this with this device. All seems clear. Obviously, background noise will act the way it usually does (as it does with camcorders...)
Connectivity: this is why I took 4 stars and not 5.
It seems that with version 1.07 of the firmware, there is a problem with computers that have external HDs (plugged in or not).
Without any, the connectivity works fine. With one, you might have a problem hanging the Windows explorer when trying to view the RCA files (voice or images) in the Windows explorer (it will hang).
The work around (until they provide a fw update), is to change the drive letter from the external HD (my Seagate on E:) to something else (like S:). Then you can connect the RCA device that will happily work. You can then change the drive letter for the RCA device (from the Disk Manager starting under the Administrative tools -at least on XP-) to R: for example and restore the drive letter for the external HD to E:.
Then all will work fine. Nothing should really try to use R: (way up in the list). So connectivity problems with external HDs, but you have the work around here.
This issue with the "solution" has been passed on to RCA and if they follow through, they should fix this in the newer device or provide a firmware update that should fix this so that you won't have to deal with this issue, if you encounter it.
Overall, I like this recorder.
It's intuitive.
It does what I want it to do. I can hear and understand what I record (I'm not getting HiFi stereo, but it's also not a very expensive recorder).
Buttons are ok (not too cheap, but not high end either).
You get what you pay for. Considering that there are some that are 4x the price, at this price, I think the package is quite fine.
People who leave comments on this tend to forget this. If you pay less than the maximum, you can't be complaining about what's missing on it (like the key019 where people would complain about not having the bells and whistles, but it's perfect for in the pocket and for someone like my mother: easy to use and yet still gives very descent pictures... so descent that I don't see myself get a bigger 5Mp camera for myself and just use my wife's...).
They also provide the NiMh AAA that you need and it will recharge off the base, which is convenient (if you run out, you can always stick some regular AAA that you can get anywhere, but I would be careful about plugging it in the USB base with regular AAA because you don't want to recharge regular AAA!).
External mix is really nice to have and the pouch is a bit like some cellphone pouches. It's open on the top, so you can be recording with it in the pouch (doesn't cover the internal mic at the top).
Could have wished for more memory or external SD slot, but with more than 8h with HQ, it's probably more than I care to keep on the device. I could try lowering the quality (maybe not so noticeable) to get more hours, but usually with more memory, people tends to leave a lot of unnecessary files that do nothing more than take some space... With the older tape, you only got 30mn (or maybe 1h) in the HQ and the quality of the sound was not as good as with this device.
With the docking station, it is easy to move the files from 'it' to the computer and make some space for later... and you recharge it at the same time...
As for durability, I don't know yet as I have only had this device for 24h. I don't expect any problems.
I hope this helps.
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Product Description:
RCA Digital Voice Recorder with 128 mb built in flash memory -includes editing functions, built in speaker, built in microphone, recording quality selector, low battery indicator, headphone jack, docking station, carrying case and rechargeable batteries.
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