Finally there are two buttons on the face of the unit, one to erase recordings, and the other to index through the four separate files. Each file can store multiple recordings, so for example, recordings from a meeting can be stored in file A, while personal notes could be stored in file B. There are 99 recordings stored in each of the files, for a grand total of 396 possible recordings.

For interviews conducted over the phone, the voice pen comes with a rather handy little telephone adapter. The small black box plugs into the phone and the phone line plugs into it. An audio cable goes from the box into the mic jack of the unit. If desired, the single earphone can also be plugged into the Voice Pen so you could potentially listen in on the recording as the telephone interview was being conducted. In actuality if you tried to do this it would be a bit distracting because the signal going to the earphone is delayed by a few milliseconds, giving an echo effect when one ear is on the phone receiver, and the other the Voice Pen earphone. The earphone jack is single channel, so if you drop in a regular pair of headphones, the audio will only come out of one earphone, or one channel.

Lastly, of all the bits and pieces that are included with this digital recorder is a software program called 'Voice Manager,' by SIMS. The application allows you to copy recorded files from the Voice Pen to your computer for classification, playback, and even emailing. The raw .wav files can be compressed to save space if necessary, though this results in a decrease in sound quality.

The program is simple to operate, and displays the sound waves visually on the screen so you know that your messages are indeed being received properly by the application.

Conclusions:

On a whole the internal mic is pretty sensitive and can record a conversation or a sound will good results. The recordings are stored as .wav files so obviously you will not be listening to mp3 quality sound. The external mic works best when it is less than about 8 inches from a person speaking, and picks up the sound quite well to.

During playback through the internal 23mm speaker the sound is a bit tiny, but that should be expected from a speaker of this minute magnitude. The output can be quite loud so it is handy, especially when taping a phone interview to turn down the volume a bit before playback. Direct input recordings, like that of a phone conversation, or from a computer offer the best sound quality of any recording because there is no distortion by the surrounding environment.

Can this digital recorder be used as an improvised 'MP3' recorder? Well, since it plays back and records .wav files, technically no. It could obviously be used at a function like concert to record the event, but chances are the mic would be overloaded by the level of sound. Technical problems of recording aside, music is a bit more demanding, and doesn't sound nearly as acceptable on mono.

Personally we found this recorder most effective when using it for telephone interviews. Every once in a while we interview a company for a story we're working on and it can sometimes be difficult to jot down the important information while maintaining a semblance of a conversation with the person on the other end of the phone. Naturally, it also helps to be able to quickly check on a quote if the interview has been recorded. In that sense this little unit has already come in quite handy during our testing. The sound quality of the direct input nature is also a bit better than by using the ambient microphones.

In terms of recording voices the mono channel recording works very well. I would have liked to have seen the earphone output support left and right channels so that a full set of headphones could be used (for instance in a noisy office). The single earphone works very well in environments which are not too noisy, and gives you that James Bond/secret agent appearance too. :) All in all, the Voice Pen is a very useful device to have if you interview people, or like to make notes of ideas on something other than a billion little post-it notes. The Voice Pen is not really geared towards students because of it's ~$249 CDN price tag, but if you can afford it, the convenience of recording up to 500 minutes of lecture without flipping over a tape is well worth it.