Olympus VN-541 PC Digital Voice Recorder with 4 GB Flash Memory with Amazon Basics Batteries

I was writing a book and my dyslexia hindered me this item, really aided my progress and helped get the book moving quicker

Having trouble get CD for dictation package to work

I bought this recorder mainly for the abiity to transcribe to the Dragon speech recognition text. I already have Dragon Home on my desktop so put this on to my laptop for portabiity.The Olympus recorder: compact and easily carried in a pocket or bag without taking up too much space. A plastic casing but looks and feels robust. Button controls easy to use although my stubby fingers had a little dificulty with the power button. Recording button easy to switch on and off. It has a nice groove on the reverse side to make it easy to grip without slipping. Very pleased with this.Speech recognition: As in the title I got 95% accuracy on the first trial. I have a slight antipodean accent but I wouldn't think this made too much difference. I have not yet done any corrective training with it and having used it only the once it is not familiar with my speech patterns - though I don't yet understand how it will 'learn' as it does.I will be using this for taking notes from books and texts rather than writing them down as I read, for thoughts and ideas as they occur to me while doing this, and to dictate essays and reports. I am prepared to review and correct the transcriptions and for my purposes don't need total accuracy on the first draft. I was therefore very happy with how this worked and the level of accuracy achieved. My desktop Home version is slightly more accurate but not significantly - about 98% - but I have used this for some time.Portable and sufficiently accurate so highly recommended.

I have not got on with this product at all. I wanted to use for recording and transcribing interviews. The transcription is not accurate at all. I have spoken to the supplier who said the product is not designed for dual speech and that I should be speaking a lot more slowly and more carefully into the microphone (which would just be very frustrating). You have to spend a lot of time training it to your voice before it is comfortable to recognise it. It would probably take less time to listen back to the recording and type it up yourself.

So far, I am very happy with the Olympus VN-541 PC Digital Voice Recorder. I, however, had not had enough time with the accompanying software, Dragon Naturally Speaking 12. All the same, the installation process was completed successfully after having to complete a personal voice profile prior to completing the setup.Thank you for your service.

I use Dragon software as I need to make many client notes working as a business consultant.I bought this as an update thinking it would be better than the existing Dragon software (Dragon Naturally Speaking 13.0) and my old Olympus recorder that I have had for several years.I was wrong and utterly disappointed - a complete waste of money.1. The build quality is poor although I accept this is a cheap recorder.2. The software it turned out was actually an older version of the software I already had and have been using for at least 1 year - it said that I should use what I already have, so that was a wast of money.3. When I tried to 'train' the recorder, it kept crashing the Dragon software - so failed to do that.4. Tried recording something on this recorder and then recorded the same text on my old (but more expensive) Olympus recorder, the new Olympus VN-541 was terrible in comparison - like going back to the early days of using dragon software about 5 years ago.So, my verdict is do not waste your money on this - if you need something to do the job properly, buy a better quality recorder and get the Dragon software separately.

It is great, use for lectures so I can review and study efficiently

Quite simply,excellent and easy to use - even for an Oldie like me!