Olympus W-10 Review - What we get in the box
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The unit comes with a pretty standard number of necessities:
- case
- USB transfer cable
- Software
- 2AAA cells
- hand strap
Features
The Olympus W-10 isn’t what you may call a “feature-packed” piece, but it comes equipped with the essentials plus a bit more.
It offers voice recording of up to 200 files in two separate folders, for a total of 180 minutes (three hours). The audio is recorded in WAV format and has various sampling rates depending on the Quality setting. The recorder has a 16MB flash memory built-in and is not expandable with external media. It features an internal microphone, built-in speaker and an LCD multi-function display.
On the camera side, it has a 300,000-pixel image sensor and allows taking pictures with the resolution of up to 640x480. The camera does not offer the option to use flash, but it still does a decent job when shooting at less-than-perfectly lit objects inside.
The unit also sports a nice idea that should be incorporated into every single digital recorder on the market – PC connectivity. This feature is particularly important if you are planning to use this unit for what most people intend to use it for – taping lectures in class. Let’s say you want to record your professor on a HQ setting to get the best quality. You only get 45 minutes of recording; after that, it’s delete and re-do time. With this option of connecting the device to your laptop to transfer files with a supplied USB cable, you will save yourself a lot of hassle in school.
Another feature worth noting is the alarm clock (which I find very useful and fun). With the alarm on, you can have the recorder start playing a selected audio file automatically at a set time. Not convinced that it could be fun? You can have it wake you up at a certain time with your mom’s voice telling you to clean your room. Or just imagine recording your friend telling you how he hates his professor. Then slip the recorder in his bag and have it go off during the class blasting at full volume. I won’t be held responsible for what you do with that, but I think there’s fun to be had there.
Another cool feature is VCVA, which is our good old VOX voice activation. When using VCVA be careful; it should really be called VCNA (Variable Control Noise Actuator) for the simple fact that any noise above a certain volume will set it off. The good thing about W-10’s VCVA feature is that its volume level can be manually adjusted. This way you can test it in an environment where you’ll be doing the taping session and adjust the catch point accordingly.
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