[Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice recorder

Wed May 18 01:20:37 UTC 2011

Thank you, all.

Well, in fact, I'm not looking for a voice recorder developed specially for 
the blind, because they tend to be much more expensive than normal ones and 
tend to have less functions, sorry.  In that sense, the Olympus voice 
recorder might be the best one for me if real improvements have been made. 
But, still, it seems very professional, has many functions I don't need and 
is twice or three times the price I would like to pay.

I'm looking for a cheap voice recorder that everyone can afford and everyone 
can use.  There are very cheap voice recorders, let's say $30 or $40, which 
have just the basic recording functions, but I wonder if someone knows about 
one which is accessible for us and also that connects to the computer by a 
USB port.
I know about the Victor Reader, Milestone, etc, but I don't want to pay 4 or 
10 times more, just for a simple voice recorder that would function like a 
ordinary tape recorder.
About 14 years ago, someone gave me, for my birthday, an ordinary voice 
recorder.  It was wonderful!  It didn't speak out the functions of the 
buttons, but I could use it perfectly well and comfortably.  I didn't need 
voice feedback every time I pressed a button and the absence of such a 
feedback made it much faster.
It had normal rather small buttons and the functions of the buttons were 
very easy to learn and remember.  It was almost like a tape recorder. 
Memory was expensive by that time, so I could only record for about 15 
minutes and it didn't have USB interface.  It costed less than $100.
Nowadays, I think, there must be some voice recorder with just basic 
functions easy for the blind to use, as a result, with USB interface, with 
more recording capacity and perhaps a bit cheaper.
Does someone know about such a device?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dewey Bradley" <deweyspr at mediacombb.net>
To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances" 
<electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice 
recorder

> The VR stream does work quite nice though, but most blind people can't 
> afford it, I'm lucky to live in Missouri I guess, but I think even are 
> library has stopped giveing them out, that's what sucks about it, it is 
> made for us, but we can't aford it.
> O Well
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
> To: "Discussion of accessible electronics andappliances" 
> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 6:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice 
> recorder
>
>
>> At 09:27 AM 5/17/2011, you wrote:
>>>Has the victor gone up that much? I bought mine 3 years ago and it was 
>>>339.
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 9:21:20 am
>>>To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances" 
>>><electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>From: "Frida Aizenman" <aizenman at earthlink.net>
>>>Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice 
>>>recorder
>>>
>>>No, the Stream is $329 as it always was.  I believe what was meant was 
>>>the Book Sense from Hymms, the upper model, the XT I think it is called, 
>>>is $449.
>>
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>>
>>>I come kicking and screaming onto the 21st century. LOL.
>>>Never before in my life, had I had a digital recorder. As far as I am
>>>concern, for now, the Olympus DM520 Digital Recorder with Talking Menus 
>>>is
>>>as good as it gets. It costs $195. Give or take, the Milestone 12 costs
>>>$400. The Victor Reader costs $449. Sure, it has more features, but at 
>>>the
>>>moment, I don't need more. As the saying goes, "You get what you pay 
>>>for."
>>>And don't forget that the next time you want the same product, it might 
>>>not
>>>be around anymore. You no longer can get a Milestone 11 any more. Of 
>>>course,
>>>that is not all bad, because sometimes you find a better product.
>>>The only thing not accessible on the Olympus DM520 is being able to set 
>>>the
>>>time and date by yourself. According to the podcast I listen to, and 
>>>learned
>>>from, the blind community worked with Olympus on accessibility for this
>>>product.
>>>The podcast can be found at:
>>>Blind Cool Tech Podcast
>>>
>>>http://www.blindcooltech.com/
>>>and then link on
>>>Olympus DM520 And DM420
>>>Also, if you go to the Olympus Company at:
>>>olympusamerica.com/support
>>>the manual is on a type of PDF that is inaccessible.
>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>From: "Oso Calmo" <osocalmo at yahoo.co.jp>
>>>To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
>>><electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 7:48 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice
>>>recorder
>>>
>>>
>>> > Thank you, Frida, for telling me your experience.  In fact, I'm 
>>> > looking
>>> > for a much cheaper one: let's say $50 or $60.  There are lots of cheap
>>> > voice recorders, but either they are not accessible or they don't have
>>> > computer interface.
>>> >
>>> > Is your Olympus voice recorder really good?
>>> > In fact, I had a sad experience last year when I tried
>>> > dm-4.  The menues talked but not all the time (all the items). 
>>> > Sometimes
>>> > I had to wait a lot for the voice to come and there were some 
>>> > instances
>>> > where it didn't speak.  So, I thought that I would have to remember 
>>> > all
>>> > the instances it didn't talk to be able to use it comfortably.  There 
>>> > were
>>> > some instances when I had no idea about what was happening unless I 
>>> > ask
>>> > someone to look at the screen.
>>> > Also, I could use daisy to some extent, but it seems that to be able 
>>> > to do
>>> > fine jumps, etc, you have to rely on the screen.  I couldn't install 
>>> > the
>>> > software to easily exchange files with my computer, even using the 
>>> > latest
>>> > version of JAWS.  Jaws couldn't speak any dialogs of the installer and 
>>> > I
>>> > couldn't read them even in review cursor mode.  So I needed sighted
>>> > assistance to have it installed.
>>> >
>>> > Its sound quality is very good and it has lots of interesting 
>>> > functions;
>>> > so I really wanted to be able to use it and buy one, but I got tired. 
>>> > I
>>> > downloaded the manual from the internet and it was really difficult to
>>> > read, too: very specific and, as a result, full of repetitions, 
>>> > absolutely
>>> > easy to read for a sighted person, because they can easily jump to the
>>> > desired item and have all the information they need there, skipping 
>>> > the
>>> > t
>>
>>
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