Sony debuts UX voice recorders
updated 04:25 pm EST, Tue February 26, 2008
Sony UX voice recorders
Tailing off its media assault, Sony has announced a new UX series of voice recorders, described as "hybrids" for their ability to double as music players. The players can optionally record to higher-quality stereo MP3, and support Macs and PCs as well as ID3 artist and title tagging. The top-end version, the UX80, uses 2GB of flash storage; this amounts to 36 hours of 128kbps MP3, or as much as 581 hours of lower-quality content. The UX70 comes with just 1GB of memory, and can thus record 290 hours of low-quality sound, or 18 hours in MP3. The 80 and 70 should both be released in April, at prices of $150 and $100 respectively.
Sony has meanwhile announced new professionally-targeted recorders in existing lines. The SX68 and SX68DR9 are compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition, and can be used with Sony's Digital Voice Editor software to convert voice to text. Each has just 512MB of memory, however, and only the DR9 ships with NaturallySpeaking.
The P620 has the same amount of memory, and does not record directly to MP3. It compensates for this somewhat by allowing people to overwrite bad dictation during playback. The B600 though has neither this nor any computer functionality, and is meant solely for recording notes or classes.
The SX68 and 68DR9 will launch in April for $150 and $200. The P620 will ship that month for $60, and the B600 will be priced at $40.
UX70
P620
B600
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Feb 2008
Sony Clueless Dictation
Once again Sony engineers have designed a line of dictation machines demonstrating that they have never used dictation equipment.
The new line of Sony recorders does not have the ergonomic design which allows one-handed/one finger intuitive operation such as their venerable yet outdated BM 575, and all other viable dictation units which preceeded it. (I'm still using my BM-75, which is a joy to use, albeit stuck in the stone age.
Until Sony can figure out that there are actually people who dictate notes, correspondence and reports and who demand ergonomically sensible controls on their dictation units, they will continue to fail to meet the market's needs.
Here's a little hint Sony: Go back to the drawing board. Build a unit with a little heft to it, about the size and weight of an old Lanier model P134, package it in a real leather case, give it a decent memory capacity, make it compatible with other recording standards such as DSS, package it with a user-friendly download and transcription software, forget about trying to make it an iPod, alarm clock, camera, MP3 player and lawn mower combination.
Then and only then will you satisfy the market.