Unsurpassed ruggedness and battery life.

The VN-120 is a handy recorder that suffices for everyday use. I purchased it solely to test the features as it was the first digital recorder I located that offered more than one hour of time at less than $40. I like the recorder although it has a few shortcomings which I shall point out shortly. It does what it says and meets my major criteria - It Works Right Out of the Box. (Note that this is the regular VN-120, not the newer model that has the suffix "PC".) In terms of ruggedness, this item outstrips any conceivable motorized device and appears unaffected by heat, cold, humidity or shock. It seems impervious to the abuse I have heaped upon it for years.

It is very conservative on batteries, making it more reliable than any portable tape deck. The unit uses ordinary AAA cells and there is a battery strength indicator on the display. That is handy because the unit begins to act funny when the charge is low. However, the nice thing about the VN-120 is that it lacks the drain-down of mechanical recorders and it will still work well right up until the batteries are stone cold dead. (Shut it off for a half-hour and you can get another ten minutes out of the residual charge.)

All of the basic menu items are easy to use and the VN-120 has three folders, called A. B, and C. This thoughtful feature helps keep things organized - the playback is sequential and you get essentially three starting points instead of one. These folders overlap electronically, so you could use up time in any combination or all on one folder until you get a "full" message. Alas, the recorded messages cannot be accessed randomly, you must go past every one to get to a given message. There is a skip feature and you can scroll forward and backward through the messages, but it is still sequential - only the actual memory is digital, not the entire recorder.

The design is shaped like a small cell phone, so it is non-intimidating to use in public. The volume thumb-wheel is located where it should be for right-handers. The speaker is el-cheapo and is mounted on the back of the casing, so you can hold it to your ear just like a cell phone for private listening without having to hunt for an earplug. The tradeoff is that when you hold the recorder in front to look at the controls, the speaker is facing away from you. That's a duh. Also, your hand can accidentally muffle the speaker when holding the recorder in this natural position.

The microphone sensitivity can be set to Hi or Lo, but it is surprisingly sensitive in both modes if you use your imagination. The quality of sound is terrible even on the HQ (High Quality) setting, making this strictly a voice recorder. It is not suitable for music. The quoted recording time is optimistically based on the lowest quality mode and you will quickly learn to use the better settings and sacrifice length. The VN-120 has both a microphone jack and an ear/headphone jack, which are of dubious usefulness because the unit is light enough to use even while driving. The output jack can be hooked to your computer sound card's microphone jack to archive your material. No, you can't trick the unit by recording in Lo and playing back in Hi, etc.

I dislike the exposed Play and Record buttons. This recorder can and will turn itself on when kept in a pocket or fanny pack. There is a slide switch called "Hold" that shows Olympus is aware of this problem, but unfortunately, this switch suffers from exactly the same defect. Just moving around can cause the unit to begin playing while you frantically dig it out and fumble for the stop button. Or, it can record nothing to the end of the available time. One curious part is the pocket clip built into the side of the recorder. My pockets have a front and back but no sides, so it is unclear what Olympus intends this clip to be used for.

It is also difficult to delete individual messages. Again, you have to locate the message first by scrolling, and then push three buttons in the correct order. This is probably to make sure every delete is deliberate. There is a global delete that works for each folder, though I prefer not to use it. You are wiser to record the entire contents onto your computer before deleting anything. (This works well when teamed up with Audacity software. I have a client who says he has succeeded in operating his VN-120 with Dragon Naturally Speaking, but I have not personally seen the results.)

The display can be set to three useful modes. It can display the total time recorded so far, the date, or the time remaining. The time remaining is the most useful for me, and displays the correct info both during recording and on the whole unit when not recording. The VN-120 lacks a Pause button, instead the Record button goes into pause when you hit it a second time. This can cause confusion because it is non-intuitive. You must find and hit the stop button to stop recording.

The Play button has a fast and slow playback mode but the recorder lacks a "compressor" - so using this feature makes you sound either like the Chipmunks or Darth Vader. Most of your navigation with this unit will be done with your [right] thumb on the four-position disk on the front. Unfortunately, these functions are not instinctive. You may find you have to constantly keep glancing down at the unit, not a good idea while driving (strange how they missed this, isn't it?). When scrolling backward, you have to tap the back button twice, or it just returns to the beginning of the current message.

The LCD screen is not backlit, which makes the unit tricky to use in low light. There is a small red recording light which turns green for playback. If this product has VOX (voice-activated recording) I have not tried it because the unit is easy enough to use without it. Overall, the VN-120 is well-designed for such an early entry. For example, to get to the menu, you have to press and hold the key down for two seconds, an excellent idea. Mind you, the menu does not have a restore default for when I mess things up royally. The recessed cutout for the carrying strap is sensibly located on the bottom of the case, so if you use a lanyard around your neck, the recorder hangs upside-down until you pick it up. Clever, Olympus.

I had my parameters written down before I bought the VN-120, so I knew what I wanted before I purchased. You get a decent amount of recording time for a decent price. The battery life blows away all analog equipment, and the sequential storage mode is still far faster than trying to do the same search task with magnetic tape. Despite its weaknesses, it is a dandy recorder. Batteries drop from a major operating expense to such an insignificant cost that you won't bother carrying pencil and paper for most daily uses when you have this recorder on hand. For all my criticisms of the VN-120, there are certain electronic manufacturers who could, from this device, stand to re-learn the concepts of simplicity and effectiveness. I won't mention Sony and Panasonic at this time.

In response to user inquiries, yes, this digital recorder is very easy (and reliable) to use in a variety of non-standard intelligence gathering applications. Among the more informative uses is to leave it running at your workstation when you take a coffee break, or in the drawer of your phone table. I mentioned the microphone is sensitive, and it will often work well in the glove compartment when you have to "run inside for a moment" while your wife and mother-in-law wait in the car. Religiously, but inobtrusively, use this recorder during all job interviews and whenever dealing with civil servants. I don't use the VN-120 for recording lectures because, as stated, the sound quality is bad enough close to the source, far away sounds get cluttered with background noise. It will, however, work quite well stuck in your shirt pocket and looks innocent enough sitting on the dash when some State trooper is strong-arming you through your car window. Or so I'm told. Also, rest assured that every person who has ever cut me off in traffic, sped past me at 100 mph on the freeway, or crowded me when I'm riding my ten-speed now has their license plate number published on the Internet. The uses of this recorder are limited only by your imagination. I regularly fill the recorder up and burn everything to CD, and yes, if you get one of those suction cup microphones from Radio Shack, it will record whatever you attach it to, including both sides of a telephone conversation with your irate neighbor and, yes, it will definitely pick up certain sounds through thin glass already.

Later: how did I put it in the glove compartment without being seen? Inside my ball glove, rookie.