5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Sony ICD-U70 recorder
Date of Review: Apr 6, 2007
The Bottom Line: Buy this unit if you are not going to have a lot of short messages, or if you want to listen on the built-in speaker.
I use recorders in daily work. My workhorse is the old Olympus v90, which is no longer made but has simple design and easy erase function. Get 'em on eb*y for 30 bucks usually.
On a daily bases I record 70-120 short notes, some as short as three seconds.
I also record longer lectures by others, and I've used an Olympus W-100 for that. Ran out of space after a few hours.
Sound: Sony speaker is tiny and sound is very low, unless you are in a very quiet space. This is a problem if you just want to listen to the unit by itself. The earbuds are fine and actual sound quality there is excellent; also when you play through ordinary PC speakers. Olympus W-100 also has this same tinny-sound speaker problem, but good quality when exported.
My biggest gripe is with the ERASE function. With the Sony you have to press four times to erase a message. Once to get to the menu (long press), once to back up in the menu, and twice to erase. This is patently ridiculous, unless all you do is record very few messages. For me, erasing 70 messages would take 280 presses.
Attn Sony engineers, just put a recessed yellow erase button on the front of the unit, which will erase a message with just two presses. This was present in older Sony units, and works great in the old V90.
Hope this is helpful to other shoppers.
