Treo 600: Making & Hearing Voices
I must admit that I rarely get won over very quickly but my recent experience playing around with voice recorders for the Treo 600 has changed this somewhat. It all began when I took a voice recording application called mVoice by MotionApps for a spin (Free Trial or $24.99 to buy).
The really great features and functionality built into mVoice are:
- Store recordings on your external 512MB SD card (1MB = 2mins Recording so that 64MB is about 2 hours)
- Append existing recordings (you can 'add' more voice memo sections after each recording - think of it like multiple episodes of a series like 'The Apprentice' all neatly packaged in a set)
- Send recordings by e-mail
- Optimized for Treo 600 (use of the 5 way navigation buttons)
- Intuitive and easy to use UI (this is probably its greatest strength as mVoice is very easy to use - a bit like my Cuisinart toaster...)
- You can give a unique name to each of your recordings (like 'My thoughts on Bill Clinton's book') which makes it a breeze to find what you're looking for once you have a number of these saved
- [UPDATED] While trying to answer 'Mr/s. Anonymous' question about which version I was reviewing (v1.2.1 if you must know) I discovered an extremely useful and handy update feature that I would hope that ALL Palm software will adopt soon. Namely when you pull down the menu in mVoice you get the option to 'Check for Update' via your browser and to download any available one straight to your Treo. Now I'm the proud user of v1.2.2, if only everything could be this easy...
The not so great things about mVoice:
- You can only organize recordings into categories using the internal memory and not your external 512MB SD card...
- There is still a bug in that even though I've selected 'Store one-button recordings to SD card' it still record to the Treo's built-in memory...
- Recording in background while the screen is turned off is useful but there is no way to switch this feature off which makes it extremely annoying if you plan to record long sessions as you have to power the screen again and again and again... For example they could resolve this so that the screen powers off on playback but you are given a choice to leave the screen on if you plan to perform multiple short recordings.
Things that mVoice could do to improve in future versions:
- There's no 'bookmark' system when you append so that if you plan to record long sessions (say 30mins+) you will not be able to rapidly jump from section to section [this for me proved to be one of the most vexing shortcomings...]
- You cannot forward/backward your recording using the 5 way navigation buttons during playback (only with the stylus or your fingers)
- It would be nice to have other skins as the standard one is simple but by not great
- I wouldn't mind being able to attach notes to my recordings
- I would like to be able to use a microphone or the Treo's earphone for my recordings instead of having to hold the phone to my face...
Overall I give mVoice a big thumbs up with an overall rating of 4/5 but this is with the partial expectation to see improvements in future versions.
You may also be interested to take this other voice recording application for a spin: Personal Audio Recorder by ToySoft.
Comments
Nice review. It would be helpful if you indicated which version of a particular app you are commenting on. Assuming it's the latest version makes old articles less useful, and sometimes different sites, e.g., PalmGear, Handandgo, myTreo, the publisher, etc., have different versions available...
Nice review. It would be helpful if you indicated which version of a particular app you are commenting on. Having us assume it's the latest version makes old articles less useful, and sometimes different sites, e.g., PalmGear, Handandgo, myTreo, the publisher, etc., have different versions available...
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