Sony ICD-PX820 Digital Voice Recorder Review
The Sony ICD-PX820 digital voice recorder is a quality monaural audio recorder that you can get for less than $100. With its SHQ (super high quality) mode able to record to MP3 format at 192kbps and a wide frequency range from 75 to 20,000 Hz, the Sony digital voice recorder ICD-PX820 is highly suitable for mono recording, such as podcasting or dictation, or for taking notes in a class, lecture or conference.
Sony ICD-PX820 Digital Voice Recorder Review – Features at a glance
- Size (width x depth x height): 1.36″ x 0.7″ x 4.31″
- Weight: 0.14 lbs
- built-in 2 GB of flash memory (stores up to 535 hours of audio)
- powered by 2xAAA alkaline batteries
- battery life: approximately 26 hours of recording or 30 hours of playback
- super high quality (SHQ) monaural recordings to MP3 format at 192kbps, sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, frequency range: 75 Hz to 20,000 Hz
- USB connection to easily transfer files to Mac or PC
- compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking software
- headphone jack
- built-in speaker
- adjustable mic sensitivity
Click here to view more product features.
Sony ICD-PX820 Digital Voice Recorder Review – Sleek design
The Sony ICD-PX820 digital voice recorder is sleekly-designed, with a very sturdy body. It comes with plenty of easy-to-use convenience features. It has a large, easily-legible screen and large buttons for the two main features: play and record.
The design of this portable digital recorder looks professional, and it would definitely not be mistaken for a toy. This makes it highly suitable for use in business settings.
The intuitive user interface makes it unlikely that you’ll ever even need to refer to the instructions found in the Sony ICD-PX820 recorder manual. Take a look at the following Amazon.com testimonial from a customer who purchased the device for his technophobic wife, who was able to use the recorder without requiring any assistance:
“…It really could not be any easier to use and I’ve seen a lot of terrible gadgets in my day. I really appreciate the fact that no software installation is necessary to get files off of it and the files are a very portable format (MP3). And since it’s a generic Flash drive, you can use it like a regular Flash drive for file transport…[continued]”
Sony ICD-PX820 Digital Voice Recorder Review – Quality levels
You can select between 4 monaural quality levels. An advantage of mono quality versus stereo recordings is that the former results in smaller files, and subsequently faster transfer times between the recorder and your computer.
The four levels are, in decreasing order of quality (and consequently increasing battery life):
- super high quality (SHQ): 44.1 kHz, 192 kbps, ~22 hours
- high quality (HQ): 44.1 kHz, 128 kbps, ~33 hours
- standard play (SP): 44.1 kHz, 48 kbps, ~89 hours
- long play (LP): 11.025 kHz, 8 kbps, ~535 hours
Note that the optional external microphone jack records in stereo only.
Sony ICD-PX820 Digital Voice Recorder Review – Recording modes
In addition, the Sony ICD-PX820 features four recording modes:
- voice operated recording (VOR)
- overwrite: allows you to record over an existing audio, deleting the existing audio
- add: allows you to record over an existing audio, while maintaining the existing audio
- divide
To understand the VOR and divide functions, let’s take a look at some Amazon.com customer testimonials.
The following is a snippet of an Amazon.com customer testimonial regarding the VOR function and the “recording buffer” on the Sony IC Recorder ICD-PX820:
“…My 2nd favorite feature is its built-in “recording buffer”. When you set the unit to record in VOR (Voice Operated Recording) and there is no sound for a few seconds, it will automatically “pause” the recording, and then automatically resume the recording when it detects another sound (or spoken word). What the recording buffer does, is that whenever the recording resumes (in a lecture for example), it will record “almost all” of the first syllable of the first spoken word. In comparison, my previous Olympus voice recorder would usually MISS the WHOLE first word after a recording pause. As a result, every sentence after a recording pause usually began with a missing word, which I always found a bit irritating. This Sony recorder will not do that…[continued]”
The following is a snippet of an Amazon.com testimonial from yet another satisifed customer of the Sony ICD-PX820 digital voice recorder, detailing the usefulness of the “divide” function:
“…Most voice recorders do not supply a “divide track” function, and for me that’s a deal killer. You’re always going to have garbage in your tracks, usually at the start and end of every track… An on-unit “divide track” function allows you to trim off this garbage in the field, while it’s fresh in your mind, and delete it so that it’s not using up your memory and your transfer time and sitting on your computer until you get around to editing it, by which time you’ve forgotten the layout of the track and you have to listen to the whole thing again, an intensely time consuming process. Olympus voice recorders especially, and most brands other than Sony do not include the divide track function…[continued]”
The following video highlights the quality of the recordings created by the Sony ICD-PX820 digital voice recorder, along with some frustrations encountered by a genuine owner:
Sony ICD-PX820 Review – Bottomline
The Sony Voice Recorder ICD-PX820 is recommended for anyone looking for a quality portable digital recorder compatible with Mac and/or PC at an affordable price. It is relatively easy to use and not overly bogged down with unnecessary features. If you can live with mono quality recordings without an external mic (as opposed to stereo), then this is an excellent product to consider.
Sony ICD-PX820 Digital Voice Recorder Review – Best price
Amazon.com is a great place to start shopping around for the best price on the ICD-PX820 Sony digital audio recorder. You can easily find bargains on the Sony Recorder ICD-PX820 from various manufacturers there, some even selling brand new ones for less than $100!
Filed under: Sony ICD-PX820 Digital Voice Recorder.