Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/30/this-usb-recorder-is-your-next.html
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I already have one, it’s called a “phone”.
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Yeah, no. I’ve tried three or four like this over the years.
The tl;dr is that in the end they are useless clutter.
If you just want to record a few verbal notes you can do it on your phone. Doesn’t even has to be a smartphone. Practically every phone made in the last 15 years or so has a dictaphone function.
If you want to record an event, or local sounds for a travelogue or something like that, the sound quality just isn’t good enough.
And if you want to listen to music on the go, again, every phone can do that.
So you’ll lug around another bit of kit that you don’t really need for a while, until you don’t. And if you do, and it actually would be useful for a change, the battery will be dead because you forgot to charge it because you use the thing so infrequently. And it probably has yet another proprietary plug or charger.
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What I’d really like to see is a Bluetooth music player/recorder that can use any USB stick for outboard storage. If you’re as music obsessive as I can be, it sucks when your tunes take up valuable memory on your phone. I don’t like that. Plus, being able to use any USB flash drive allows the maximum storage possible (128G!!!) for having all–and I mean ALL–of your music collection nicely on hand. Even the smaller volume drives can double as a playlist. It’s kind of like the natural extension of the USB slot in your car’s stereo. And Bluetooth for wireless connection to headphones or a BT speaker would complete the recipe.
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Somewhere in my boxes of stuff to eBay/Yard Sale I have something like this. Totally useless because I almost never brought it with me, and if I did, my recordings weren’t indexed or text searchable.
Now I have the free Google Keep app on my phone. My phone is something I almost always have with me. Keep records and transcribes what I say, keeping a copy of the audio file as well. Way better than a little recording gadget. And there are probably other apps that do the same thing as well or better.
It’s cool, it’s not real[absolutely guessing,] but the algorithm required the store to have one unless it wanted ads for hearing aids instead of premium electronic music controller bits…no? That’s also… Huh. Supplychain awareness?
Retail therapy?
More like running a store with a bunch of audio stuff in it means that
you get weird USB ‘contact premium’ (as in things you buy in thousands
like they were breath mints, but really binaca isn’t continuing to
expand so much) in the course of existing in the market, just as
browsing gets you and your HTTP session engines a bunch of excelator,
DinkMoat, cloudgatekeeping, adsafeprotected new cloak who dis, and other
mooktivities to do. Or maybe it’s like being nearly David Bowie and
people with clothes companies send you clothes and props.
Or, you buy them because you’re a buyer for an audio company and the
thing you totes needed for everyone’s promotion to lay in becomes
available ca. 12k for the thousand, and it’s 9AM. You try to live
music and it’s 9AM, and shroom day is August…something.
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Your phone is the size of 3-4 sticks of gum glued together…?
It’s a bot.
Unless roomwithaview is going to stop carrying their phone, this gizmo is an extra thing to have to carry in addition to the phone they already have with them, and another thing to charge, and have to transfer files off of.
I think this kind of recorder is, perhaps, and everyday carry essential from the 1990’s, which is when the one I have in a box somewhere in need of AAAA batteries is from.
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It’s also cheaper than a phone (by a LOT) and can be left in an inconspicuous spot (or concealed on your person) =). Sorry, but your equivalence…isn’t, really. Does everyone need one? Of course not. But I don’t think the occasions where it could be useful are anywhere near as uncommon as you’re implying.
That wouldn’t be an “everyday carry essential” use.
I can only speak with certainty from my own experience, but I found that un-indexed recordings on “yet another gadget to remember to charge and bring with me” to be rather useless for the reasons I stated earlier. Better to use the one device to rule them all with me than to juggle extra crap.
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Much better than it being 5AM, and listening to Los Angeles.
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