Panasonic RN305 Micro Cassette Recorder with Voice Activation System

I'm a writer for a college newspaper. Money isn't something that I can just toss around. However, I needed a micro-cassette recorder for interviews.

I saw this one, it was much cheaper than the digital recorders that I was looking at. I tried it as soon as I got home. If you buy this, be sure to pick up a 3pk of micro-cassettes and 2 AA batteries.

It has worked pretty well. I don't use the voice activation feature. Making sure to get everything that I need on tape is far to important, so I just record.

I really wish that this also had a spot for a plug in microphone. It would really come in handy when trying to get some comments when you are standing in a crowd. A wrist strap would also be nice, so you don't have to worry about dropping this thing.

If you can afford a digital recorder, get it. If you can't or aren't going to use it enough to make it worth spending that kind of money, this is a great alternative.

This is just what I was looking for - an inexpensive, hand-held cassette machine I could use for personal "dictation". I like the voice-activated feature. It's definitely nothing fancy, but for the price I wasn't expecting anything fancy. By the way, I chose it based on other people's reviews here of this product and found them very helpful. (Also, Panasonic products have a good frequency-of-repair record, according to Consumer Reports.)

In voice-activated mode, records a noisy beep every 2 seconds, thus almost completely obscuring the recording. This is with new Panasonic batteries. Problem only appears in voice-activated mode.

Customers should be made aware, that when they buy this "Tape Recorder" {It does not come ready to operate!} They must first purchase a "TAPE CASSETTE" also batteries!.. All you receive is the machine...
A cassette tape is a very inexpensive item, so why NOT include it?..
Save the customer the bother of trying to locate one!

This is a great bargain without sacrificing quality. Recording is easy and playback at either of the two available speeds has excellent clarity! This was definitely worth the money spent!