Registered: Nov 2000
Location:
Posts: 49

Greetings,

Questions about the Targus Total Recall Springboard:

1) Must playback be listened to through an earpiece or headphone? Or does it playback through it's own speaker, or through the Prism's speaker? Or both?

2) Can a voice memo be scheduled to play back automatically at a certain time, like an alarm?

3) I'm a musician. Can I use it as a "musical notepad", to sing and play new musical ideas into it? Is the audio fidelity good enough for this? I'm not talking beautiful stereo or anything, but will it record and playback my piano playing and singing in a reasonable manor?

4) Is there any comparable competitor I should be aware of? Bear in mind that the Total Recall can record for 1.5 hours....

Thanks in advance,
-cnegrad

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Registered: Jun 2000
Location:
Posts: 594

1st thing, I guess, is that prob. Targus could ans. all of these better. I'll do so as quick & easy as I can, but I can't believe they don't have a FAQ or some other facility that would ans. these very "to be expected" questions. Also, I don't own one of these, but have merely read a bit here and there on them.

1) I think you can listen to playback both through an earpiece / headphone and through it's own speaker.
I don't believe the Prism has a speaker (like the rest of the Visor line), only makes beeps.

2) I think it CAN play a voice memo to be scheduled to play back automatically at a certain time, like an alarm?

3) I think you CAN use it as a "musical notepad", to sing and play new musical ideas into it? ... in a reasonable manner?
About a year ago I got an Olympus DS-150 (that does speech-to-text w/IBM ViaVoice on the PC side), and I cannot believe the fidelity. (It cost $199 at the time.) It's not a deadlock, but I would think since the T.R. has come out after, the fidelity would be at least close, if not even better.
Also, I'm thinking of on the DEVICE ... but when you DL the file (.WAV, I'm guessing) to your PC, it should be even BETTER (which mine are, even besting the DS-150's speaker).

4) Is there any comparable competitor I should be aware of? Bear in mind that the Total Recall can record for 1.5 hours....
The DS-150 records for 1.5 in Standard Mode, and 2.5 in Compressed Mode (but will not then do speech-to-text). I believe there are a slew of competitors on the mkt. that do this now, and many are as thin or small and light as the DS-150 ... but we're talking a separate device. (One, I think, even goes to 8 HOURS [for $199? I think]. I think SONY has one that comes w/8Mb AND w/an 8MB mem-stick ... not unlike the Clie, eh?)

But, as far as other SBs, I think the only other one is one (name escapes me) that does 8 MINUTES. So, the T.R. is probably the way to go, as far as that is concerned.