ICD-P620 : Sony Debuts Hybrid Digital Voice Recorders

LAS VEGAS, Feb. 26, 2008 – Sony today introduced the UX series of digital voice recorders designed to fit the needs of consumers, professionals and academics who want one device for voice, music and file storage.

The ICD-UX70 and ICD-UX80 models record in MP3 stereo for high-quality sound and support MP3 music playback. With ID3 tagging, the recorders display artist and album information.

“This new series is the Swiss Army knife of digital voice recorders,” said Stephen Teplansky, product manager for digital voice recorders at Sony Electronics. “Though its primary functionality is for voice recording, it does a great job as a music recorder and MP3 player as well.”

Because the UX series records in stereo in the MP3 format, the digital voice recorders serve as convenient, high-quality portable recording studios. They make it easy to record “jam” sessions, load them into music software, along the lines of Sony’s Sound Forge Audio Studio®, for editing, mixing and transferring recordings to CDs.

PC and Mac Compatible

Small, lightweight and stylish in design, the UX series offers USB-direct connect to enable high-speed file transfer to a PC or Mac. With five recording modes, optimal audio quality is easily achieved. Using the supplied headset, the devices also have an audio monitoring feature that lets users listen in while recording.

With a 2GB flash memory, the ICD-UX80 device offers up to 581 hours of voice recording time or up to 36 hours of MP3 recording time at 128 kbps. The 1GB ICD-UX70 model offers up to 290 hours of voice recording time or 18 hours of MP3 recording time at 128 kbps. It comes in silver, pink and red. Both models will be available in April for about $150 and $100, respectively.

Sony’s Digital Voice Recorder Line Up

In addition to the UX series, Sony announced four additional digital voice recorders. These units are made for professionals, broadcasters and non-PC users and feature double the storage capacities than models they are replacing.

Voice to Text

The top-of-the-line ICD-SX68 and ICD-SX68DR9 digital voice recorders are made for business professionals and work with Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® speech recognition software from Nuance Communications, Inc. Combined with Sony’s Digital Voice Editor software, users can easily and quickly convert voice to text.

The digital voice recorders offer 512 MB of storage capacity, providing up to 185 hours of voice recording time in the Long Play (LP) mode or up to eight hours of MP3 recording time. The ICD-SX68DR9 device comes with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Recorder Edition speech recognition software.

The ICD-SX68 and ICD-SX68DR9 models will be available in April for about $150 and $200, respectively.

Made for Broadcasting

Perfect for Internet broadcasters, the ICD-P620 digital voice recorder comes with Digital Voice Editor software and a USB cable, which allows for the easy transfer of recordings to a PC. The software features a one-step conversion to the MP3 format for podcasting. The recorder is compact; it easily connects to a PC; and it has 512 MB of flash memory.

The ICD-P620 unit offers up to 260 hours of recording time and for the user who prefers to correct their dictation, it has a feature that lets them to overwrite their incorrect dictation during playback. It will also be available in April for about $60.

PC-Free Option

For the user who simply wants a note taker or to record classes, meetings and lectures for their review, Sony is also providing a digital voice recorder that works without connecting to a PC. The ICD-B600 device is a portable note taker with 512 MB of flash memory and up to 300 hours of recording time in LP mode. It offers a 12/24 hour clock, will come packaged with two “AAA” batteries and will be available in April for about $40.

Smaller, Greener Packaging

In line with Sony’s environmental efforts, the company reduced the size of the retail packaging for the UX series by about 20 percent, reducing the polystyrene by nearly 30 percent and paper materials by more than 35 percent. These products are also made in a “green” factory and use lead-free solder.