Griffin Tech. iTalk Voice Recorder 4020-talk

This is a great accessory for...

Strengths: Very simple and easy to use, just plug in and off you go.

Weakness: Wish it could record at higher quality, but that's a limitation of iPod. Eats up iPod's battery power very quickly.

This is a great accessory for college students wanting to record their class lectures. All you have to do is plug it in to the iPod, and the built in iPod firmware automatically detects and takes you to the voice record menu. Since it records at 8-bit mono wave format, you can record approx. 14 hours of notes/voice on a 20 gig iPod. The ease of iTunes means you can easily convert the wav files to...
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This is a great accessory for college students wanting to record their class lectures. All you have to do is plug it in to the iPod, and the built in iPod firmware automatically detects and takes you to the voice record menu. Since it records at 8-bit mono wave format, you can record approx. 14 hours of notes/voice on a 20 gig iPod. The ease of iTunes means you can easily convert the wav files to MP3 (or any other iTunes supported format) to conserve disc space. Best of all, you can save the voice memos to the audible format and can speed up and slow down the voice memos. I am a law student and this is a great tool for me to record all my lectures. The voice memos are automatically recorded with a date and time stamp, so multiple lectures are easy to figure out.

Enough of the software feature. The recorder has automatic gain, which means it will automatically record at higher or lower volume depending on the source so that you don't have to fiddle with the volume when recording (for example when a professor moves across the class room and consequently move closer or further away from where you sit). The other two feature that are nice is a headphone pass through so that you can listen while you record, and a small speaker built in that allows you to listen to memos and even music files - don't expect quality here - but it will do in a pinch or when you want to share your music with a group of friends and listen to gether (but there are much better, albeit more expensive options for this).

The down side is same or similar to the typical complaints one has against iPods - poor battery life. I have a 4g iPod, and it still eats up battery life very quickly - probably because the voice is recorded in wav format and that entails heavy disc use. The only other complaint I have is Apple's fault and not so much Griffin Technology's. You can only record at 8-bit mono - which is fine for voice memos, but not enough for music recordings. I can understand why Apple did this - protecting copyrights of the music labels, as when you could possibly record at rock concerts, but it is still frustrating.

Overall, I would give this product a solid thumbs-up. Highly recommended if you already have an iPod and need a voice recorded. Most quality digital voice recorders cost at least twice what the iTalk costs, and have nonoe of the ease of transfer and use features that the iTalk-iPod-iTunes combo provides.

By dmjseller - Sep 30, 2004

The reason I gave this product a 4...

Strengths: Easy to use, good quality voice recordings, extra port for headphones or a microphone (auto detects), external speaker

Weakness: None so far, does everything I want and more

The reason I gave this product a 4 rather then 5 was I have nothing to compare it to (I've never used the Belkin model). This little iPod 'add-on' has been great for what I've been using it for, voice recordings. When you plug the iTalk unit in to the iPod through the headphone port, it is immediately activated and ready to start recording. Your iPod displays a screen to begin your recording with...
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The reason I gave this product a 4 rather then 5 was I have nothing to compare it to (I've never used the Belkin model). This little iPod 'add-on' has been great for what I've been using it for, voice recordings.

When you plug the iTalk unit in to the iPod through the headphone port, it is immediately activated and ready to start recording. Your iPod displays a screen to begin your recording with a large time display. The recording is saved in WAV format on your iPod and can be listened to from a seperate 'Voice Memo' menu under 'Playlists', sorted by time and date. Likewise, when you plug your iPod in to your PC, iTunes will ask if it can import the new files to your music folder.

You could then convert the Voice Memo's to MP3 or whatever suites you. I've found that keeping them as WAVs is just fine however, as the recordings are very small (a 40 min recording was only 40 megs). This is due to the low bit/sample rate they are recorded at, but I still find the voice quality very good.

The speaker on the unit should in no way be considered an alternative to headphones. It is very small and quiet. It would be fine if you were alone in a room and wanted to review what you've just recorded, but I wouldn't recommend it for music or high volume use.

There is also a port for headphones or a microphone (the unit auto-detects), but I have not used this feature yet.

Overall, its been a great product (probably deserving of a 5) and does what it advertises. This is a good alternative to carrying around two devices, and you immeditaely have your recording in a digital, easy to transfer format. If you are shopping for a voice recorder for your iPod, this may be the product for you.

By izike - Jul 7, 2004

I really enjoy this mic. I use it...

Strengths: Can pick somewhat distant sound with pretty good clarity. Easy to use, just plug it in and press record. works on 4th gen Ipods.

Weakness: may pick up some background noises. cannot use the hold/lock button with mic installed. sometimes picks up mild echo sound. speaker is not very loud at all...about like a headphone.

I really enjoy this mic. I use it to record class lectures. They really come through very nicely when the speaker is hooked into the speaker system for the classroom. Even when they are not "miked up", I am still able to hear them with a great deal of clarity from over 15-20 feet away. For instance I record my Greek prof.'s pronunciations of our vocabulary each class, then I am able to go back...
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I really enjoy this mic. I use it to record class lectures. They really come through very nicely when the speaker is hooked into the speaker system for the classroom. Even when they are not "miked up", I am still able to hear them with a great deal of clarity from over 15-20 feet away. For instance I record my Greek prof.'s pronunciations of our vocabulary each class, then I am able to go back and make sure I am pronouncing the words correctly. For a 2 hr lecture the file size is usually about 90 mb or so. The files appear to be saved in a .wav format, but it must be compressed somehow because when I convert it to mp3 then it comes out to be the same size. However, I don't have a lot of experience dealing with sound files, so there may be other ways of doing it. Overall I have been very satisfied with this product and have found it very benifical as a student.

By jark2 - Oct 24, 2004

This Product was approximately...

Strengths: Many Functions,Ease of Use, Built in Speaker and Pass through Headphone/microphone port.

Weakness: Speaker hard to hear when around other noise sources such as people talking. Despite the pass through headphone port you cannot use the iTalk with The iTrip FM transmiter.

This Product was approximately what I expected it to be. The Auto Gain control works great it deffinitely outdid a omni-directional mike I attached through the sound port. The speaker is as advertized about the strenght of a laptop speaker. Once again Griffin has turned out another winner.

By ryanj286 - Aug 25, 2004

I had ordered this italk not...

Strengths: very easy to set up. great sound from a little speaker.

Weakness: none as of yet

I had ordered this italk not knowing what to expect from the product, just knowing that it was able to record. after trying it out it range and quality of playback was amazing for its size and cost. the play back is not best quality but it does the job and sounds reasonably good. it is worth the price i payed of 29.99.

By mjw610 - Aug 3, 2004