Types of Phone Recorders – Pluses and Minuses
Tape Phone Recorders – Tape Recorders have an inherent flaw. The more tape on the spool, the longer recording time, but the greater chance of the tape breaking. Usually tape will provide 30 minutes of recording time per side so after 30 minutes the tape must be flipped over. The only real advantage of tape is that it is cheaper than any other type of Tape Recorder.
Digital Phone Recorders – Digital phone recorders are by far more reliable than tape. There are no moving parts, so less can go wrong. Depending on the way you tape will impact the efficiency of the taping.
Voice Activation – Using Voice Activation to record phone calls is not always reliable. They tend to record noise when no one is on the phone, or stop recording when someone is still talking.
Line Sensing – Using a recorder that has a Line Sensing mode ensures that the recorder was made specifically to record telephone lines. Anything voice activated was made more to record meetings, conferences or for room monitors.
Digital Recorders that only have internal memory – These recorders have one major fault. You are restricted by the amount of internal memory to the number of calls you can record. Weather it takes you 1 day or 1 year to use the internal memory, once it is full you can not record any more. Most of the time you are limited to a one or 2-line display to navigate between calls to determine which ones can be erased.
Digital Recorders that have Removable Memory – These are always preferred to one’s that only have internal memory. The external memory should be a popular one to keep the cost of the memory down, and the availability high. Using SD or CF memory is usually the best even though there are many more. Before purchasing check the availability of the memory. Also, having removable media, you can usually remove it from the recorder and put it on a PC so you can see a lot of calls at the same time to determine which are the important one’s and which you can delete.
Digital Recorders that either record to or interface with a computer – I believe these to be the most flexible recorders on the market. Any recorder that connects to a PC using a USB plug, and has an application written for the PC to allow browsing through the calls easier has a lot of advantages. Most of them capture caller ID and dialed number. This makes it easy to review calls on a PC screen (instead of a one or two line display) to see who is calling or who is being called. This allows for easy identification of calls to or from people you do not know.
So to recap – a good digital recorder, that has the ability to sense Line Voltage, that connect to a PC to facilitate browsing the calls is the best phone recorder you can use no matter what the application.
