The Best Voice Recorder | Reviews by Wirecutter

Top pick

The Sony UX560 received the highest overall scores from our listening panel, and it has the best combination of features of any recorder we tested. The UX560’s bright, backlit screen makes the display easier to read than the other recorders we tested except the Philips DVT2510, which has a color display. The recorder is also the easiest to navigate, with an intuitive toggle menu to access settings and recordings. Plus, the UX560 conveniently comes with a built-in rechargeable battery, so you won’t need to keep spare batteries on hand (though you will need to bring a charger or wall adapter if you need to charge on the go).

The Sony UX560 ranked roughly the same as two other models in two of the three recording settings. The UX560 did the best in the coffee shop scene: One listener said, “You could hear some background noise, but it never drowned out the speaker.” Of the office test, a listener observed that “this was a calming recording to listen to. You can kind of hear some room interference, but that’s such a minor problem for a voice recorder that it’s barely worth mentioning. Otherwise this was a pleasant if somewhat filtered recording.” The panel picked the Philips DVT2510 in the lecture recordings, but just by half a point (on a scale of one to three, with three being the highest score), and listeners said that the lecturer still sounded clear on the UX560’s recording. The Sony PX470, the budget pick, barely edged out the UX560 in a quiet office.

The UX560 was the easiest recorder to navigate and use among those tested. It’s intuitive to use out of the box: Pressing the home button leads you to a simple toggle menu where you can record, fine-tune settings, and listen to music (that can be uploaded to the device from a computer) or recordings. Buttons are clearly labeled, unlike on the Philips DVT2510, and a back button makes menu navigation much simpler than on the Olympus WS-853.

The UX560 has a built-in USB 3.0 plug, which can be extended or retracted by sliding a button on the side of the recorder that lets you connect the recorder to your computer to download your recordings. Once the connection has been made, you can also name files and folders on the device from your desktop — those changes are clearly reflected on the device, something that couldn’t be done with the other picks and might come in handy for long-term organization. The Philips recorder lacks this function altogether; on the Olympus, Anna was able to rename files and folders from her Mac, but the device no longer saw them (the Olympus manual does warn against this possibility).

The UX560 also has a rechargeable battery that charges via that USB plug. This means you won’t have to worry about having disposable batteries on hand. The UX560 doesn’t come with a wall charger — you’ll need to use a USB charger or connect the recorder to a computer to charge; if you have a recent Apple laptop or other computer with only USB-C ports, you’ll need an adapter. With a full charge, you can record for 27 hours in the commonly used MP3 format, or 23 hours at the 560’s highest-quality setting (uncompressed LPCM audio at 44.1 kHz, or “CD quality” audio). Anna recorded for about two hours, and the battery indicator showed that the recorder was still fully charged.

The recorder comes with 4 GB of storage, which allows for roughly 39 hours of recording time using MP3 format at 192 Kbps; that’s comparable to what you get with most of the recorders we tested. A covered but easily accessible microSD slot allows for 32 GB more of storage space if you need more recording hours. The UX560 offers a range of file and recording formats so you can opt for better audio quality or smaller file sizes.

The UX560’s extra features make an already-great recorder stand out from the rest. Choose from a “noise cut” filter (which rolls off both low and high frequency sounds) or a low-cut filter to reduce boomy lower frequencies and rumbly sounds alone. Scene selection presets let you optimize EQ and microphone sensitivity settings for lectures, meetings, interviews, voice notes, and loud and soft music scenarios. You can mark locations in your recording on the fly, so you can return to them later as you listen, and voice-activated recording can automatically stop you during pauses in conversation. (This feature was on all of the recorders tested, though you’ll probably prefer to manually pause and restart recordings to make sure you’re getting the audio you want.)

Selecting the Clear Voice function during playback helped reduce background noise in our coffee shop and lecture recordings but didn’t make as big of a difference as the noise-cancel feature on the Olympus. The UX560’s other playback options, however, made it overall a better choice than the Olympus for people looking to transcribe interviews or lectures: an A-B Repeat function lets you go back and replay the same section repeatedly, and digital pitch control lets you adjust the playback speed if you need to listen more closely to difficult-to-decipher passages. The UX560 has a transcription mode that will give you a cleaner interface with fewer distractions while transcribing if that’s something you prefer, but you can still fast-forward, rewind, and adjust the digital pitch control in regular playback mode. Oddly, you won’t be able to use the A-B Repeat to replay the same section repeatedly in transcription mode.

For better audio quality, you can plug in an external mic, though we think that would be unnecessary for most people given the good results we were able to get with the onboard mics in our varied test situations. The UX560 also has a headphone jack for monitoring recordings and listening to playback.

The UX560 is a small, compact recorder that feels nice in the hand, and its matte plastic and sleek design make it look a little less cheap than others that were tested. At just 4 inches tall, 1.5 inches wide, and 0.44 inch thick, the UX560 is the slimmest recorder we tested. It can easily fit into a shirt pocket or in the pocket of skinny jeans, while the other recorders are almost twice as thick and fit better in a purse or bag.

Like all of the recorders we tested, the UX560 also comes with a strap loop if you want to add a wrist strap or lanyard; you’ll need to provide your own, though it’s easy enough to find an inexpensive option.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The screen fades and eventually shuts off during recording. This is a little disconcerting, but an LED indicates that you’re still recording.

It lacks an erase button. This recorder also lacks a convenient erase button, so you’ll need to navigate through its menu to delete recordings.