Belkin Voice Recorder Vs Griffin iTalk

// August 21st, 2005 // Tech // 2,652 views

So I’ve been looking for a voice recorder attachment for my iPod for weeks now. This week, two of the stores I’ve been tracking, finally received stock of the Belkin Voice Recorder and the Griffin Technology iTalk.

An easy decision I was sure, but then only to be confused again by conflicting reports between the two.

Macworld said go with the Griffin iTalk, especially because of its sound quality. A client of mine swears by the Belkin. If I had to make a decision in terms of sound quality, the Griffin should be the clear winner, but both record at 8KHz, 128 Kbps mono wav-format (the guys at Apple were clever to think of possible copyright infringements and hard coded the file recording rate) – it’s pretty much all the same really.

The funny thing is most US websites report that the Belkin is more expensive than the Griffin, but in SA – it’s mostly the other way around, with the Belkin about R50 cheaper if you shop around a bit. By the way, Wayne’s World in Cresta won hands down in the price war versus Incredible Connection and the former is up to R200 cheaper than the Apple SA store. (Besides, Wayne’s World has tons of stock.)

Apart from the obvious usefulness of either product, which is to record voice memos, meetings etc., is the fact that both have a small speaker to play back voice recordings or any of your songs is a bonus. Finally you can put the alarm function on the iPod to good use.

The other nice function of the Griffin is the audio-in/audio-out jack, which means you either can plug in an external microphone or your headphones. An external mic may just improve the quality of the recording. Note that this applies to microphones that do not need additional power. If you want this functionality in the Belkin, you’d best go for another product in the range, the Belkin Universal Microphone Adapter.

Anyhow, since all my other accessories are Griffin (iTrip, PowerPod) I figured it best to stick with the same brand. Question is though – is anyone using the Belkin and what’s your verdict?

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6 Responses to “Belkin Voice Recorder Vs Griffin iTalk”

Gareth says:

2005/08/22 at 12:25

I use the Belkin. It’s really nifty cause of its size. My two gripes with it, though, are its sensitivity to even the slightest breeze. You have to experiment around a bit for the right mic-to-mouth distance so as to avoid any major interference.

Lastly the little speaker thingy is extremely soft. It’s good enough for voice but not for music. Oh, and the attachment can’t fit through my iPod’s plasticy cover. All-in-all for size and recordibility it does a good job.
Aquila says:

2005/08/23 at 08:32

Hi Gareth,

Thanks for the feedback. I’ve also found that the iTalk is slightly fickle depending on the distance away from your mouth. I think the 100 feet recording distance claimed on the box is slighly far-fetched.
Aquila says:

2005/10/03 at 11:24

spammers….
Quit Smoking says:

2005/10/04 at 10:54

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Roger Saner says:

2006/03/09 at 15:25

I’m looking into buying the iTrip because you can use custom mics with it – I’m not going to use the built-in ones. Plus I like the fact it lets you plug in earphones at the same time.

Btw, you can also load linux on your iPod – which allows you record at the max of 96khz if you’d like, instead of the 8khz limit Apple artifically puts on it…