Let’s face it. The generic applications that come with most Windows Mobile devices only do basic and nothing more. Which takes us, the user, on a never-ending shopping trip to find the software to fill the gap of our needs. But that trip may end for those seeking a solution in voice recording. Enter VITO AudioNotes.

Installation

Like VITO FindMe and VITO SmartNavigator , installation is straightforward and registration is best done online. Currently at v1.31, this software did not pose any problems for me but if you are not keen on paying the $19.95 price tag , you can download the 14 day trial and see if it’s what you need.

Set Up

The thing I like about this program is that it has just enough options for you to play around with. For starters, you can select when you want the screen turned off when you are recording. This option would be much welcomed by users who use their devices extensively for voice recording such as journalists and students recording lectures.

It also allows you to decide on various aspects of your recordings such as whether you want to record all phone conversations, only speaker phone conversations¹, what kind of recording formats to use (and there are 6 options for you to choose from including several MP3 and WAV formats). Most importantly, it also let’s you select where to save those recordings to.

For those needing quick activation of this program, VITO AudioNotes allows you to bind a button to it, right within the program. Next time you are in a situation where you need to record something urgently, like a memo to yourself, a quick press of that button is all you need to start your virtual memory. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Use

With all those settings in place, using this program is a breeze. Depending on your setup, your recordings will happen as you planned for. Incoming call? Recorded. Outgoing Call? Recorded. Lecture? Recording. The screenshot below shows you what happens when you are in the midst of recording something:

It quickly allows you to set the microphone gain if the recording is not picking up correctly (which you can gauge from the bar above it) and at the same time, it shows you the ever-increasing file-size so that you can better manage your storage of voice notes. How snappy is that?

Playback is just as informative. With a very similar screen, you can adjust volume during playback and choose to fast forward or rewind the clip with the tap of a button and all within the program.

Quick edits of your audio files are possible too. Just tap and hold on the selected file and you will receive a menu of some of the more common tasks associated with it. Options such as renaming it, sending it to another device or viewing its properties are all available.

Sound Quality

So what about sound quality you ask? A good looking program will not be useful if it does not serve its very basic purpose which in this case is voice recording. Well, VITO AudioNotes does not suffer from such problems. In fact, it works so well, depending on your recording formats, that you can even use the recordings professionally such as in web sites and presentation.

Of course you would need to experiment which settings work well for you and in which locations. Once you do, you can better decide when to use a higher quality format over a lower quality one and how to play with the microphone gain to get the best results possible. While you can get pretty good recordings with just about any setting, I would recommend you try out the various options to find the one that suits your perfectly.

Conclusion

VITO AudioNotes shows how to take a problem and solve it elegantly. Without the need for much tweaking, one is able to easily use this software very effectively. For those of you looking to solve your recording woes, look no further than the VITO AudioNotes.

Edits
There were some errors with this review.
1. Speaker phone option means the speaker phone is turned on automatically when you receive a phone PROVIDED AudioNotes is running.
2. While recording or playing you can tap on the panel with time and see how long it’s left to play or record.

Thanks to Konstantin Kalinin of VITO Technologies for pointing this out.

Tags: commercial software