Getting the right choice out of many different transcription machines isn’t something you can just do without knowing what to look for. Too many businessmen just grab something cheap or good-looking and assume it will give them the transcription capabilities their job requires. But if you’re a smart shopper, you’ll take a peek into the traits for these products and sort the chaff from the wheat before you do any buying. Buying a transcription machine that doesn’t work well will just interfere with your work and possibly make you look out of touch at the workplace. Instead of dealing with all that, just take a few minutes to think things through before making a final decision on your transcription tools.
There are only a few major companies in this fairly narrow market: Sony, Philips, and Panasonic. And you do want to buy from one of the big companies instead of the little guys no one’s heard of. This is because you’re more likely to get a quality product from a company used to building all sorts of specialized electronics equipment. And if anything goes wrong, the company will most likely have a reasonably decent warranty to help you sort things out. If you buy from a small company, there’s simply no telling what you’ll get. But if you get a bad deal from a major company, then you can at least trust in their well-honed procedures for making it right after the fact.
Then you should look into how portable you’d like your transcription machine to be. Very few of the top models are anywhere near able to fit easily into a pocket. However, some are bulkier than others, even if most of them in general are meant to sit on a desk. If you move around a lot on the job, how heavy and large your machine is will matter, along with how well it might balance on your thigh in a subway or a car. Of course, if you do spend all your time in an office, then this shouldn’t matter much to you.
There are many other details as well that are more specific to this kind of product. What is the machine’s output format? The vast majority of them will use either cassette tapes or microcassette tapes, which are simply smaller versions of the same thing. Whatever you get should be something using a format you’re comfortable and familiar with. Is there a headset, and if so, is it comfortable? Headsets can be the larger sort that sit outside the ears, or buds that fit inside the ears. Is the headset wireless or attached to the machine? How intuitive is actually using the machine, and does it transcribe accurately and clearly?
Once you’ve asked yourself those questions, and answered them in turn, you’ll be in a position to get yourself a good machine for transcribing. Do yourself proud and get an addition to your office that is actually worth the money, instead of buying whatever happens to be there.