Product Review: Sanyo Xacti Sound  Recorder ICR-XPS01M
By Cat Taylor

OK, so I’m a geek. From computers to Tivo, to Palm and now iPhone, I love gadgets and I generally push them to do as much as they are capable of.  As a musician, I have worked with a number of mp3 recorders, but I have to admit, none of them were quite as cool as this one.

Sanyo’s  Xacti is tiny, about 3.75 inches tall, 1.5 inches wide and about .8 inches thick, perhaps a third the size of an iPhone and it weighs almost nothing. For those of you wondering what such a small unit can do in terms of sound quality, you will be quite pleasantly surprised. It even has a very functional FM radio.

The Xacti has a built-in stereo microphone, small built-in speakers, headphone and a mic/line jacks and records onto microSD cards. (A 2 GB card is included, but the manual says it can accept up to 8GB microSDHC cards, depending on the manufacturer.)  The included high-capacity lithium-ion battery is estimated to provide up to 40 hours of use and is recharged using the also included microUSB cable. Since the microSD card and battery must be installed and the battery charged before the unit can be used, use care when opening the door for the area containing the card and microUSB connection, as it seems a bit fragile.

The front of the Xacti is a sleek black design with only three actual raised buttons, the backlit screen and the other nine buttons appear when the unit is powered up.  Getting going is as easy as sliding the power switch and pressing the record or play buttons, but this is only the beginning of what it can do. Accessing the “Mode” button allows the user to choose to either record audio, listen to pre-recorded music loaded from a computer, or listen to FM radio, antennae courtesy of the headphone cable. You can even record from the radio. Within the “Record” and “Music” sections you can chose which folder to use; these folders are also available through the List menu.  

Choosing the top left button (a little figure with a musical note) takes you to the “Scene Select” function, (similar to those found on a digital camera) which include “Interview”, “Meeting/Lecture”,” Music”, “Head Phone”, “Portable” (recording from another portable unit using the line-in jack) and “Compo” (recording from the line-out jack of a component stereo system, etc.). 

Accessing the Menu button gets you to the in-depth recording options including Recording Mode, Mic Sensitivity, Mic Mode, Low Cut Filter, Peak Limiter, Timers, Recording EQ, Divide (splits an audio file) and much more.  I did use these settings, but there’s so much here I barely scratched the surface of the choices. The included manual is quite thick, I recommend setting aside an hour or so to peruse it and get the basics.

For my evaluation of the Xacti, I first used it to record band rehearsals and transfer the files to my PC for later review and practice purposes.  Transferring was easy, when connected, the Xacti shows up as a drive folder on your computer and you can just copy or cut the audio files and paste them into a folder on your computer. The sound was amazingly good, clear and balanced in a way I really hadn’t expected. But I really put it to the test when I took it to a family reunion.

My mother doesn’t have a particularly loud voice and I really wanted to get some of her reminiscences, along with those of other family members. I used the “Interview Scene” for this and it worked well, although loud voices from elsewhere in the room did occasionally intrude. The real test was when about thirty relatives sat in a circle in the backyard to each tell their favorite stories. Since that side of my family is Swedish, I knew epic tales might ensue; we always tease each other about this. The circle was about twenty feet across and I put the Xacti on a chair in the middle.  I plugged in a small pair of headphones to check the level, adjusted it slightly and off we went. I left the headphones plugged in and checked the recording a little while later, it still sounded good.  Two hours and fourteen minutes later…  I stopped the recording and hit play to see what I had gotten. Not only was the recording really clear, but the volume only had to be adjusted for the very quietest voices. There was still plenty of recording life and battery left too. I have a great piece of family history that I would not have if this tiny piece of technology hadn’t been in a pouch in my purse.

The Xacti is an amazing small and sleek audio recorder, feather-lite and slimmer that a cel phone. It records everything from music to conversations with crystal clarity and at 2GB has lots of room for many hours of recordings.  Great battery life, expandable to 8GB of storage, hugely customizable and easy to use, Sanyo’s Xacti raises the bar on ultra-portable recording.