Do you need to record lectures or voice notes on your Symbian phone? Smartphoneware's Best Dictaphone is a call recorder with the ability to create and organize voice notes on your Symbian phone. It even allows recording from within any app using a predefined hot key. You have the facility of recording in low or high quality formats. The in built organizer lists your recordings for easy access.
To get started using Best Dictaphone after installation, you need to activate it. The main window allows you to access records as well as assign hot keys for recording. You also need to set a predefined hot key combination to enable recording. I set shift and the volume up button as as a hotkey combination on my E51. If you intend to use the app frequently, setting it on Autostart is also an available and good option to use. The program then remains in the background enabling you to start recording from within any application while using your phone.
The beep sound while recording can be disabled most of the time; but on some phones such as my friends N81, it can not be disabled as the beep is built into the phone's firmware. You can also enable a beep to signal the end of a recording, while the file numbering can be configured for easy filing and you can choose the location for saving the recordings. Creating a separate recordings folder worked well for me and recordings can be saved in wav and amr formats. You can also choose the amr format to save on storage space on your memory card.
Best Dictaphone serves its purpose well and the recordings are usable when recorded in the wav format. The phone conversation recording feature is a bonus and should be useful for someone who would like to archive important conversations. Smartphoneware has another product specifically for call recording called Best CallRecorder. This app is priced similarly at $7.95 and provides additional functionality. The fact that you can record from within any application is a good feature and ensures that you wont miss a chance to create a recording. Overall I'd recommend this application, it could be potentially useful for full time lecture and voice note recording.
You can download a fully functional 15 day trial of this application here.