The Philips DVT1600 VoiceTracer looks like it came straight from a James Bond film. At the touch of a button, this pen transforms into a discreet audio recorder.

It’s every journalist’s nightmare: you’re traveling to an interview but you’ve forgotten your recording device. Luckily, you have a pen and notebook handy to write everything down. So that we never have to write tensely again, Speech Processing Solutions, which produces speech and dictation solutions under the brand name Philips, has come up with a creative solution: a pen that can be used to record conversations.

The Philips DVT1600 VoiceTracer Audio Recorder Pen, as the device is fully called, looks and feels like an ordinary pen at first glance, but it is anything but. It is an audio recorder that you can take with you anywhere. This can be useful to reassure your interlocutor when he or she needs to “go on the record”: a pen seems much more discreet than a smartphone or a tape cassette lying in the middle of the table. The gadget is also a wet dream for anyone who wants to imagine themselves as James Bond.

Record with the push of a button

Starting a recording is very easy. Slide the button below the Philips logo down and you will automatically start recording. A red light lights up to confirm. When you’re done talking, don’t forget to push the button back up. Otherwise, the pen will continue to record all ambient sounds until the battery runs out after eight hours.

The microphone is located in the pen itself and has a range of 360 degrees. This means you can walk around the table and the pen will continue to hear your voice from every angle. The sampling frequency is 16 kHz with a bit rate of 512 kbps. We test what these numbers mean in practice in various situations.

In these three recordings we record a short text. First in a closed room, then in the same room but with the windows open, and then from a meter away from the microphone.

Audio fragment 1 (window closed)

Audio fragment 2 (window open)

Audio fragment 3 (distance from desk)

The pen captures our voice well, although it is advisable to keep the recorder nearby. Also keep in mind that these excerpts were recorded under favorable environmental conditions and with a narrator. Sometimes you meet someone in a place with more ambient noise and you talk over each other. Then there is no noise filter in the microphone to compensate for this.

We’ll also do a comparison with some other devices you can use for recording. First with the Philips Smartmeeting PSE0540, another professional audio device from Speech Processing Solutions. This device is three times more expensive than the pen and can also be used in a different environment. As journalists, we often record with the recorders on our laptops or smartphones, so we also compare with the microphone on a Microsoft Surface Go and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Audio fragment 4 (Philips Smartmeeting PSE0540)

Audio clip 5 (Microsoft Surface Go)

Audio clip 6 (Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5)

Hidden USB

The pen has an internal memory of 32 GB. According to the manufacturer, you can store 129 hours of recordings on it. You will then need to download it to your laptop in order to listen. The pen also has a secret trick for this: push the cap up and a USB-C port appears.

Connecting the pen to your laptop may require some pushing and pulling. Each recording is saved as a separate file so you can easily mark it and copy it to your device. You can also easily delete failed recordings to free up storage space. This also works in reverse to drag files onto the pen and use it as a USB stick. Of course, the more files you have on your pen, the fewer hours you can record.

The USB-C port also serves as a charger. After two hours of charging, another eight hours are possible. Have you lost track of time? Don’t worry, your recordings will be automatically saved when the battery is low. This means an empty battery won’t disrupt your recordings.

With the help of AI

The bag of tricks is not completely empty yet. As an extra to this product, the manufacturer offers a trial subscription for SemblyAI. With this software you can convert recordings into a summary or a fully written transcript. Sembly listens in the background during the conversation or you upload the audio file afterwards.

The quality of the output is even more variable. The summary is usually correct, but when writing the transcript, Sembly sometimes dares to say gibberish. Here’s how Sembly converted the first audio clip from this review:

This is a test of the Philips DVT1600 to test the recording quality of the microphone. I’m sitting in a closed room with the windows closed. I would have to create the ideal conditions for the microphone to properly pick up my voice.

Almost error-free except for one word. The last sentence would be with The should start instead I. The way you speak and which microphone you use affect Sembly’s output. We noticed this during an experiment in which we had Sembly transcribe a longer audio recording. You can read the result in this article.

James Bond

The Philips DVT1600 VoiceTracer audio recorder pen could come from Q’s studio. You can record conversations at the touch of a button. The microphone quality won’t match that of a professional voice system, but your voice will sound clear when you listen back to the recordings. In addition, the pen can also be designed as a USB stick, which makes the device flexible in use.

However, we also have to come to the conclusion that the pen is not much more than a nice gadget. It is certainly true that this pen is useful for taking photos when traveling and cannot carry a lot of material with you. Most of the time you also have your smartphone (which does exactly the same thing) in your pocket. We get a ballpoint pen for writing in the store for one euro each.

The Philips DVT1600 VoiceTracer is available with 32 GB of memory for 84.99 euros (including VAT).