Main Screen of Dudu Recorder

HongDi Technologies recently updated their most popular application Dudu Recorder to v3.3 and here at nokia5800.net, we keep up with our reputation of reviewing the latest and hottest applications as soon as we can get our hands on them. The latest version of Dudu Recorder, fixes some of the bugs from the previous version and there is a slight improvement in the overall performance of the application on 5800.

Installation

If you already have the earlier version of  Dudu Recorder on your 5800, you can update right from the application. After opening the application, options-> Help-> Live update. This will invoke the default symbian browser, which is auto-directed to the download link of the latest version of Dudu Recorder. One can always install a fresh copy of Dudu Recorder v3.3 by pointing their mobile browsers to http://www.getdudu.com/download.html or by sending "61" via SMS to 008613906720022 for download via WAP. Alternatively users can download the application from the ovi store client or ovi webstore. It has to be noted that Dudu Recorder is a paid application, priced at US $ 13.5 and one can always download the free trial to get a feel of the product before proceeding to buying the application.

Background Application Notification Icon

Features

If you have used Dudu Recorder before, you will know that its a very basic and easy to use call recording application. For the uninitiated, Dudu Recorder provides auto recording of incoming and outgoing calls along with voice memos, without any annoying beeps, option of locking files (which they finally got working in v3.3), compression to one of the most memory efficient format (.amr) and easy syncing with PC/Mac.

Some of the improvements over v3.2 are the background notification icon as shown in the screenshot to the right. This icon will appear at the bottom of your screen in both landscape and portrait mode irrespective of whether you are on the homescreen or you are playing around with some application. This may or may not be to the liking of many users, but personally I don't have any issues with this as it occupies a tiny winy space at the bottom which you will hardly notice while handling your calls or even while using some of the other applications. It may be a problem while gaming, but its not a major concern if you ask me. Atleast now we have a way of knowing that the application is running in the background without having to check manually for background applications every now and then, just to make sure that important call is recorded and not missed.

While the customisation options are pretty basic, one of the most important feature is the password protection. If you wish to lock your files, you first need to enable password protection in the settings screen. Once you set the password, Dudu Recorder will prompt for password everytime you try to access the application. Further now you can lock specific conversations to prevent accidental deleting of conversations. The locked files are shown with an asterisk in the prefix of the file name as shown in the first screenshot (Mainscreen of Dudu Recorder).

Pros

1. Provides basic call recording and voice recording features
2. Beepless and auto recording of calls is a great feature
3. Is very light on memory usage

Cons

1. Provides very basic conversation  management options (tag, sort by name/date etc)
2. There is no real synchronisation options specifically designed for Dudu Recorder as such (It just relies on Nokia PC Suite or bluetooth file transfer for backup)

Verdict

Dudu Recorder v 3.3 brings about some minor tweaks and fixes some major bugs that were widely reported with v3.2. Compression of recorded files to .amr is one of the best features of this application. However may be the developers went a little bit overboard with the compression format. I recorded a 1 min voice memo of the same conversation using both Dudu Recorder and the default symbian voice recorder. While both compress the recording to .amr format, the file size of Dudu Recorder was almost half the file size of symbian voice recorder. The high compression ratio had its effect on the voice clarity, as the symbian voice recorder was able to render clearer and louder voices while that of Dudu Recorder suffered from high background noise. Having said that I should highlight that Dudu Recorder is a very easy to use application, just set the settings to auto start and auto recording mode and you will be able to record every telephone conversation of yours without having to bother about memory limitations (If you set the storage path to memory card in the settings mode). At US $ 13.5 it is a little on the expensive side but if you want an easy to use recording application, Dudu Recorder is the solution for you.

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