Gemini Notebook gets voice recorder, but it's a mess compared to Pixel Recorder

Google’s Pixel Recorder app debuted in 2019 as the best voice recorder app on Android, and we’ve seen plenty of Android OEMs launch their own recorder apps in the generative AI era. What if you want a voice recorder directly integrated into Gemini Notebook? Well, there’s good news.

Google is now rolling out a voice recorder feature in Gemini Notebook (h/t: 9to5Google). We can confirm seeing this option in version 1.63.1002728510 of the Gemini Notebook app for Android, as well as in the iOS app. It also seems to be broadly available rather than being limited to the US. The feature can be accessed by tapping the microphone icon in the Sources tab of a notebook or on the Gemini Notebook homepage. Tapping the icon on the homepage creates a new notebook.

The app immediately starts recording when you’ve tapped the microphone icon. The audio file is automatically uploaded to Google’s servers once you’ve finished the recording, and the transcription appears a few seconds later. We’ve also got a “source guide” overview of the audio.

Pixel Recorder is still far more versatile

You definitely don’t want to switch from your Pixel Recorder app or similar voice recorder apps just yet, though. The biggest downside to this new recorder feature is that it doesn’t work offline. Your audio is recorded when offline but simply gets stuck in an “uploading” loop. Furthermore, you can’t actually listen to the recording in the app or view a transcript until it’s been uploaded. By contrast, the Pixel Recorder app delivers offline transcriptions as you record and lets you listen to the audio as soon as it’s finished. In saying so, your audio recordings are stored on your device in Recordings > Notebook, and you can listen to them here.

You also can’t long-press on the uploading audio file to delete it. We can theoretically delete these files via the second ellipsis icon, but they seem to get stuck in an “uploading” loop right now. Yeah, recorded audio files display “uploading” for some reason when we try to delete them. Interestingly, the audio file is still available via Recordings > Notebook, even if you delete the relevant notebook in the app. That seems like a significant oversight.

Another notable downside compared to the Pixel Recorder app is that audio recordings are limited to an hour. It’s unclear whether this is just a Google One limitation (I’m on the 200GB plan) or a technical limitation. I’m not sure whether the Pixel Recorder app has a time limit, but I’ve previously made recordings exceeding two hours.

Needless to say, the ability to record audio directly in the Gemini Notebook app is nifty for meetings, lectures, and similar situations. This way, you can seamlessly add more sources to your desired notebook (e.g., a work project or a specific college subject). However, the cloud requirement and one-hour cap mean the Pixel Recorder and similar voice recorder apps are still more versatile right now.

This isn’t the only recent news for Gemini Notebook users. Google made the service a connected app in Gemini a few days ago, allowing you to access and use Notebooks in the chatbot. Google also recently pushed out an update that allowed you to fine-tune slides and videos before they’re generated.