Sony ICD-UX70 Digital Voice Recorder - Pink

The digital playback is very useful for transcribing lectures without having to go back and forth. Recordings can be easily sorted in the folders, everything is very accesible. I am glad that Sony added the automatic power off when stopped, I have another digital recorder that does't have a power button, and this is a battery saver.

As an academic, voice recorders can be a life-saver. Whether recording lectures or presentations, or making research comments without having to drop a journal to make a note, this kind of product is awesome. The old microcasette recorders were heavy and large by comparison, and lacked many of the cool features of these newer IC recorders, but they had the space in the chassis for a decent size speaker, and the tapes could be used in transcription machines. This particular model is very small, which increases its cool factor, but it does have its share of limitations. The tiny screen packs in a lot of information--but the result is that everything is microscopic. Spring for the bigger screen, Sony. Another drawback of the size is the one AAA battery. This makes it small and light, but reduces battery time. Not that there's anything you'll want to record that it can't handle on a fresh battery, but you will have to change it more often. Finally, and most important, the small...Read more

This is a very user friendly item, and it interfaces nicely with a computer. I've downloaded sound files off of it onto my Mac. Very intuitive. But also very small, and I've already lost it a couple times. Luckily, I found it again, too.