Sony ICD-UX81 Digital Voice Recorder with 2GB Flash Memory

The recorder has funtioned well in ALL the ways I have tried it. I did order the external mic later which improves the operation somewhat. It is lot of recorder in such a small package. I use a direct patch cord to hook my tape player to the recorder and transfered the audio to digital format. Down loaded them to my laptop and burned them to CD. After playing a little with the settings, it worked great. Now about the info screen, it is a little hard for me to read because of my years yet the unit being as small as it is, they did a great job.

Very good design and manufacture. Pick up is great. Wish they had a simple audio editor in memory out of the box. (There are free ones on the web but be careful which codecs you use. I took an 8M file and threw 2/3 away and re-saved and the new file was 13M. No reflection on this device though - except that the codec Sony uses is pretty good). Plan on getting a rechargeable Li ion battery, because when you record, it uses up the battery fairly fast. Again I think that it is relatively unavoidable (amplification and filtering going on etc.) Have not bought a rechargeable yet but the docs say if you do you can simply leave it in a usb port to recharge.

This thing does exactly what its supposed to and is easy to use. Wish they had a 2M version with the FM radio, I might have opted for it... On the other hand, how often would I use that...

I use this recorder mostly for listening to Audio Books after converting them to MP3 format and downloading them from my PC. The quality of the sound is amazingly good, and one AAA battery seems to last forever with earphones. I use Logitech FreePulse Wireless Headphones when listening while doing manual work. I use it in place of an iPod or smartphone for playback at a fraction of the cost.

I tested the recorder function and it seems to record very well. I suggest using an external stereo microphone with an extension connector because this thing is so sensitive that touching it while recording results in unacceptable noise in the recording.

This recorder has a long list of features and beats any cassette tape type recorder by "light years" of technology. It is so tiny that four of them could easily fit in a shirt pocket so it never gets in the way.