Sony ICDB120 Digital Voice Recorder

I'm a newspaper reporter and I bought this as a very fast replacement when mine broke on the way to an interview. This recorder has some good aspect - pretty good battery life, easy to use, has the divider button which is essential when taping longer segments and it's very compact.

The negatives - and the reason I'm in the market for a new recorder - is the playback and recording. You get a TON of background noise on any of the three recording levels. The noise isn't just people talking; I'll be conducting an interview in a room, 5 feet away from the person, and when I go back to listen to the interview, the person is almost completely drowned out by a hissing. It sounds like a fan was right next to the microphone during the session.

Needless to say, I'll keep using this until I find a different one, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone in the market. Spend the extra money for a better model.

My mom bought this a long time ago and I know for a fact she spent a lot more than the price on here. I took from her cause I have bad short term memory and once someone says something I totally forget everything else that was said. So I took it from her to help me take notes in my Human Nutrition class and it is very helpful. The problems I have with it though is that the battery life is very VERY short. Also when I play it back there is a lot of shuffle through out the entire recording. I wouldn't use this for anything else but a simple recording.

This is my first voice recorder, so I have nothing to compare it to. I use it to record reminders for myself as I'm driving or whenever an idea pops into my head.

It records my voice and lets me play it back... that's about all I was looking for.

I do wish it was skinnier because I like to carry it around in my front pocket. But, overall, it works for me.