Recommend a hand held tape recorder?

Do you have a smartphone? Because I have an Droid Incredible, and the voice recorder is actually really good; even if I sit at the back I get good enough quality. So if you have one, try that before getting something new.

I don’t. I have a piece of shit Verizon McGuiver phone. It does have “Star Gazer” on it, which allows me check out the Cosmos.

@Jude Hmm. Then I guess I’d recommend the reviews on Amazon for digital voice recorders (unless you want tape, but then it requires an actual tape.) Many times there will be college students telling you how good it is for a classroom setting.

I think it’s been almost that long since I used tapes!

Seriously, the MP3 player I got eight years ago had a built-in microphone, as does it’s six-year-old replacement and my Droid X. And most of the recorders I’ve seen in the last five years were 100% digital.

Any decent office supply place or campus store should have dozens of solutions, not least of which is using a laptop to record audio… or video!

This:http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/

It is pricey though; $99 to $199 range.

I think a lot of the Olympus stuff is good for classrooms. Not all of them – definitely read the reviews – but they seem to make a lot of stuff that’s good for college.

Tape recorder?!?! Do they still even make tape recorders any more???

Anyway, there’s a ton of portable hand-held voice recorders on the market!

Are you looking for cheap, or fancy, or somewhere in between?

I bought an Olympus digital voice recorder (model ws-300m) that’s been pretty handy. It records in WMA, and may be plugged directly into a USB port. Cost me about $100 at the school bookstore, which means that you can probably find it elsewhere for considerably less money. Didn’t have a terribly good pickup, but hey, what does?

Samson has a spin-off called Zoom that makes pretty incredible hi-fi audio recorders. They record to standard SDHC cards, and this one in particular pics up sound very accurately. Problem with “micro recorders” that aren’t pro standard is, the intelligibility of speech at a distance. The mics on the Zooms are studio-grade, and have excellent highs and a very open sound. They are good for band recordings, and excellent for speech.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/H1/

This one goes for $99 online, however, you could probably google/amazon and find it for cheaper.

My wife uses an Olympus (WS-100) – similar to what @Nullo has recommended – to record lectures. It goes for ~ $40 on Amazon, although I think there are much newer models now.