Moving at the Speed of Creativity

On weekends when I can wander around stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, Target and even Wal-Mart, my main mission of late has been looking for an inexpensive digital audio recorder. Ideally (and I think this product WILL eventually be available at this price point) I want to find a device which:

1. Records native mp3 digital audio
2. Has a direct or via cable USB connection to a computer
3. Is cross-platform, supporting not only Windows XP/Vista but also Macintosh OS X and Linux
4. Is battery powered, via either AA or AAA batteries
5. Has at least a 1 GB recording capacity
6. Costs $20 or less

I have a fair bit of experience recording “on the scene” audio for podcasts using the older Griffin iMic for iPods (it was around $30 and has been replaced by the slightly more expensive iTalk Pro) and the iRiver T10 recorder. The T10 is a GREAT recorder, but still on the expensive side. It’s price today at Circuit City was $150, down from the $200+ it cost over a year ago. The main disadvantage of recording with an iPod is the fact that the hard drive spins and you end up recording some of those spin up and spin down sounds. Recording with an iPod Nano, which is flash-based, can avoid this problem. I did purchase an iTalk Pro for $35 at MacWorld a few weeks ago, and plan to experiment recording with it on both a Nano and iPod video next week at the conferences I’m attending.

I made two primary discoveries this afternoon regarding digital audio recorders. The first was the Samsung YP-U2J audio player, which is a 1 GB flash drive that includes a built-in voice recorder as well as MP3 player. (PDF)

It comes in 1 GB and 2 GB versions. I was impressed to find the 1 GB version (in white) at Best Buy for $69. Circuit City had the same model for $109, quite a price difference. (It may have been the 2 GB version, but even if it was Best Buy’s price for the 2 GB was just $79 as I recall.) This model looks great because it costs less than $100 and plugs right into your computer, doubling as a USB flash drive. Drawbacks are it appears to only support Windows XP (yuk) and it does not have a removable battery, so you have to make sure you have sufficient charge before you start recording something. (That could be hard to do if you’re making long recordings of presentations or lectures.)

The second find today was the Creative Zen Nano Plus, which Circuit City had on special for just $59.

Since it is battery operated and almost $50, with 1 GB of storage, I thought this looked really GREAT. If it was advertised as Macintosh-compatible I probably would have bought one today to try out next week at the OTA and TCEA conferences (where I expect to be doing a lot of recording.) The iRiver T10 was originally sold as Windows XP only, but the company later released a firmware update that permitted recording functionality with both Mac OS and Linux computers. Maybe Creative will do the same thing with the Zen Nano Plus. If anyone has successfully used this with a Mac or Linux computer, please let me know. It is USB-based, but since there is not any documentation indicating Mac or Linux compatibility I’m doubtful it would “just work” on my Mac. (Microsoft “Plays For Sure” meant “doesn’t play on anything except Windows XP” in the case of the iRiver T10 when it was initially released. It was a DRM thing.)

The CNET review of the Creative Zen Nano Plus is favorable, and the price has definitely come down. So this is one to watch.

Previously, I’d had my eye on the iAudio U2 as a sub-$100 digital audio recorder that is cross-platform. The iAudio U2 has a rechargeable battery, however, unlike the Zen Nano Plus and the iRiver T10, and that is a drawback. At multi-day conferences recording multiple sessions for podcasts, it is critical that I don’t run short on battery juice, and using replaceable batteries has proved the best solution to that challenge in the past.

If the Zen Nano Plus will work with a Mac and the audio recording quality is comparable to the iRiver T10 or iAudio U2, it might make it onto my future purchase list for podcasting supplies. As I shared with the Tech Chicks in their podcast interview with me (Episode 12) back in November, a portable audio recorder is really THE MOST IMPORTANT piece of equipment I own for podcasting besides my laptop.

I am going to return the generously loaned iRiver T10 to a friend next week, so I’ll be back to just having iPod voice recording capability. (I’m anxious to try the flash-based iPod Nano for recording, however, since it shouldn’t have any extra spin sounds.) That should work fine, but I hesitate to leave an iPod of any type at the front of a conference presentation room for an extended period of time since everyone knows what an iPod is and it might walk away. So, my quest for a less expensive digital audio recorder will continue…

If you have thoughts or suggestions on this, I’d love to hear them. The last time I posted on this topic was in October, and several people chimed in with helpful suggestions then.

Technorati Tags: podcasting

On this day..

• Podcast224: An Interview with Patrick Henry - 2008
• Updating goals - 2007
• What is the $100 laptop project? - 2006
• Visual News - 2006

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under podcasting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.