2. The Standard Olympus VN-120 (Replaced By The VN-1000)

The VN-120 is has the fewest features of the three recorders, but it's still very much worth a look. It's smaller than a mobile phone or an iPod and consists of a basic LED screen, a row of controls the most central of which is the well-placed Rec button, and below that the circular stop, play, forward/back area.

The microphone is on top, and to the left and right of it there are the jacks for earphones and a separate microphone if the one on the recorder itself isn't adequate for the job. The unit is powered by 2 AA batteries which are included in the package, and all told it weighs just 2.35 ounces (66.5 grams) with batteries and measures 3.9" x 1.54" x 0.85" (9.91 cm x 3.91 cm x 2.16 cm),fitting into the palm of your hand or clipping on to your clothes with the attached side-clip.

The unit is fairly simple to use. You can put recordings into one of three folders (A, B or C) which is handy if you want to keep certain files separate - study notes in folder A and recorded lectures in folder B, for example. You can also set the sound quality to high (44 minutes recording time), medium (65 minutes recording time) or low quality (121 minutes recording time), with lower quality obviously taking up less space.

The unit records up to two hours of audio, which is perhaps a bit stingy considering that without a USB port you have to delete things to take up space. This makes the VN-120 better for notes you intend to transcribe and less suitable for notes which you would like to keep long-term.

The microphone sensitivity can be adjusted to suit your needs, but even on the default setting the microphone is excellent for picking up conversation between people sitting in a room. This does mean that it picks up on background noise as well, but not to an annoying or overly distracting extent.

Finally, the speaker on the back plays back audio clearly and crisply. You can also choose to plug in a set of headphones if you like. In all the VN-120 is what I'd see more cash-strapped students using for lecture and study notes that can be transcribed later.