Why buy a recorder when you could just use a mobile phone or an MP3 player?

The most logical analogy I can think of is the mobile phone vs. the digital camera: you can take photos on a phone but would you use one for your wedding photos? A digital voice recorder, like a digital camera, does one thing and does it well. Buttons are logically positioned, the microphone sensitivity and recording quality is adjustable and recordings can be downloaded easily without the need for proprietary software.

The fantastic new iPod Nano now has a voice recorder function. Handy for the quick reminder but a bit limiting for lecture or meeting recording. Why?

The Nano has one recording quality setting: 44.1 kHz, a sampling rate usually reserved for recording music, which means an hour of recording is about 60MB – not ideal for emailing or transcription (typing-up).

What is the difference between the $100 one and the $600 one (Part 1)?

Something to note when you read any of these entries: I am working in New Zealand dollars which, to save my American readers having to use a currency converter, is worth more than a Mexican Peso but less than anything you have ever wanted to buy.
A $100 digital recorder that you might find in Noel Leeming or PB Tech is probably best described as a digital 'notetaker' (see image of the Philips Digital Voice Tracer to the right). The difference between this and an expensive professional recorder is not necessarily to do with the quality of the recording but a) what you want to do with the recording and b) how easy the recorder is to use day-to-day. Let’s look at a) in more detail first:

See how it looks quite similar to an MP3 player – all the buttons on the front, plastic shell, small and light (probably 10cm high and 40-80 grams).

These are the main rules for the $100-$300 digital notetaker you've bought:
1. It will record in MP3 or WMA (unless you’re Sony)
2. It should come with a USB connection (and make sure it does! This is the difference between the $99 and $150+ note-taker)
3. It should be a ‘mass storage device’, just like a memory stick. This is hugely important because if your notetaker records in some obscure format that can only be unlocked by proprietary software you’re in a bit of trouble if you want someone on another computer to listen to a recording
4. It will have built-in flash memory (I don’t know of one note-taker on the market that has removable memory)
5. You won’t be able to edit your dictation (once you stop recording you have to start a new track to make further dictations) and most importantly:
6. It will not be much good if you want your dictations typed up or ‘transcribed’ afterward. Instead you will play the recordings back on the notetaker, or a media player like iTunes or Windows Media Player (I encourage you to buy a recorder with a USB connection, that way you download and save the files on the computer, and email them)