The New York Times has a good write-up of portable recorders for all you budding podcasters.

The article reviews the Edirol by Roland R-09 (US$399), the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 (US$350) and the Marantz PMD 660 (US$499). They are all pretty compact and offer good quality recordings.

At the UBC School of Journalism, we use the M-Audio MicroTrack. It is light and easy to use and the quality is very good.

But the article in the Times mentions the one drawback.

“Unlike the other products, the MicroTrack does not use AA batteries. Instead, there is a fixed internal lithium-ion battery that is recharged by plugging its external power supply into an electrical outlet or by plugging the device into the U.S.B. port of a PC or Mac. The battery is not removable, so there is no way to carry spares — a potential problem if you are away from an AC outlet for an extended period.”

It ends up going for the Edirol R-09. “While any of these devices will provide quality audio, the Edirol’s compact size and use of AA batteries give it a competitive edge.”