By Andrew Liszewski
This H4 ‘Handy Recorder’ has a lot of things going for it. Not only does it look cool with its wire cage protected dual electret condenser mics, but it’s also extremely compact, especially when you consider they’ve managed to cram in 2 combination XLR-1/4-inch input jacks complete with phantom power. But it’s the H4’s feature list that has me reaching for the ‘Add to Cart’ button.
You can record 24-bit/96 kHz digital audio or up to 320kbps MP3s directly to an SD card or to your computer’s hard drive when connected via USB. With a 2GB SD card you can capture about 380 minutes of CD quality sound, or up to 34 hours of stereo MP3s. Unfortunately that’s considerably longer than the 4 hours of continuous recording time you’ll get with a set of 2 AA batteries, but an AC adapter is also included. I’m particularly impressed that the H4 can even be used as a 4 track recorder when capturing CD quality 16-bit PCM, 44.1 kHz audio. While the 128×64 pixel LCD display is pretty basic, it’s more than adequate for monitoring levels and is probably easy on the batteries.
You can get it from ThinkGeek for $299.99.
I bought one of these, and promptly returned it.
Yes, it sounds great, is small and very light. But the small buttons and design function make it really frustrating to use.
I also think it could easily get damaged.