I’ve owned several digital recorders over the years, and the Zoom H1 is an excellent, extremely portable recorder for voice-heavy uses and field recording where you don’t want to or can’t bring along a lot of gear.
Using the Zoom H1 is dead simple. On the left side of the unit is a MicroSD slot with a sliding cover. I bought 32gb MicroSD card, inserted it, and then let the Zoom H1 format it. I haven’t had any reason to remove or mess with it since.
On the back of the unit is a sliding battery cover that opens to reveal the H1’s single AA battery slot. I use 2000mAh NiMH rechargeables in the H1, and I typically get 8-10 hours of recording time off of a single battery. I carry packs of 4 AAs in a battery caddy so I’ve always got more than enough batteries on-hand.
Sliding switches on the back of the unit control the recording format (WAV vs. MP3), and auto-level/lo-cut filter on or off. The one criticism I have of the H1 is that it is too easy to inadvertently slide one of these switches from on to off. I would have preferred to have these options set in software rather than hardware buttons.
The H1 can record either in WAV at 96kHz/48kHz/44.1kHz at 16-bit or 24-bit or in MP3 from 48 to 320kbps. I typically am recording voice narration and set it at MP3 320. With the 32gb MicroSD card, I can record about 200 hours of audio before needing to hook the device up to a computer via mini-USB and copy over the files.
The H1 has a line-in so you can use any 3.5mm microphone with it. If you hook it up to a PC, you can also use the H1 as a USB microphone which works really nice for podcasts and other voice-over-narration applications.
For $100, the Zoom H1 is an incredible value for anyone who needs a dedicated, highly portable digital recorder.