Hi, can anyone give me a recommendation for a small digital recorder suitable for use in recording interviews and focus group sessions? I am borrowing some equipment from my supervisor, but have been advised to have a second recorder as a back up. I need something suitable for use by a technophobe (i.e. me!).

I've always found Olympus recorders to be good. Very reliable and intuitive.

Hi Sally.

I used an Olympus LS-10 linear PCM recorder for my research because that was what was available to me through my department.

If I were buying one for myself for my fieldwork now, I'd probably get one of the Zoom recorders - they're easy to use and have really good sound quality. The Q3 also has an HD camera as well as being a really high quality recording device just for audio if you want. But if you don't want video, then all of the Zooms are really good sound quality, really durable and designed for fieldwork type activities. (source: my husband works with qualitative research and music. He uses a Zoom)

It's worth doing a bit of research and working out what functions you really want. There are also lots of comparable cheaper ones on the market now too.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Have you checked to see if you already have a suitable recording facility on your phone, laptop etc, rather than buying something? I have an ancient recording device but most of the time I just use the sound recorder on my netbook as it's very straightforward and does the job.

Thanks for the recommendations. I will take a look at the brands mentioned above.
Whilst I have used the record facility on my phone for personal work, the University makes strong recommendations not to use such devises for research, as they are seen as insufficiently secure to hold research data (we also have policies for downloading data into secure storage etc. even when using a standalone recording devise), hence the need for a shopping trip!