Voice recorders are a total anachronism in the gadget world. Almost everything about their design, interface, and form-factor is predicated by 30 some-odd years of tape-based predecessors, making for something that is to some a refined, intuitive platform, and to others (myself included) a byzantine finger puzzle of sliders and near-mystical runes (I do interviews in GarageBand, though, so I’m obviously a voice-recording lamer). But for those of you still in love with the idea, this new HDR-B5GM model from Sanyo does everything right, it seems.
Not only does it feature the “world’s first” built-in hard drive (a 1.5GB model), it still has an SD memory card slot so you can add as much memory as you need. It can be powered by its rechargeable battery, USB, or the mains, and records to both MP3 and WMA formats. And the hard drive has a shock-sensor to protect it from damage from a fall—this is the future of being stuck in the past.
World’s First HDD Voice Recorder [TechJapan]
