There’s a million digital recorders out there on the market but the H2 Handy Recorder by Zoom is trying to capture the disposable income of those that need to record sounds coming from a variety of directions.

Unlike other recorders the H2 has three microphones, one in the center and two on either side, allowing for stereo imaging of the sound. You can also record from the front or rear of the H2 at 90° or 120° or in full 360° depending on what format you like your file to be (WAV, MP3 or Surround 5.1).

It comes with a 512 MB SD card but the makers suggest getting a 4 GB one to record up to two hours at 96kHz, six hours at 44.1kHz, or a whopping 138 hours in MP3 format. The controls are pretty easy to figure out and get going and it has a backlit display, which is nice when you need to see what the heck you’re doing in the dark. You’ll squeeze out about four hours of life from the 2 AA batteries the H2 needs to run on and a USB 2.0 interface cable, microphone clip adapter, AC adapter and a funky tripod stand ship with it.

Auto gain controls, an auto start function and a low-cut filter to reduce ambient background noise like wind also make this a neat little number for budding journalists or basement rockers that want to playback their rehearsals. $200 will get you th H2 Handy Recorder at most retail shops.

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