Comments about ZOOM H4n - Handy Recorder:

This is a review from the point of view of a documentary filmmaker shooting on DSLR rigs.

The H4n is such a staple of the DSLR video industry that it's hard to say much about it -- everyone and their mother has already been over it and back 50 times and the available workflows are well documented. It's a great piece of hardware: clean sound (with a little more hiss than you expect at high gain), good range, cheap, well built, and batteries last for days in it.

There are some issues worth noting though: you get a lot of travel and contact noise through the plastic case, so you should carefully shock mount it if you'll be moving with it. Also, the firmware is very... slow. Except for the primary function buttons (record / stop / levels) it is laggy and less responsive than other (more expensive) units with similar functions which can be a pain when you need to change a setting on the run while following your subject. Most annoying for me is that it lacks the ability to do maintained sequential file numbering and does not record a timestamp with files. That's a huge annoyance for the editor who is syncing everything later and for the producer organizing months of documentary footage with separate sound.

In the end my team stopped using H4ns entirely and moved to a Juicedlink setup for recording sound in-camera. It's more complex and eats batteries, but I prefer the results. The problems I have with the H4n only really affect a guerrilla style documentary shoot though, so I still recommend it to almost anyone else.

Comments about ZOOM H4n - Handy Recorder:

I use this primarily for field acquisition and foley work. I had been looking at bigger, more expensive devices until I found this. It does everything I wanted from a big recorder and for a heck of a lot less money, not to mention with fewer batteries and a much smaller footprint. The mics are hot, the plugins are super, and the stability is perfect.

Comments about ZOOM H4n - Handy Recorder:

I bought an H4 (the old version) about 6 months ago and although it makes reasonably good recordings it has a terrible user interface and barely legible LCD. The new H4N that I recently bought is so much better it's like night and day. The display is bright and large and well laid out. The menu system is still a little awkward, but workable. The built-in mics sound more transparent and neutral in frequency response and it seems the mic preamps are improved as well. I've made several live recordings and am very pleased with the results. One important advantage of the H4N over the competition is the option to connect any professional microphones you would like since it has XLR balanced inputs with +48V phantom power. Most of the lower cost handheld recorders lack that option so that puts the H4N in league with much more expensive units like the Sony and Marantz. Also worth mentioning is that the build quality is much improved over the original H4 - the H4N feels very solid. It also comes with improved accessories like a case, wind screen, and practical mic stand adaptor. Highly recommended.