Many thanks for taking the time to offer your opinion and first hand experience of the R-09HR (you certainly have not wasted your time :-) ).

The device appears to have some very loyal users so must be good, and whilst personally the design does nothing for me, from an aesthetic standpoint, I accept that beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder. The comparison made with the Gigabit was on the basis of ‘looks’ only though, I must now accept that this is obviously not clear.

I would be more than happy to add your feelings and insight to the main body of the post as it may help others and to this end I would love to hear back from you to see if that’s ok (I’ll credit you, naturally).

I’ll pop you a mail just in case you don’t come by to read this response.

First of all, I own one, so I can say first hand a few things about it.

As far as design taste goes, everyone’s entitled to their own, and for that matter
I don’t particularly find the R-09 ugly, it looks pretty slick and classy, especially
in my hands.

Secondly, I think it’s quite wrong what you posted above about the R-09.
To compare it to the Toshiba MP3 player really shows that you’ve clearly
missed the point with it. A bit like comparing a mobile phone to a walkie talkie!
This isn’t an MP3 player, ipod style, its a high quality handheld recorder.
The fact that Roland are marketing it as HR standing for High Resolution, 24 Bits 9600 Wav resolution goes to show that’s what it’s made for.

I’m not from Roland, but I just think this post doesn’t do it any justice, because
I use the R-09 to record really professional stuff, all the way from live performances, to pots and pans around the house to use in my own productions.
Its a fab field recorder. The built in mics rock! And all music tech mags seem
to second that…

Let’s just hope this gets posted and I didnt waste my time!

As I understood it the device does also serve as an MP3 player though, I accept its primary function as as a recorder – which is why I made mention of its recording capabilities (though perhaps I should have made greater emphasis of this, so point very much taken). We’ll adapt the post title in light of your feedback. :-)

You don’t’ like the new Sony devices then (even the new models)?

Strangely enough I don’t much care what it looks like. However, since the only other affordable portable MP3 recorder on the market, from Sony, has more superfluous chrome than a T-bird, I’d say Roland did a reasonable job on this.