In my soon-to-be-released audiobook, “I Want To Podcast” I discuss the pro and cons of recording to a laptop vs a QUALITY digital recorder (not a $39.95 lecture recorder).
A lot has to do with how permanent your setup is and how many mics you need. Also how much you record on location.
If you need two mics, you can’t just plug in two USB Mics, it doesn’t work. You need a mixer. A better choice may be a recorder that accepts two mics. The mics on the unit here won’t be good for interviews unless they are newsy type ones on location. They are more for music.
In most cases, these recorders can also plug in to the PC USB port and act as a mixer. So one unit can serve two purposes: mixer for studio use and recorder for on location.
I have the P4 with no built in mics, but 4 XLR inputs. A P4 is better for podcasting.
I had one of these about 5 years ago now and it is a nice audio recorder. The microphone it comes with is amazing compared to anything in the consumer space and my god is it sensitive. I used it indoors to record audio for a failed podcast idea and I had to keep the gain set to barely above 1 (goes to 10) otherwise the mic would pick up voices (with clarity) on the bottom of the house or opposite side of the house.
The recorder doubles as a USB audio interface when you hook it up to a computer and lets you use the XLR ports on the bottom as inputs. If you’re recording in the field this is a great choice. The included microphone (the silver microphone module at the top of the recorder in the pictures) is excellent quality and a good all-round/general-purpose mic. It’s also modular; Zoom make other modules with different microphone types (a shotgun type, there’s also a third party mid-side).