I bought this MP3 recorder because you can plug a headset with microphone and headphone mini jack plugs directly into it. It also comes with a cheap microphone (which gave a reasonable and slightly louder recording than the headset) and earplugs, which I have not tried. There is an inbuilt speaker which works, if quietly. You can also record from a telephone that has an RJ11 socket (mine do not) which I have not tried.
There are 3 recording modes: LP, SP and HP. The first 2 are audible but with some distortion. Voice activated recording only works in SP mode, so I have not bothered with it. The HP mode creates a clear MP3 recording. In this mode it looks as though you can store around 25 hours of speech on the 2Gb drive (the manual claims 34).
The manual is written in a strange language claiming to be English. To record you first have to click on the fast forward key to select HP mode (first recording only) then the record key. You have to wait around 3 seconds before the red light indicates that recording has actually commenced (some recorders are a lot worse than this). Press record again to stop. It takes another 3 seconds before you are able to press play and review the recording. Various buttons do other things, if you can decipher the inaccurate manual, but to manipulate the recordings it is best just to plug the recorder into a USB port of a computer (the casing means that it did not fit in every port that I have, and it was upside down in all of them so you cannot see the charging light). It appears as a new drive, so just cut/copy the recordings to a new location.
You are supposed to fully discharge the battery before recharging, which is impossible because it charges whenever you plug into a USB socket! There is also a plug adapter for charging (is this useful?)
The MP3 player has reasonable sound quality but is otherwise appalling. You can copy MP3 files into the root directory of the drive only. These appear as 001, 002, etc., regardless of the filenames. Basically, you can probably copy a couple of albums onto the drive. Any more would be impossible to navigate. However, if you are mainly looking for a robust recorder, which this appears to be, then this limitation may not bother you.