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Hands down, the Sony PCM M-10. There's nothing that can touch it at its price point (which is about $220 right now). It's small (about the size of a deck of cards), reliable, runs forever on two AAs, is reasonably sturdy, sounds great, and if you don't like the sound of the internals, leaves you money to buy some mics. Inputs/ouputs are stereo mini. I have one of these and love it.
The next real step up (e.g., phantom power, XLR in/out, S/PDIF in) IMHO is the Marantz PMD661 ($599). More complex in terms of its use (may be too fiddly for a younger user), but I really loved mine when I had one. About the size of a small but thick paperback book.
You'll have to spend far more money before you reach the next level of improvement, ca. $1800-2000, e.g. the SD702.
Corbin
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