Creative Lab MuVo replacement for Nomad Jukebox 3?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hey all:

Infrequent poster here. I try and not clutter things up.

Besides being a musician, I also produce a Celtic/Folk music radio show. As
part of this gig I ALSO provide an internship for a High School class in
Civic Affairs. A couple of students every year churn out about five social
issues programs. Some of this involves location recording - interviews,
location sounds, etc. They've been using a small cassette recorder, but I
think the school can spring for some new stuff.

Based on this group's expert opinions (well, some of them are pretty good!)
I've been looking at the discontinued but still available Creative Labs
Nomad Jukebox 3. However, CL is now making a cheaper flash player that also
has a line-in: The MuVo Micro N200.

Anyone used this with an external powered microphone as a field recorder?

Given that the Micro N200 probably won't have an input level meter, can one
monitor the line-in while in record mode?

I only need this for portability, ease of use, and quick recording by
students for interviews and maybe some ambient background noise (to indicate
where the interviews are - street noise, factory noise, etc.) Recording
quality needs to be better than cassette ( no duh) but does not need to be
like recording music on site.

I myself have a Sharp MD unit that I use for Irish jam sessions and other
field work, but I wouldn't want to recommend buying it for student use.
It's tricky with writing and preserving data, can't be bumped, no USB
transfer for editing, media flying around in the carry case, etc.

Do ya think the Micro N200 would work, or should I look at grabbing a
Jukebox 3 on ebay while available?

And while we're at it, what simple microphone system would work as a decent
adjunct to either one of these line-in machines? Think: high school
student use. I don't want any more boxes or cables than I need.

Thanks a ton in advance,
Carlos Alden