"A dictaphone got me my degree" said someone at studentbeans.com, before we gawped and then realised, yes, a handy recorder thingy would have been useful during our studies.

There's no doubt that recording lecturer waffle is valuable, but it's what you do with that waffle and how it helps your studies. If you thought your mobile was up to the task, forget it, we've tried it and it's a pain to make clear recordings and listen to notes. We also managed to lose our recording when someone sent us a text message. 

As a result, we decided to try out the Sony UX200, a small silver dictaphone which has two side mounted mics to catch all sounds in a lecture hall. You can charge it from your laptop and drag and drop files, which makes finding your notes (and cutting the waffle) easy. The UX200 also doubles up as a 2GB USB key to keep your photos and documents too.

You can stuff 500 hours of recordings into the UX200 and you can record for 14 hours, though even the longest lectures aren't going to be that long, even in your nightmares. In terms of style, the UX200 looks like a chunky yet lightweight iPod Nano and also comes with headphones, though you'll probably want to use the built-in speaker when listening at home.

There's a lyrca sock style carry case too - you can leave the UX200 in the case and still record, if you want to be discreet or covertly, ahem, spy on a fellow student. And if you want to put some music on the UX200, you can do that too but nowhere near as much as your iPod. We're talking 30 albums max, though there is an FM radio inside the silver case too.

The real plus point of the UX200 is that you can record from a great distance - perfect for large lecture halls, taking notes and recording gigs if you want to relive that Biffy Clyro performance while your lecturer starts repeating himself again. 

There's also tech which cuts out background chatter and records the bits you want to keep. We don't know how this works, but it works brilliantly so we aren't about to ask. 

If you fancy yourself as a Peter Parker wannabe or work on the student paper, the UX200 is useful for interviews as it has a mic-in socket. 

At around £50, the UX200 isn't cheap but it's usefulness makes it worth the money. We like the simple charge, record and file drop function which means you can email recordings to friends. As a result, it might just get you that extra pint you've been looking for...