I think you’ll be happy with the Olympus device. I’ve heard some nice recordings coming from a WS-something or other, and I have played back the WMA files from one on my linux box with no problem. Not certain about Mac, but if Linux handles it, OSX probably will also. This was of course the unencrypted WMA.
I use an Oade modified Marantz PMD-660 (www.oade.com) with a few different types of microphones. My favories are Beyerdynamic M-88 and Audio Technica AE5100. This combo is capable of very high quality results, but is in a different class from the Olympus in both bulk and cost.
Sounds like these devices reproduce sound as good as a minidisc?
Tony
The ones marketed to musicians do (Edirol and similar), or even better. The class room/dictation devices may or may not. Check the sampling rate in the specs and compare that to the minidisc. In many real world situations, it doesn’t matter, because the room acoustics or background noise are the limiting factors. Some of the low end voice recorders don’t have a microphone port, and that is another limiting factor.
For tune grabbing at a class or a session, the current low end models are adequate. The more expensive models and the musician models are gravy on top.