I'm shopping for a small/tiny audio recorder, the kind for recording in a class, interviews, etc... not really music, just voice. Per usual, a lot of these write their audio files in some Windows format, e.g., WMA. As a confirmed Linux guy, I'd want to offload the audio files in some format that Linux can read/play natively. I've read a sketchy suggestion that there's a Linux app or utility to do a translation from WMA, http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/127583, but I always like to keep things as simple as possible and so would much prefer avoiding the hassle and possible failure of conversion apps and Windows-format crap generally.
Secondly, connecting to my laptop... I've got a sound card, but it doesn't have LineIn, just mike and headphone jacks; neither of these is good for input, but... Many audio recorders these days connect with USB (which I've got), so that's the most likely connection path.
Given these parameters, does anyone have good experiences with a really small audio recorder and offloading and then playing its sound files on Linux?
Thanks much.