On Mon, 07 Oct 2013 11:45:57 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I need to buy something that is
- cheap

Define... £30 £50 £100 £300

- will record in solid state some kind of MP3 stream of about 3 hours
length or more

All will do MP3 at varying sample and bit rates. 3 hrs shouldn't be a
problem as far as data storeage is concerned even at 96 kHz 24 bit
WAV. They normally have an SDHC card slot and will handle at least 32
GB cards. Supplied cards tend to be small, only 2 GB ish. Battery (2
x AA's) should be OK for 3 hrs without trouble.

- that can be stuck on a disk later as a record of meetings.
- that is relatively unobtrusive - no not trying to bug! just don't
want a huge box bristling with dials that looks pretentious.

Take a peek at the Tascam DR05 or DR07. I've played with a DR07, bit
plasticy and the side buttons to drive the menu system where a bit
fiddly but it worked well enough.

There are many out there from cheap and cheerful through to semi-pro
with phantom powered XLR mic inputs and bigger price tags. Tascam,
Zoom, Yamaha, Olympus spring to mind.

Not sure how big a range of these things would be in a Currys or
similar to allow a "kick the wheels" session.

quality only need be good enough to be able top prepare transcriptions
by a competent audio typist and to clearly ID what was said.

These machines are pretty high quality technically, not like compact
cassette or "dictaphones" of old. The limiting factor will be the
room acoustics and how structered the meeting is, as has already been
mentioned. The cheaper machines won't have the best quality mic
preamps but they won't be absolutely terrible.

--
Cheers
Dave.