Hello folks,
I hope you are all well.
So I recently obtained a zoom recorder, I believe it is the H1N model. It seemed a great choice because of the fact that it is portable and recordes in stereo, something I had always wanted to do but couldn't because I was stuck with my mono phone mics. What I had not taken into consideration was that this recorder would be rather difficult to set up because of the absence of any voice guidance or indeed any audio feedback, as far as I've seen. Fortunately, I have obtained a listing of all buttons, but I still cannot figure out how to progress through the innitial setup and get to the actual recording bit. What I was wondering is, has any of you managed to configure one of these devices blind or was sighted assistance necessary? If you did manage to set it up, do you have any tips to share?
Thank you all very much in advance.

Basically same question here. My college has Zoom recorders on offer, but have heard that they are not extremely accessible. Can anyone shed any light?

Ok, a bit of an update. Lol.
I've set mine up using be my eyes. I know that there are various different models, so the buttons and other things like that that I'm going to be referencing aren't going to be in the same places, but the basic idea is this:
You would have to put the batteries in correctly, then preferably insert a micro SD card if you have one. On the H1N, the slot for it is located on the right side of the device, above the two buttons for the volume control. Then, try to find the power switch. It's just underneeth the trash button on mine. Slide it all the way in the opposite direction in which it came in by default for about 3 seconds and that should turn it on.
If this has never been turned on befor, it will ask for your language and date and time. You can get someone to help you set those up, but if you want the language to be English and don't care much about how accurate date and time is, you can press the big recorde button twice. This will set the time to whatever the preset time on it is,in my case 01/01/2017. Again, if accurate timestamping is your thing, I'm not sure how it could be set, but there might have something to do with the fast forward and rewind buttons. I would get some sort of sighted assistance here if possible.
Anyway, after all that is done, you're basically all set. If you press the recorde button, the timer will go to 0 and it will start counting up, or go to full and start counting down, depending on what your time mode is set to. I believe you can set this, along with a few other options, by turning off the power and turning it back on whilst holding down the trash button.
Because of the fact that there is so much variation between models, I don't know if this is accurate for every single one of them, and I know it is by no means a complete guide, but I sincerely hope it helps someone out there. By the way, a bit of a tip: Slide on a pair of headphones if you have one and try to monitor your audio when you can. Very useful, especially given how sensitive the internal mics on these things are.
Anyway, @2 or anyone else, if you have any further questions, fire away and we'll try to figure them out.
Peace.

Thanks for that Frisbee!

Thanks a lot! This is quite informative. Happy exploring.

I'm glad that helped.