Well a Beatles reunion tape made with Zoom internals vs nothing. Got it. I'll take the Zoom thank you very much.
You so funny...I'd love to see a reunion with 2 out of 4 dead people!
All kidding aside, I love the sarcasm on this thread, so much so, that I thought I'd add to it a bit. Simply put, zoom is worthless (IMO). Yes, you get what you pay for. To take it a step further, internal mics are a semi-adequate back-up in the event that you are the
only person there to record an event and that is your
only option. Church CA-14's are a solid sounding mic. I mention this because Church mics have been brought up as a comparison to internals. There is no comparing a real microphone to any internal mics. I have used internals on both my Sony M10 and Edirol R-09HR in a pinch. Given the recording atmosphere (eg. small bar with controlled volume compared to an arena), they may give you something to have as a reference to the music. Will you want to listen to the recording for enjoyment? Probably not. They are thin recordings with little re-listenability. So yeah, if you want something to make a good recoding, buy microphones. But don't just buy them, research them first! Go on etree, archive, dime, or whatever site you like and compare different mic/deck/pre combinations, being sure to know where they were recorded. Mics don't have to cost you an arm and a leg, but you often do get what you pay for, so listen and decide where to draw the line for yourself.
As for using internal mics, as a choice, do the same research. Just because Edirol/Roland internals may be reviewed as better sounding mics, doesn't mean you'll be any happier with them. In the instances I have had to record with internals (again, using the M10 or the R-09HR), I have been happier with the R-09HR. That isn't to say the M10 was bad. they were also very different situations. The R-09HR was at Jones Beach Theater, having no time to set up for a Dave Matthews show, I turned on the R-09HR while setting up real mics. I recorded on the R-09HR for about 1minute and 20 seconds before switching to externals. It was a similar situation with the M10, but it was in a small bar, and I didn't want to set up in front of their face, so I placed the M10 in front of them, and used that. Will I listen to that recording. LOL, no. I did check it out, of course, to know how it came out, and I was surprisingly pleased with the results. That doesn't mean it meets my standards to sit down and enjoy. The moral of the story, buy some damn mics and do the job right! If you need to keep it simple, audition the Church Audio CA-14 (cardiod) with a CA9200 pre.
Just as an added note. You may not be a fanatical taper like many on this site (myself included in that mess), and sound quality may not be as important to you, as opposed to just documenting something. Keeping that in mind, and do whatever the hell you want