Looking for a recorder

So, I spent a couple of days talking to sales dudes about a stand-alone recorder. I have been asked by 2 different people to record their band, master and burn to CD.

Turns out, either there is no support for connecting to a computer. Or, the device contains a whole raft of effects, etc, that I don't really need (becuase I use Sony Acid on the computer). The latter solution was almost $2000. Ouch! But no laptop needed for recording.

I did find a couple of solutions.
1) This is a very, very simple box. It takes 4 to 8 inputs (XLR and/or 1/4) and send the data to the computer through a firewire port. Cost in the $500-$800 range. This would be perfect, except I have no firewire port on my laptop. This solution uses the idea that the hard drive on the laptop is where the sound is stored. It is less expensive becuase it does not have a hard drive nor any media to store the sounds.
2) Alesis makes a mixer with a USB port. This is what I ended up buying. The USB lets the mixer act as an external sound card for the laptop, so I get bidirectional sound through the port. The only real downside is that the USB does not have a large enough data stream to support more than 2 channels of data (each direction)! So, an 8-track mixer only outputs the mixed down stereo result to the computer. Cost, $200-$300. Apparently, Alesis is coming out with a firewire solution similar to (1) above.

I picked up the Alesis. I have run into an issue and I will see how long their support takes to respond. Will keep you informed!

Jenny