Recorder

Between 8 and 9 p.m., the recorder at a meteorological station at Harrow, Middlesex, picked up 1,470 lightning flashes within a radius of 10 to 15 miles, and observers at the station described the storm as "probably one of the most spectacular of the century."

A smartphone is not the best camera, notebook, word processor, audio recorder, radio, MP3 player, map reader, pedometer and so on, but it is good enough replace numerous separate devices for most people most of the time.

Recorders are made in various sizes, from the high soprano or descant recorder to the low bass recorder.

Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.

[…] he beheld The city fronted with bright fires, and heard Pipes, and recorders, and the hum of war;

On his [Hamlet’s] taking the recorders—very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door—he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia.

And when they paused on a hilltop for lunch, he whipped out his battered recorder and commenced to tootling “Greensleeves,” scaring off all living creatures within a five-mile radius—which may have been his intention.

[…] he had huffed into his white plastic recorder while scowling at the sheets of music that lay open on the wobbly stainless-steel stand.

Recorder players today will disagree, and probably hate me for saying so, but all these “historically authentic” recorders used today generally produce – with rare exceptions – a rather plain, lifeless, non-vibrato, non-singing performance. This appeals only to recorder players themselves, early music fans and academic music specialists.