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Ive never had any problems with it, it works great if you (like myself) dont consider necesary to have 10000 songs on a device smaller than your hand wich will ocasionally leave you music-less in a year or two.What I like:SizeI can trust it will never let me down (unlike like my ipod)The sound quality is incrediblePeople never guess what it is.What I don't Like:Small screen (but its not a real problem)Doesnt really have an ON/OFF switchI strongly recomend getting a minidisc, maybe not this one (wich is the cheapest one yet one of the best) over an mp3 player. My mother gave me this minidisc 4 years ago as a birthday gift, and Im still using it.
The product I bought is fine for my purpose, and for the price, I recommend 5 stars. Also, specifications on the available top-line were not easily available. I dropped my 10 yr old direct-recording MD and needed a new one to assure playability of my big MD collection from vinyl. This does that.I might have purchased a much more expensive direct-recorder, but MDs are NOW lacking elemental support, and seemingly may be a discontinued product line.
Now should that happen again, I get to slip the music mini-disc into another back up unit and the party jamz on nobody knew about the disaster with the music situation without skipping a beat. Unlike the Ipod I was crazy about up until my control function dial died on me at the wrong place & time,I losted it all the music & the Ipod. This little player is "Great" for multi-taskers,because it's a multi-tasking little unit,I customize my music onto different colored mini-disc in which I get to see and label. play it at the beach,parties,social functions,the bus or bike.
size and a set memory. I also have a hi-mdwhich can record up to 35 hours on one disc. I feel that the media is rather cheap compared to I-POD vs. This Sony MZ-NE410 high speed net md walkman recorder is working great. I could never fit my music library on a fixed memory I-POD. The software allows for direct cd to mini or compressed mp3's from windows media player or apple i-tunes to be imported to minidisc. I like the ease of recording up to 5 cd's or equivalent mp3's on one 80minute disk. I bought this for my daughter's birthday.
Unfortunately there is no standalone converter, sony is the only one who uses this and you can only use it using sonicstage. If Sonly released a stand alone free to download converter then I would highly recommend getting an MD player, but this is not the case. One basic reason:SonicStage.Now, Im what you would label a rationalist, I use logic and reason to help determine reasonable solutions to problems or questions that I come across. The only logical explaination that I came to is that SonicStage is in reality an artificial intelligence. If anything go for the Hi-MD players which dont require sonicstage (infact Sony is just learning that now, and releasing hardware that doesnt require it) though those have problems themselves (marked decrease in battery life, though at 25hrs still up to par with other mp3 devices).I got one to try out and the only good that came out of it was this review. Not to mention the ability to write the disks using the player itself. Alas, I was wrong. Im serious.
If your someone who isnt big into digital music devices but still would like to carry a few extra songs around, minidiscs may be for you. The problem lies in the conversion. Sony uses its own music files called Atrac. At times it may seem to go smooth on the first try, other times you may need to try a second transferr, and other times.well, all i can suggest is to shut down your pc, walk away, and try again another day (thats not even a joke, this is a serious recommendation).Atrac is a great audio format. At some point in its early development it became self aware, unfortunately it has not yet gained the ability to create a cybernetic physical form and instead spends its time driving users to the brink of sanity.I cant give an honest opinion on sony's online music distribution service (Connect) because it went belly up. You can still download sonicstage and use it (though why escapes me) for free, which if you get a minidisc player (with the exception of the Hi-MD players/recorders) is mandatory. Although they can only carry about 80mins worth of audio, if you use the atrac compression, you can easily stretch that out with little sacrifice to overall sound quality. Battery life is ridiculously amazing.
You might as well just get a cd player, that way you wont have to use binary AIDS, otherwise known as sonicstage. As I also mentioned previously, sonicstage has a life of its own. This form of compression allows up to five albums worth of music to be stored on a single minidisc and as I mentioned before with little overall audio quality loss. The odd part seems that this seems to be random. Dont think Im being biased either.
Then whats the point. Remember, you get what you pay for, and stay away from any Sony device that requires sonicstage. So dont use Atrac. A single AA battery can last you a few days. It will suddenly stop conversions midway or stop transfers suddenly and when this happens it may no longer identify the player.
I love sony (i grew up on the ps1 and 2, and their various cassette walkmans), so when I started hearing how sony tries to impose what they beleive is right as oppose to what the consumer wants I was a bit skeptic. So why is minidisc not well known. Even though it says that the minidisc accepts regular mp3's you still need sonicstage to transfer the files which is where the biggest flaw in the entire product lies.Sonicstage is the devil.
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