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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Sony MZNH600D
Comment: I'd read a lot about the Hi-MD format so I wanted to check it out in person. I don't know how in the world I missed this when shopping, but this model DOES NOT HAVE A MICROPHONE, NOR ANY WAY TO USE ONE WITH IT! Well, shop twice buy once I reckon. To me that eliminates at least half of the usefulness of such a device, but it's my fault for not finding that out before buying.
So why the 4 stars? Because, as a player it's awesome. The Hi-MD format is everything I'd read, I can't for the life of me fathom why Sony isn't doing more to spread the use of MiniDisc. Yah SonicStage is a pain (though better than I expected from reviews, I guess Sony did improve it) but the Japanese lessons & music I put on the disc sounded absolutely fantastic. The interface on the machine is kinda clunky but for stuff like Japanese lessons that won't really matter too much since you won't be fishing around too much.
So as just a player, I really like this little booger. I've read that some people get 34+ hours of battery usage & I wouldn't doubt it. And the Hi-MD format is just terrific.
I'd love to have a more versatile machine using Hi-MD, that I could easily record things with, move files around under Linux, and use OGGs etc. with. But this machine ain't it. It's just too limited, and only because of the iron paw of Sony. Shame. With a mic jack, and some software tweaks, this would be a heck of a machine I could be happy with for years. Now that my little experiment's over it's probably heading to Goodwill.
Oh, and the folks I ordered it from (ship2you) did an absolutely superb job, thanks, it got to me in 2 days! I got a refurbished model for I think around $90(?) and everything was great.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The only way to listen to music
Comment: The 1 gig capacity and atracplus codec are reason enough to use HiMD. The fact that the media is removable makes this device even more attractive. If your hardrive player or flash player breaks and it will, or if the battery fails then you can't access any of the music on the player. In contrast, you always have your mini-discs. Minidiscs last longer than cds. I've had cds corrupt data in as few as 2 years. Minidiscs have a much longer life span. Minidiscs are rewritable a million times according to Sony, and act as a hard disc drive meaning you can delete and rearrange the music or data on the disc. Since the advent of HI MD minidiscs Sony has made this the only portable way to listen to music.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Only if Sony upgrade it to USB 2.0
Comment: The Pros: It's a thing of beauty. Some people say it's made of cheap plastic. Well may be true priced at $100.00+, but that aside I would have to disagree. Runs on a single AA battery for days. Sound quality is excellent for compress music. The bad . . . It uses the obsolete USB 1.0 so it take 45 min to 1 hr to transfer 1gb music or data. Sonicstage isn't music-sharing friendly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: DO NOT USE AS A DATA DRIVE!!
Comment: I have been a long time user of Sony's minidisc equipment. I mainly liked the removable media feature. For about $3, I could copy a whole CD to one regular minidisc and keep it in my media library. The early units seem to be made better. The more recent units look to be cheaply made. There is one inherent design flaw with a media that has to spin. The read/write heads have to move back and forth across the media, and this is the weak point. There is a tiny ribbon cable that attaches to the read/write head. THIS CABLE WILL FAIL in time. It may be 6 months, it may be three years, but it will happen. When it does, you will get the famous "BLANKDISK" error whenever you insert your disc. This will destroy whatever data was on the disc. No great loss if you use the minidisc for music only, but a potential disaster if you use it for backing up data (which I used to do). I researched this on minidisc forums and found that It had happened to others.
I used minidiscs for data backup because the $3, 300MB discs were perfect for my needs. After loosing valuable data, I have put all 3 of my units and dozens of recorded and blank discs in a drawer. Probably never to be used again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Does what I need it to do
Comment: Ok, first things first. Since I deal with a huge number of mp3 files, mainly on mp3 cd's, the idea of being able to put them on a minidisc sounded to good to be true. And it was, because the files are converted before they are transferred to the minidisc, so technically, they are not actually mp3 files, they are oog files. Plus, the software is a nightmare. Other people have said that the updated version is better, which is the version I have, so I can't even imagine how terrible earlier versions were. SONY is really screwing the pooch, as they could absolutely rule the mp3 world, with major improvements, because with these Hi MD players, if the unit messes up, you don't lose your music, because it is on a removable disc, whereas with a conventional mp3 player, if something happens to the unit, you're done. One big thing that disappointed me was way these things were pitched to work as removable drives for a computer, but in reality, they are a long way from that. Sony has a very long road to make that particular part of the dream a reality, but I get the feeling they are just going to sit on their hands, and these things are eventually going to be phased out. So I say, pitch any other company out there to actually take over the market for them, maybe Magnavox or Panasonic, two companies who aren't afraid to improve their products and are known for decent reliability. But, as I mentioned in the title, they work for what I need them to, which is to put large amounts of music onto a tiny disc and never having to worry about the disc again, which is a huge improvement over cd's, which have to be replaced from time to time. I know people who are using the same minidiscs from ten years ago with no trouble, and these guys are professional mobile dj's. Sony is a really screwing themselves over this time by not making faster improvements with the software and etc., so Magnavox, I hope you hear me. Peace out
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