6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Overall a GREAT device
Date of Review: Dec 31, 2002
The Bottom Line: If you want a small portable audio device with cheap media this is the player for you.
I got my first portable audio device for my birthday when I was 14. When it broke, I looked to replace it. I did heavy research for about a year looking for something to get take my tunes with me anywhere I went. I had a CD player in my car so that kept me happy for the most part, but I found myself wishing I had something to carry in my back pack while I was on campus. I looked at almost every portable audio device from MP3 players to Mini Disc. I came up with several bottom lines. I didn't like the cost of the memory for the Ram MP3 devices. The Hard drive MP3 players were too expensive and not very reliable (according to several reviews I read here). I was looking to spend between 100 and 200 bucks. I decided that I'd go for a Mini Disc player. The media was much cheaper than the RAM mp3 players, the battery life was super long (for the Sony MZR 700). The only draw back I had was the fact that you had to use the MD player itself to burn the media. This meant slow burn speeds. To burn one 80 min disc it took 80 mins. They came out with Net MD which could burn 80 mins worth in about 10, but the software interface wasn't very friendly according to stuff I read (because Sony didn't like pirated MP3's or something like that). Also the data on a MD was in atrac3 format. Not readible by any other device. Then one day I was in Circut City and saw this Mini CD MP3 player. I read the package and decided immediately to buy it.
Pros:
The most evident pro was the cost. This player was $100. No sales or anything. That was the MSRP. The Mini Disc player I was looking at was at least $150 online. More like $200. In addtion to the player being signifactly cheaper, the media is much much cheaper. Mini Discs hold 74 or 80 mins of audio. IF you have MDLP you can put 2X or 4X as much on a disc, with some sacrafice in quality (although I hear its not too bad). So you're lookin at $2 for a MD that holds say 160 mins of music. If you go on a trip or soemthing you'll probably need to carry several MDs because 160 mins of music would probably get old after a few hours. The media for this Mini CD player is just that; a mini CD. I bought a 10 pack of CD-RW from circut city for $14. I could have gotten a spindal of 50 CD-R for $25. I figured it'd be nice to have RW (considering my musical tastes change freqently). These Mini CD's hold 210 MBs of data. If you make or have MP3s you know your bitrate... I use 192 for most of my stuff. I get about 6 hours of MP3s on a disc. Thats 360 mins of music for $1.40 per disc (at super high quality... Most MP3's are 128 kbps).
Another great thing about this player is the way you burn media. I used my HP CD burner. The provided software is pretty good, but it only burns at 4x (with out buying the registration key). Its burns a 210 MB CD-RW in about 10 mins. Not bad at all... much better than 80 mins with a 1x burner on a MD recorder.
The Remote is very nice. It takes the MP3 file info and displays it while its playing. So your Artist and track title scrolls across during the song. Pretty nice if you make mixed CDs with a bunch of different bands on it.
The provided headphones are better than average (for provided headphones). They are similar to the Sony Street Style headphoens. They go behind your head. Not the greatest bass response, but to be supplied its nice. The headphones plug inline with the remote, so you can use your favorite pair and still use the remote.
The player includes a pair of rechargeable NiMh AAA batteries. Don't fret if you don't have a NiMh recharger. The player doubles as a charger. The provied AC adaptor will run the player with no batteries or charge the batteries internally. I found out that the on board charger takes around 6-8 hours for a full charge. There's no real way to tell because the battery meter isn't really accurate (it only has 3 bars and it stays on 3 for along time.. hits 2 for maybe an hour then dies about a 15 mins after you see 1 bar). I own a NiMh charger from MaHaCell for my digital camera batteries so I use that to charge my batteries. Its a "rapid charger" so it does it in about 2 hours.
Cons:
Overal there's not much I can complain about from the player. When the batteries are running low, it tends to skip alot more. When they're fresh it rarely skips. I don't think I've ever gotten it to skip with fresh batteries. The battery life is my biggest complaint. Compared to a normal CD player its about the same (but a normal CD player uses AA which have more power). It usually goes 6-8 hours on a fresh set of batteries. I'm giving it a 4 for battery life, because it lasts about 6 hours, but compared to the MD players thats nothing. This is the only place where the Mini Disc players I was considering have a major advantage. The Sony model I was looking at claimed to run 50 hours on a single Alakaline AA cell. But it comes with rechargeable batteries, so its not a big deal unless you're on a long road trip or something and can't charge it over night. The batteries are pretty hard to take out unless you have long figernails. I used a "Tiny Tin" from altoids to hold my AAA battiers for replacement. I eneded up leaving a guitar pick in there too so I could get the batteries out. With some use I've noticed the display in the remote is getting a little messed up. I think the cord has been bent and tangled so a few vertical lines in the dot matrix display are all black. Its still legible.. but a little annoying.
