An excellent player

I was looking for a CD Walkman for use in low light conditions - ideally one with a back lit display, but I doubted such a thing existed (having never seen one) until I came across the Sony D-NE520.

The display back-light only lights up for 10-20 seconds after any button press, but that's fine for selecting tracks or changing sound settings.

It also has a red LED that lights when in play mode, flashes in pause mode, and goes out in stop mode - very useful for knowing what mode it's in at a glance. The same LED also turns amber when playing an mp3 disc and green for an Atrac disc.

Atrac is Sony's own music compression codac, claimed by Sony to be better than mp3. It also offers gapless playback which is great for mix albums. However the SonicStage software that Sony supply with this player is very slow at burning CD's. Also you can only play the Atrac files on some Sony players.

I've ended up just using mp3 CD's burn with my existing software.

Like most discmans, the buttons on the front panel are a bit fiddly but the remote that the D-NE520 comes with has much larger buttons (especially the play/pause button). (The more expensive D-NE920's remote is very fiddly.) However the display back-light doesn't work when you use the remotes buttons.

It also has a function call"Search" (no the player only (not on the remote): Pressing"Search" allows you to scroll through other tracks or, on an mp3 disc, to scroll through folders (say artists), drill down and scroll again (say albums by that artist) then again (tracks on album) all without interrupting play. When you finally select a track it jumps from the track currently playing to the track selected with a short gap.

Sound quality is excellent, but at low volume settings it is possible hear a back ground hiss on the output.

Overall I'm very pleased with my purchase.

Now the bad news, it has been recently discontinued and is in short supply.

Complicated but worth it!!!

I had been using a 60Gb Ipod video on a trial run from a friend. I soon realised that the video function for me was like a camera on a mobile phone. I used it a couple of times at first but then resorted back to just listening to the music. After I returned the Ipod i decided to go for a smaller MP3 player. I brought a Samsing 4Gb with a sliding out speaker. But this broke within a couple of days. Thank goodness for Amazon. I then decided to buy the Sony NWS706. The player was very small. But despite its size was actually quite heavy. When I put the player in my shirt pocket it was quite noticable. However with the weight came the feel of excellent build quality. The quality of sound was better than the Ipod and I would say on par with the Samsung. The product was complicated to use at first as was the software. But once you get use to it the product is very rewarding.

Buy It, its great

i've had this minidisc since it first came out and it's never broken, or crashed it's fabulous and its worth the money i paid for it.

Just not Quite right

I bought this clip to go with my shiny new player but buyer beware as the picture does not really tell the full story. Yes it clips on and is an excellent clip but I really hoped it would cover the front screen as well in order to prevent scratches.

It doesn't.

Additionally there is no easy way of accessing the hold switch and so several times the thing has been playing in my pocket without me knowing.

All in all it is a quality piece of plastic and metal and does what it is meant to do.....just seems like missed opportunity to protect the whole player and offer the functionality of the clip.

MD still great

This is a great MD deck and very easy to use. Editing, titling are a breeze. Although I do use MP3s as well, I still love Minidisc.

An Excellant Device. Light, Compact, feature packed.

The 700blue fits in the palm of your hand. It is so light, you wonder if they forgot to put the circuitry inside. Unlike the cassette walkman, the minidisk walkman really does fit neatly into your shirt pocket.

It comes with one hi-md 1gig disk, 1 rechargeable AA battery, mains power lead. optical cable, USB Cable, headphones and remote, a library of documents and the latest version of Sony's Sonic Stage (Version 2.0).

Sonic stage works wonderfully. It is simple and reliable to use. An icon in the system tray allows you to copy instantly the contents of a Music CD to the MiniDisk. Sonicstage itself allows you to copy audio files BETWEEN (both ways) the PC and the minidisk. You can also order the tracks on your computer screen and the minidisk will be reordered automatically; this saves you moving tracks around directly on the minidisk with the small controls.

The power adaptor which comes with can be plugged in allowing the rechargeable battery to then charged up in two hours flat! The menu system is straight-forward to use (the trick is to hold down the menu button for 3 seconds - read the manual!).

Tracks are organised in a similar fashion to computer files, i.e. in files (or tracks) inside folders. Indeed, your folders on your computers, e.g. Jazz, Pop, my collection 1, etc, will be literally copied over, word for word. You can copy tracks by themselves or create a new folder for them. You can organise the order of the tracks or folders on your minidisk or your computer (as mentioned above).

This 700 model does everything you want. It comes with line in for optical and other sources AND a microphone for analogue recording from TV, Radio, Hi-Fi, or, indeed, microphone. Finally, you can store non-audio pc files, such as word, picture, excel, etc, etc.

...Let's see an ipod do all that!

A superb product and worth every penny. Don't you just love Sony?

Michael

Software seriously lets it down

I got this MD player about 6 months ago. I was really excited, I mean in theory it's great. You can store a huge amount on the minidiscs themselves, its all shiny and cool looking and generally the features are useful and easy to use. The controls on the wire of the headphones are good too.

However there are some pretty serious bad points.
1. My headphones have broken. First they started making buzzing noises while playing and then the left ear stopped working completely. I have to pull the connection slightly out of the controls and hold it to get it to work properly. But I can give them the benefit of the doubt on this; maybe its just mine that are faulty.
2. The software is terrible. It seems quite easy to use but it has caused me nothing but problems. I think I have had to reinstall it just about every time I've used it because of some error message or another. Frankly it's just not good enough.

The player itself is good; one of the best ive seen, as long as you are luckier than I was with the headphones. But Sony really needs to sort out the software (SonicStage) because I know Im not the only one who has given it a negative review.

Excellent bit of kit!!!

This is an excellent bit of kit for your walkman. Sound quality is faultless and the connection is great too.

Does its job very satisfactorily

I expected to see some fair and balanced reviews for this machine, and was surprised to see only one from a user in 'Europe'

I got this machine for Christmas. Intention: plugging into my 37 inch LCD in the bedroom, ability to record TV, browse internet and get rid of bulky(ish) DVD player.

The Vaio has done these 3 things perfectly. To start with the setup was a breeze. All software is of course preinstalled and plugging the hardware in was a doddle. Due to the HDMI connector, the audio lead has now been eliminated too which is a bonus. Time taken to plug in / clear up, around 15 minutes.

The Windows Media Centre interface is very slick and easy to use. Channel browsing and TV guide has been improved 100's of times over compared to the TV's built in software. WMC offers many more options and planning ahead / recording shows is a joy to do.

Browsing the internet from the laziness and comfort of my bed on a large screen is another great joy. No more laptop or PDA required in bedroom.

Downsides:

The remote control did 'die' after Windows updated itself. I haven't been able to bring it back to life yet, but I'm not completely fussed because the keyboard is a very good substitute. (although I haven't given up on it)

The 'mouse' or finger pad on the keyboard can be a little erratic and can require coaxing to point properly. I've never liked these controls even on all my old laptops, so it could just be me and the way I use them.

Windows is Windows, and prone to the same old quirks. No more or no less than a desktop PC.

The product is a little over priced really for what it offers in terms of hardware. I can't help thinking Sony could have snuck in a blu-ray player for no extra cost...

Overall I am very happy with the product. I'm guessing the previous reviewer is a developer, or is not using this PC in the haven of his own bedroom. To give 1 star is extremely harsh and suggests the product was not used as intended. Also, not sure what this bloatware is and finally the machine runs perfectly well with 1gb of ram (although this is easily and cheaply upgradable to 2)

Sony MZ-N10 10th Anniversary Net Minidisc Walkman

This really is one amazing product by Sony. I bought it to replace a two year old MZ-R700 that was beginning to die.

Compared to the old player this is incredibly light. The full unit with battery and minidisc weighs less than the old one without battery or disc even. It is also very small, barely the thickness of two minidiscs and not much larger than a single in the other dimensions. Sony really have worked hard to keep this player tiny.

The USB/Charging cradle is great. As far as i could find, it is the only such sony player with a usb cradle available in the UK at the moment. It means you can just drop the minidisc player in and instanly have it connected to your computer. No more fumbling around with cables and fidly little socket covers :)

The player has an extensive list of features and menu items, including several unusual ones - a timer, apparently there to help japanese commuters not miss their train stops apparently for one :|. The menus are comprehensive to the extent that i havent managed to test them all out yet.

In reference to another review about the lack of USB cable in the box, i can say that is *not* the case. The cable is however very well hidden in the bottom corner of the box under the player. I didnt find it straight away, and had to pull the cardboard dividers to pieces to get at it, but it is there.

It would also appear that the internal battery is removable if you have one of the impossibly small screw-drivers to hand, so that if and when it finally dies, yo can at least replace it.
One oddity is that there is a switch on the back to switch off the internal battery completely. This would be useful if for example you wont be using the player for a while, thie way it wont drain down over time. It will not, however, let you use a standard AA battery whilest the internal battery is off.

If you are considering buying this Minidisc player, there is an excellent in-depth review here: http://www.minidisc.org/brian_youn/mzn10/
It runs into 8 or 9 pages if my memory serves me well, covering pretty much every aspect of the player.

Sony Walkman mp3

A very good, clear mp3 player. easy to use and understand. Easy to store. Simplified instruction manual so its not very confusing but a little more info would have helped a lot! Easy to connect to the computer. I found the software easy to use and understand.
Sony walkman equipment i find great. I will always buy Sony Walkman products.