Rating: 
Summary: Sony is a screwed up!
Review: Sony is so paranoid of people stealing music that they've made their minidisk player worthless! I have downloaded sermons that I tried to put on a minidisk to no avail, the mp3's just won't convert or something. Other music I have will download fine. Check out Sony's ATRAC system before you buy this, it is a nightmare transferring content to the MD. The sound however is really good, Sony knows how to split the stereo up to very good effect, but overall I sold this because I couldn't listen to what I wanted to. Check out eBay too, they're going for $50! That tells you something right there when you pay $100 and sell it the next day for $50 on eBay!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this item if you want traditional recording
Review: I bought this unit hoping that I can do the audio recording the traditional way(in the sense that the audio is picked up by a microphone which hooked up with the unit. And sony calls this 'Walkman RECORDER') Amazon also lists(at least as of until today 02/04/2004) Sony ECMDS70P Digital Recording Microphones(miniDisc) as the accessory of this unit. So I thought I got a great deal and I anxiously waited for the package to arrive.When I open the box I finally received, I did not find any jack that I can plug a microphone in. So I read the manual and only find something talking about recording with a computer. After several more hours of finding and reading manual/spec on the sony site, I realize that most other Sony minidisc walkman/recorder has optical input(which happened to be able to be used for analog line level input also) and some high end unit has mic input also. And right now I have hard time to get a full refund which I believe that I am entitled to due to Amazon and Sony's 'false advertisement'. Amazon said that they will at most refund me 50% to 80% if I return. I am even willing to buy another sony model from them!.
I will let you know how it goes. But at least the future buyers won't fall into the same 'traps' as me.(Of course, you will still be in the same situation if Amazon somehow block this review from showing up)
Rating: 
Summary: An adequate Mini Disc recorder
Review: The Sony MZ-NE 410 is a fair to good replacement for my older Sony Minidisc player-recorder. Yes it has its drawbacks, such as no imput jack, and no microphone imput jack, and there is no way to power it with an A.C.adaptor. All recordings must be done on a computer. This is not really as bad as it sounds. The Net MD Simple Burner does a fine job of quickly recording from CD to MD in a very short time. The only problem is that you can only select LP2 or LP4 to record in, you have to use the Sonic Stage software to record a disc without resorting to the long play modes, or use a different MD recorder. The only real reason I bought this MD recorder was as a second player, as on the first one I own, the headphone jack had worn out from long use and it would have cost too much to have it repaired. It was cheaper to buy this low end model. I intend to use it mainly for playback unless I decide to make some long MD recordings. I am also planning to try and keep it working until the new HI-MD units from Sony arrive on the market. Hopefully Sony will have learned from their mistakes on this model. Just because it is under $200.00 in price it should have a few more practical features on it. Still as a player it sounds quite good.
Rating: 
Summary: Wait til' Hi-MD
Review: This product is probably the best product i have ever purchased, but i urge you to wait until Hi-MD comes out in April-June. This new format will allow for 40 hours of music on one Hi-MD (this one allows 5). It will also be a portable harddrive making it possible to upload files from your home computer, on to your minidisc player, and then upload those files on to your office computer. And these files could be anything from video to documents. The new Hi-MDs will be 7 bucks each and hold a whopping 1 GB. Go to www.minidisc.org for more info. If i havent steered you away from waiting for Hi-MD the MZ-NE410 is a great portable audio device. You can hold a whopping 5 hours of music on just one dollar fifty minidisc. Another great thing is the extremely fast load times, (you can upload an entire cd in around 5 min or less). The MD player is very small so it can fit in almost any pocket, and cannot, i repeat cannot skip, unless you physically break (I MEAN BEAT THE S**T OUT OF) the minidisc player. You could literally drop the minidisc player, kick it against the wall (not extremely hard... obviously), and it would still play. This is becayse of how the minidisc works. It buffers the music for about ten seconds; so it has all the music on memory, then plays it. For all you wannabe coolio's the player looks slick and cool. If you really want to be cool buy a nicer player, or wait til the Hi-MD players come out. This sure wont put a dent on your wallet, for it is only 99 dollars for the player, and 1.50 for each additional minidisc.
It is definately a sure buy.
Rating:
Summary: You will have problems
Review: The reviews should be divided into those who are recent owners, and those who have owned their Sony's for over a year. You will hear glowing reviews from the recent purchasers, because these units are great for the first few months. Unfortunately these players and their accompanying software are full of glitches and bugs that become increasingly apparent with time, ultimately rendering a large number of them completely useless within a year's time. First off, the biggest problems appear to be in the units themselves have a notorious problem with suddenly being unable to write tracks to the disc, essentially "burning" blanks. A quick check to Sony's MD forums will tell you how widespread this problem is. The other major problem is the OpenMG (aka Sonicstage) software that is bundled with the players. This software is by far the buggiest software I've ever used and you would be hard-pressed to find an OpenMG user that has not had a problem with this application. There are several common fatal errors that are experienced by many OpenMG users, and Sony's attempts at rectifying these glitches (ie. patches, updates etc..) have been ineffective. If you decide to purchase a Sony NetMD, remember a few things:
1. Sony is good with warranties, so get the extended one because you'll probably need it.
2. Bundled software appears to most glitchy when installed on XP
3. You won't be able to upload FROM you NetMD...AT ALL. The software makes it appear as though you can upload tracks that were downloaded from the same PC, but in fact, it just keeps hidden copies of the PC to MD files on the hard drive, then reveals these files again to the user once they appear to be "uploaded". Also, Sony has announced the release of Hi-MD which looks far better and will outdate NetMD. Curiously though, they're sticking with the OpenMG software.
Rating:
Summary: Great little device
Review: LOVE IT. I have just about every portable music device out there and this is by far the best. Rio player does not have the quality sound and my portable CD player is to big for the gym. I record at the least quality level and it kicks butt over the highest bit rate on any of my other devices. BUY ONE!
Rating:
Summary: Ipod's are a rip off
Review: I talked to a guy at radio shack and he told me you can store over 200 songs on one minidisc with the proper format,
well he was almost right, the highest i got was 109 songs on one 74 min premium md, it was about 3 hours of music,
it's way better than an ipod because the disc come in 5 packs for $9.95 thats 2 bucks a disc, you can put about 3-5 hours of music on one 2 dollar disc vs. 4 hours of music on a 200 dollar ipod, and those other mp3 players that use sd cards are an even bigger rip because if you wanna upgrade you gotta fork over a ton of money on a stupid sd card, so this is way better because you can store the same ammount for less,
it also runs off of one aa batterie and last for about 80 hours,
this IS the best md player when it comes to cost and quallity,
the other ones that cost more might have a radio tuner and a car adapter but this one is the highest quallity player of the m all, oh yeah remember to record in Atracc3 mode on lp4 stereo,
Rating:
Summary: MZ-NE410: not much product
Review: Received for Christmas, Software does not work with Win 98 FE and Sony does not appear to have any other software options. The Sony forum has lots of dissatisfied customers, kind of a junky little thing and does not seem to sturdy. Music appears to have to have (c) encoding so not sure if it will work for non-major lable or non-encoded mp3's or from non-pay-for mp3 sites. Seems to allow you to burn your own cd's to mp3 but so does a cheap cd-r. Plays MD's recorded from a real md player fine although the headphone signal is weak when plugged into another stereo's aux channel.
Rating:
Summary: Junky Software, Junky buttons
Review: Ive had this player for quite awhile, and i have to say, im dissapointed. the software is frustrating (you have to import music to a seperate "drive"). Some of my MP3's wont transfer which is slow anyway (no USB 2.0). The menu button is hard to navigate through and the bass is not strong enough. When you skip to the next track, it waits awhile and goes back one? i notice this happens quite often. But my biggest complaint is i can only fit roughly 35 songs on. My cousin can fit 60. Thats not enough for me. the display is too small, and it doesnt show much. But there are some pros about it. It is small and very light weight. The minidiscs are protected well though i have some that have been thrown around that are bent. Get this player if you like carrying around minidiscs and trying to figure out what music is on each. Oh by the way, the software only lets you transfer a song 3 times to seperate discs which sucks because you cant lend your friends songs, AND they have to go back to the same computor which you got it from. I recomend stepping up to an inexpensive Jukebox like an RCA Lyra with 40 Gig storage priced around $300 (much cheaper than that iPod crap and has more storage for less)
Avoid this player
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This product is a charm. I use Sony 80-minute MDs in LP4 mode to get maximum time out of the discs. LP4 mode sounds great, not at all like a friend warned me. It sounds exactly like a 128kbpS mp3, which that same friend also warned me against. As for SonicStage... I don't know what world you people who wrote reviews against this product live in. It works great. The only con to the program is its interface- it's extremely hard to navigate. But, it does transfer really fast in Normal mode. I transfer my Mp3s to ATRAC3 in LP4 mode, reducing their file size. Then you can record in normal mode.
Great product overall.
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