Rating: 
Summary: Great Player
Review: This is the most you can ask for in terms compactability, quality of sound, ease of use for the price. I dont know why nearly every reviewer out there seems to have problems with the software. In 1 day i had recorded 10 minidiscs at ease. My only problem came with using the players function as a recorder through an optical cable. It wouldnt record at all and i was using the same cable sony said to use. Its not that big of a problem you just have to record to the computer and than to the minidisc.Other than that the player is great if your not trying to record directly from a source other than a computer
Rating: 
Summary: Great Buy--Small and powerful
Review: I've had a Compaq MP3 player for over a year, and needed more memory, as my wife and I use it at the gym, and get tired of the same songs, and having to constantly re-download new ones. But when pricing more memory, I found this one. Can't beat this...the Sony can hold 4 times as much music than my 64mb player, and the best part is I can easily change mindiscs for even more variety. Each one holds about 80 songs in lp4, with the quality just as good as my mp3 player. I've had for 3 weeks, and everything is great--downloading, play, and sound--and I still haven't changed the one AA battery!
Rating:
Summary: This SHOULD be the standard.
Review: Back in the day when Minidiscs first hit store shelves, I didn't pay much attention to them, and dismissed them. But today with the prospect of fitting 5 hours of music on one 80 minute disc, I reconsidered. I asked for the MZ-N505 for Christmas, and I recieved, and I am VERY impressed. I've bought 3 five packs of Sony colored Minidiscs, and so far, I've fit about 18 full albums on 7 discs. I love the fact that I'll be able to compress my collection of 250+ CDs on to about as half as many MDs.The method in which you rip CDs on to MD is Sony's Simple Burner program. It's quick, and simple. Plug your MD Player into a open USB port on your PC, plug the AC adapter in (highly reccomended: saves batteries), and you're ready to go. Put a CD in your CD-ROM drive, and the program uses the CDDB to look up the disc and track names, then hit transfer, and you're ready to go. The drawback to the program is that you can't record in SP mode, only LP2 and LP4. I've recorded all my MDs in LP2, and contrary to what all the audiophiles have been saying, it sounds really good. The average music listener will NOT be able to tell a difference between CD quality and LP2. I've even had my MD player hooked up to my 500 watt stereo reciever with Bose 301 speakers though a Mini Stereo Y cable, and I must say it sounds quite awesome (althouh the bass boost on the player is overkill). And to the people complaining about OpenMG: just don't use it. I've burned at least 30 MP3s to my discs without using OpenMG. You can make a CD image of your MP3s with Ahead's Nero Burning Rom program, then mount the CD image to your hard drive with Nero's ImageDrive, then burn the image with Simple Burner. It's quite simple, and if anyone wants more detailed instructions, e-mail me. Overall, I reccomend highly reccomend this player. It's the best christmas present ever...for a music fan like me. For those who like to listen to their music anywhere, anytime, it's ideal. I take the player to work in my pocket, and listen on break. And the battery life is awesome: the package says 56 hours on on the box, and that is not a lie. I've been listening to the player non stop since December 25th, and the battery indicator on the player has not budged from full power. Go buy this player now. As in right now.
Rating:
Summary: The best present ever!
Review: I got the Sony MiniDisc Recorder as a Christmas gift. It is so much more than your average MP3 player! The sound quality is flawless and the software that it requires is very easy to use. It also helps that everything goes on a MiniDisc instead of the memory...meaning you can download more music that you can with a normal MP3 player. People asked me why I didn't just use my CD burner...first off, who wants to spend hours converting and burning CDs when you can just download and transfer them onto a MiniDisc in seconds!? Secondly...the MiniDisc holds more songs than a CD-R. You can make folders on them so you can have more than one album on the same disc. The player is small and light. It can fit right in your back pocket. I definatly recommend this instead of a regular MP3 player. It is worth the extra money!
Rating: 
Summary: Unuseable software
Review: Believe all the reviews regarding bad software. I didn't and am now returning as the software crashes continually and renders the hardware useless (Windows XP Home, 512MB Ram). If you like to monkey around with software workarounds and waste a lot of time then the Sony NetMD format is probably OK. But I am going to buy a flash memory MP3 player.
Rating:
Summary: UNIQUE HARDWARE - EXASPERATING SOFTWARE
Review: My wife bought me a Sony MZ-R500 MD recorder (non-NetMD) as a present just before the NetMD features came out. I liked it so much, I purchased a MZ-N505 as well. My greatest consternation has been why this format has not gained more traction with American buyers. It's form factor is nearly as small as flash memory MP3 players, it records from ANYTHING that makes sound, its extensive editing features are terrific and unique to the MD format, and the removable discs are inexpensive, re-recordable and nearly indestructible! The MDLP feature on newer MD units expands the recording capacity of an 80-minute disc by a factor of 2 (LP2 = 160 minutes) or 4 (LP4 = 320). And the current crop of minidisc recorders can play for up to 50 hours (or longer, depending on model) on one AA battery! NOTHING else on the market today can match it for reliability, low cost of operation and versatility. The only drawback? To make use of the PC feature called NetMD, you MUST install Sony's proprietary software (OpenMG Jukebox). This is why I rated the MZ-N505 as a 4 instead of a 5. If you want to put MP3s or WMA files or your CDs on minidisc, they MUST be converted to Sony's proprietary CODEC called ATRAC. Let's just say that Rube Goldberg's inventions were models of efficiency compared to this software. But I do like and highly recommend the MZ-N505 minidisc recorder for excellent quality sound on the go!!
Rating:
Summary: Good hardware - adequate software - poor support
Review: Let's start with the physical attributes... this machine is tiny
and light! It does not suffer sound quality problems as a result, however. The headphones are decidedly better than the normal portable headphones, but still not great. Additionally, the headphones are a bit uncomfortable. Of course, you can always upgrade the headphones. The '80 minute' discs appear to hold 80 minutes at the intermediate compression level, a level that I found comparable to MP3 at 128kbps (although I converted from this format, so the native quality could be better still). A single AA battery provides impressive performance. Both the documentation and software were a bit convoluted, but OK with persistence. I guess it should be no surprise that their web site was also difficult to navigate while looking for software updates (continual Javascript errors and a propensity to route you to the 'purchases' page). Part of the excessively tedious software appears to be Sony's attempt to implement a security scheme intended to prevent wide-scale copying. Additionally, there are warnings that the software can not be reinstalled if anything goes wrong... I'm sure this is part of the same problem. There's a stern warning about not installing the software on more than one machine (like any copyright abuser is going to care). You should not worry too much about this, though, as it is trivial to bypass this feature by copying the input files (MP3, WAV, etc.) outside of the OpenMG software. One last annoyance... they recommend only alkaline batteries. I haven't yet tried it with NiMH batteries so I don't know if this causes any problems. Bottom line - killer hardware, very good sound, annoying supporting tools.
Rating: 
Summary: I would give it no stars if possible
Review: Well, i got this, it worked wonderfully for a few months..Come a few months later, the screen no longer functioned(its blank). Sony wont do anything about it, so, i'm stuck with this waste of money.
Rating:
Summary: MS-N505 is not recognized by many computers
Review: The MS-N505 is known to not be recognized by many computers. There is no FAQ or support given to overcome this problem.
Rating:
Summary: Great device, my respect for Sony products continues to grow
Review: This minidisc player is absolutely awesome. LP4 recording lets you record 4 times as much music as you normally could. On an 80 min MD, that's 320 minutes! Recording in LP4 mode reduces sound quality compared to normal recording, but the difference in negligable. With this recorder and a computer, recording is done at 32X speed, using one of two provided programs, OpenMG Jukebox, and Net MD Simple Burner. Some other reviewers have complained about the difficulty of the programs, but I have had very little problems at all. The Simple Burner is just as it sounds, simple recording(off of a CD). With an internet connection, it will download all the track names and all you have to do is press record, and let it go. Open MG is a bit more complex, and is used to record off computer music formats (mp3s, wma's, etc) I've had a little bit of trouble, but just that a LITTLE. The only problem I've had with Open MG is that it doesn't seem to support VBR(Variable Bit Rate) MP3s. Other than that, it's great. This MD player also has a group function which lets you organize the music in groups, so you can put albums into groups, and scroll through the MD by album, rather than having to skip past each song. The unit is compact, light, and runs for a very long time on a single AA battery. Great, GREAT product. I highly endorse it.
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