Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This Player is very nice and capacity is OK for a removable media, however the whole Hi-MD---OpenMG----SonicStage---ATRAC is very inconvenient to use.
I will summarize:
PROS:
-ATRACplus algorithm sound decent at 64kbps, comparable to MP3 at 128kbps in my opinion. There is also a 256kbps option which sounds very good, but files are pretty big for the Hi-MD capacity, makes it inconvenient.
-The advertised price for the Hi-MD blank disks is ok, around $7.
-Price compares to that of the MiniIpod or some Flash MP3 players, however this is "supposed" (read below) to be upgradeable by buying more blank Hi-MDs
-Runs on AA battery.
-You can run with it and get no skips.
CONS:
-You MUST use SonicStage software to transfer files to / from the MD.
-No MP3 support on the unit, only plays ATRAC. MP3s are transcoded by the PC software.
-SonicStage is a little bit unreliable.
-You CAN NOT upload songs from MD to your PC. So you can't use the MDs as a backup of your PC music collection, because if your PC fails, you can't upload the songs again.
-Even if you encode songs in ATRACplus with SonicStage, you can't move the files to another PC. And I'm not talking about illegal moving, you might have more than one PC.
-You can only play (so far) ATRACplus files with Sony's software (in your PC, I mean).
-Hi-MD blank discs are scarce, not even sony online store has them in stock at the moment of this review.
I think this unit is a good alternative to a Flash based MP3 player of medium capacity (256-512MB) if you can find it for less than $200.
For a little more than this you can get a 4/5 GB HD player like the MiniIpod and save the hassle of the propietary format, algorithm, rights protection format (OpenMG) and having only one choice of software.
I think Sony could have made a good product but it's taking the wrong path towards protection of copyrights. They shouln't do so at the expense of reducing the product functionality and reliability.

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G-Protection * up to 30 hours playback time * direct USB interface and software for high-speed recording from PC * stores music or data to high-capacity Hi-MD media * compatible with standard MiniDisc media

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