Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman by Sony
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List Price: Our Price: $145.00 You Save: $104.99 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman
Digital camera Review: Don't get a Flash MP3 Player get this !
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this player after spending loads of time choosing between the Creative N200 and Iriver flash 7XX series. I have many CDs and only a few MP3s (30) the "obvious thing" I thought was to buy a MP3 player and rip all of my CDs to MP3. Then I came across HI-MD and thought again.
If you have loads of MP3s that have been downloaded recently and they have DRM protection then this player is NOT for you BUT if you like me have lots of CDs and a few older non protected MP3s and you want portable music "Non Skip" music on the move then read on.
Ok let's deal with the biggest negative's first, this model has no MP3 encoder or radio but I wanted something that plays MY favourite songs not a radio DJ's. The software supplied SonicStage v2 isn't the best either (download v3.0 its better)and the Sony control system is a bit fiddly but just like an Iriver player, once you get used to it, it's fine.
One thing to note is that this is a MiniDisk player and so it only plays Sony Atrac files. Mainly the sound quality is better than expected and it's brilliant if you convert CDs directly to Sony's Atrac3plus 64K rate. This gives you an amazing 45hrs of "CD quality" music. Ignore most of what you've read about converting MP3s to Atrac. All music has to be converted to this format prior to playing so your old MP3s and WAVs are turned into Atracs. If you had a decent MP3 file (192Kbps or higher) then for the most part the sound quality is fine.
Compared to the aforementioned MP3 players above, I got my player for £50 plus £5 for a 1Gb HI-MD. This is a lot cheaper than the equivalent MP3 model of 128K. On the Iriver and Creative players I transferred 22 MP3 songs at most and they were both full. This times 8 equals 1GB so we can say that we can get roughly 176 songs onto a 1GB model of the same players. Now onto HI-MD, you can get around 500 songs of around the same quality onto 1 HI-MD disc. Don't worry too much about HI-MD discs you can get them easily on Amazon or Ebay and you'll only ever need a few. Most MP3 players have
In short, the sound quality is great, HI-MD holds about 500 songs plus you have folders and playlist support. Furthermore if you don't mind using SonicStage, manual podcasting MAY also be possible.
Its not a perfect solution to portable music (there isn't one) but in my view when comparing it to a flash based MP3 player its well worth the money.
Digital camera Review: Excellent Music Device, But,...
Summary: 5 Stars
waiting for the MZ-NH1 or NH900 to be released. These will have a digital amp,. presumably improving the sound quality. The NH600D already sounds great and yet it will be improved in the above mentioned models!! I've been using minidiscs for some time now and am very impressed with the Hi-MD units.
As a reply to reviewer titled "Good but Pointless, July 15, 2004". Please get your information right before posting on a site like this. Giving false info is not good for other customers who are relying on it. The 1 Gigabit discs are available on sonystyle.com. They have been for a few weeks now. I ordered 6 of them a few weeks ago. Also, something is very wrong if it took You 12 hours to do your download. It should not take a tenth of that amount of time.
Digital camera Review: Excellent hardware. Software: No comments!
Summary: 3 Stars
Before buying it, answer the question: How do you usually get your tracks? I am just talking about legal sources.
If you have those 400+ CD collection at home, then this is the right hardware for you. Use the Net MD simple burner software, and you can live reasonably happy. The sound and ease of use are excellent and will compensate some frustration with the software such as check in check out.. (forget sonic stage at all!!)
If you buy your music online, no matter where (Napster, Walmart, Itunes, etc..), then forget it! Before you get used to all the work around, such as burn all of them into CD's, them upload them and then edit the tag information for each track or so, you will want to get rid of it immediately... Unfortunately Sony hasn't woken up for the new digital world yet (Will they someday?)
Digital camera Review: Excellent player!! just some minuses...
Summary: 5 Stars
This player is really amazing... i really recomend it!
PROS:
*The sound quality at 64kbps is excellent... I can't tell the difference between atrac3plus at 64kbps and MP3 at 128Kbps.
*I was able to store 36 CD's on one minidisc and 38 on the other one...
*Software isn't really a problem as other reviews have said. I recommend that you download the 3.2 version from the internet.
*Small enough to fit in your pocket!
*Battery life is very good.
CONS:
*The wheel is somewhat hard to move! (Don't expect it to move like the ipod's one)
*The screen is not backlit so it's really hard to see it at night.
*Takes about 15 minutes to copy each CD into the player (Note that I'm using an USB 1.1 instead of a USB 2.0 which is faster)
*The headphones are not the best... but you can better ones for 15$
*You will need to use the custom EQ to set your best desired sound since the standard setting is really bad...
Buy this player unless you have enough money to buy an ipod! If you can buy 1 or 2 blank minidisc extra (you can fit about 35 CD's on each one at 64kbps).
Digital camera Review: Excellent underdog!
Summary: 5 Stars
With the prices of these units being so low, it definitely offers a great alternative to the ipod or flash based mp3 players.
I've been using this thing for a week here are my thoughts:
pro: easy to use, the software is fairly simple, great battery life on AA batteries, media (80 minute or about 10-13 hours or 300 MB) are easy to find - the 1gb disks need to be purchased on line but are still easy to find and are cheap, small form factor, simple controls, DOES NOT SKIP - EVER, great sound, good volume control, has shuffle mode with barely any lag, the 1gb disc holds a ton of songs, downloading songs doesnt take too long.
con: only one case available that i could find, no backlight for display, not as popular as ipods or the like.
I really like the Hi-MD format, it works for me and I recommend it to others (if they can still find them)