Amazon.co.uk Review
The Sony MZ-R900 Recordable MiniDisc Walkman is one smart-looking player. It sports a full metal jacket and a plethora of buttons and controls. It's incredibly small too; you have to wonder where all the electronics are. There's a remote, complete with LCD screen and a comprehensive set of controls. This is a little too chunky to let dangle though, so there's a clip on the back to attach it to your clothing. There's a smart rotary control, which is neat, but really needs two hands to operate. The small buttons can be awkward, when trying to name a long list of tracks for example.
Sony claims it will play back for up to 66 hours, which is a tad optimistic, especially when you start playing with all the features. It does have an exceptionally long battery life though, thanks to its low-power electronics. There's an internal rechargeable battery or you can use normal batteries with a little clip-on unit.
This player has just about every feature currently available on any Portable MiniDisc player. It's a full recording player, supporting LP2 and LP4 long play modes, although LP4 does mean a noticeable degradation in music quality. It'll record from both digital and analogue sources. There's a bit-rate converter so any digital source will do. Recording from analogue requires a special cable, which is just about the only accessory not supplied. There's also Sony's G-Protection system to stop skipping, which is excellent. All these functions inevitably mean you're going to need to refer to the manual a lot initially, but the documentation is sufficient and readable enough that this is a painless exercise.
The MZ-R900 is a state-of-the-art player. It looks good, performs superbly and is well-built. If you are looking for a high-end MiniDisc player, then this model should definitely be at the top of your shopping list--Miles Berkeley
Product Description
The Sony MZ-R900 Recordable MiniDisc Walkman is the flagship model in the recordable range. It's small, light, oozes style and boasts the world's longest Stamina battery life for a recordable MiniDisc Walkman, giving up to 66 hours of battery life using the supplied rechargeable batteries in combination with Stamina batteries (not supplied). It also has a joint text function that allows all the data on a CD (including CD text, where applicable) to be transferred when recording from CD to MD. It offers digital sound preset, and playback speed control, and of course the MDLP recording mode, not bad for the smallest MDLP MiniDisc recorder ever. The MDLP feature offers the user two or four times the playing time of Standard Play in digital stereo, allowing up to 320 minutes playing time on one 80 minute MiniDisc - that's over five hours!
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