Sony MZ-N710 Silver Net MiniDisc Walkman

The player looks brilliant and is well built, and cos its a sony, it'll never go wrong. Controls are logically laid out and you can figure out most of them without refering to the manual. There are some group function buttons on the main unit if you want to manually edit groups, but its quicker to do it using the computer. Similarly, changing track information with the main unit controls is cumbersome and timewasting. The control has well layed out buttons, and shows track/group/CD inforation. However, A back lit remote would have been nice at this price.

Transferring music using the USB cable provided with the sonic stage software is easy and quick. At LP2, it takes around 8-10 minutes to transfer around 3 cds of music on a single mindisc.AND you can record over them too! Sound quality is superb. Software-wise, Sonic stage is one of the best i've seen. Have to hand it to SONY, the software is simple to use even without the manual, and it looks slick.

If i have to name one bad thing - its the headphones. The only way they will stay in ur ear is if you glue them to your ear lobe. They are suppremely rubbish and sound lame, and should be binned staright away! I bought and would recommend the Sony MDR-EX70LP Fontopia Headphones.

Cos amazon have a lame list of what u actually get --> you get - the mZn710 unit, Control, Headphones (useless), MD link, USB cable, Carry pouch, Charging Cradle, AC adapter, Dry battery cell adapter, Lithium rechargable battery, Battery holder, and the Sonic Stage software.

Overall - a Great buy from SONY and amazon. Ditch the headphones and you should be fine.

At first I was very dissapointed at how long it took to fill a 80Min MD, i was expecting something in the region of 2-3mins (32x faster than 80mins), in actual fact it took about 30mins for 17 average length songs. The mode I was using for transfer was SP! I then tried using standard mode which transfers the music files at LP2 or LP4 depending on the bitrate. I put a CD in the drive CDDB2 named all the files for me and within 3mins all the files had been copied to the MD. This was the performance I was expecting!!! At first i was a bit sceptical about the quality of the song on LP2 however having listened to both a SP and LP2 MD I can hear no great difference on the supplied headphones.

Highly recommend for anyone looking for something to listen to music on the move. (Far more robust than an MP3 player aswell)

--THE GOOD POINTS -
-----Well for starters it's a nice size - probably the same as the others - but it also looks better than a lot of the others as well!
-----Next it's got the net function meaning that you can plug it into the back of your computer and simply open the program and transer the songs onto the minidisc - this takes about 30 secs per song - much faster than real time. The software does seem to be a little 'rough around the edges' for example it loads slowly due to (probably) the amount of images it uses - also it seems to be a little hard to get the songs onto the software straight away - but apart from one or two SMALL bugs there's nothing wrong with this aspect of the player.
-----The player and the remote allow you to see the song being played (much like all the others on the market) - but it's got the remote - which can make a difference.
-----Supplied with a leather case which i don't think it says on the site. (with belt clip!!!)
-----Sound quality's great (and there's 320 mins you can fit on)
-----Rechargeable battery and stand (easier than the others that use normal aa batteries.
-----Varying sound profiles - myou can make the volume much, much louder if you have the urge with this function - it also has surround sound!! But this doesn't really serve mcuh purpose unless you especially love the sound of it.
-----The earphones you get with it aren't bad - they aren't the best on the market (they're the standard sony ones) - but they were better than the old panasonic ones that i had.
-----Others as well - but as i write this i can't remember the others (those were the most important)

--THE BAD POINTS -
-----It doesn't come with the standard optical wire that you would expect (the phones (out) socket on the CD player - to the line in on the recorder) - however with the use of the computer it made no difference to me - however for some people this may hinder the use of the recorder.
-----THe rechargeable battery doesn;t seem to last that long - but it makes up for it with the detachable thing for an aa battery.

--I think that's it - this minidisc player/recorder has to be one of the best around at the moment - especially due to the price - if you want a decent player that looks good and does most of the things people want from a minidisc player this is the one that you want! It's not quite as small as the better ones - but isn't miniscule the difference