minidisc?

[SilverKJ]

now that i;m bak in college, i'm interesting in gettin a portable minidisc recorder/player

i dunno too much about them, but i'm lookin at the sony mzr-700(dpc or not doesnt really matter) and its ~230.

any of ya guys either use or know about and recommend a good one?
are the sharp, panasonic, other brands any good?

much thx for the assist =)

EDIT: hehe, yea so i forgot to write what i want to use this for... i wanna be able to use it while working out, and maybe while rollerblading around campus... so something pretty small/light... and i would prefer MD over mp3player cuz of two main points: 1. to change songs on a mp3 player, i'd need to write over that same memory everytime, for an MD i can just put in a dif MD..
2. mp3 players limited in memory (i guess sorta like reason 1)
it seems to me that the moving parts in an MD player wont cause too much trouble if i'm just rollerblading and not jogging...

[Leon]

If you want to save money and don't need a super-thin minidisc, then look at the Sharp ones. I have the MS722 and that thing is a brick, but it's pretty good. Works for me.

[PuTangClan]

forget the MiniDisk, go for an MP3 player. for about the same price as a minidisk player you can get yourself a pretty nice mp3 player. Or you can just wait a couple months when Sony and Panasonic will try to get rid of the MD players b/c they dont sell that well

[K2]

go for a mp3 player...ur better off..

no moving parts.... less wear and tear

[Nanotech9]

yay, so once you get an MP3 player, you have to shell out another what, $50+ for a 32Mb stick that will hold 15min of music. On the other hand, you can buy a 5 pack o minidisc's for $10 - $11... Get an hour on a disk... So, doing the math, you get 5 hours of music for $11, or 5 hours of music for $1000.... hummm, I guess thats why i still have my Minidisc.

The only other thing i would consider is a CD/MP3 player. But, those are just a little too big "around" for me. :)

I will wait untill i can buy 1gig sticks o ram for MP3 players, for about $79.95 before i get an MP3 player.

BTW, I've got an old Sharp 702 - the model previous to Leon's... Its as solid as a rock, moving parts and all... I use it in the car, on the cycle, everywhere. Still using the original battery too, although it only lasts about 2 hours. Its about 3 years old, or more (maybe 4 years old i donno). Its got a bunch of cool features and has the optical "in" and everything.

The ONLY thing i dont like about MD's is that you can only transfer music at 1x. That being the only setback, with the benifits of cheaper media, i would still buy another MD over an MP3 player.

[Nanotech9]

oh yeah, one more thing... seeing as how i used to work for a company (tech support) that made several models of MP3 players.... I know that even though they have no moving parts, they still break easily.

The Eproms die, memory sticks crap out, LCD's stop working, most are made sooo flimsily(sp?) that the little battery doors/memory stick doors break off, they get dirty inside and stop making contact w/ the mem sticks, they can skip during playback if teh songs arent ripped / encoded PERFECTLY, and many of the affordable ones are even designed badly...

[edit] oh yeah, and many of them only have a 30 to 90 day warranty :eek:

ok, you can tell im not into MP3 players :heh:

[Devhux]

Check out one of the jukebox-type devices (6GB+ of MP3 music). I'm pretty sure they protect the laptop-type hard drives in them, and 6GB is a LOT of mp3's.

Creative makes the Nomad Jukebox, and Archos (www.archos.com) makes the Jukebox 6000 and a Jukebox Recorder.

[Nanotech9]

except you cant jog w/ the jukebox :) believe me, we got plenty of calls on that one :rolleyes:

and the firmware in the J/B???? hahaahah i LAUGH. They had US (ME, the french agent, the portugese agent, and another spanish agent) proofreading the translated versions of the new firmware. We submitted our corrections, and they programmers were like "Bah, were not going to do that." There were like 40 corrections in the menus for each language. Plus, the firmware itself is buggy and laied out poorly.

Oh, ant eh manual? same thing... Dammit, we worked our butts off translating the damn things and making error corrections, and then they wouldn't make all the changes we told them too? Damn fools... One of the manuals said to plug the speakers into your CAT!!!!?!?!. (the word Jack (for the speaker out jack on the sound card) SOMEHOW got translated into "Cat".... geeeeeeeeez.)

[edit] Hey guruX - that wasnt aimed at you... i noticed in your other thread your new around here - congrats - stick around. Youll here me rant about stuff right up there with the rest of the lunatics that hang around here :D

[ArkiStan]

MY OPINION:
The Minidisc will sound/look like the coolest thing in the world!!....until you actually buy one. Then you realize that's it's a pain in the butt to record everything you have on CD over to the MD. You just end up carrying around your CD player. This is ALL from personaly experience. And if you're gonna carry around your CD player, then you might as well get one that reads MP3 burned CDs. So my personal winner: CD/MP3 players.

[PuTangClan]

Originally posted by ucbstan
MY OPINION:
The Minidisc will sound/look like the coolest thing in the world!!....until you actually buy one. Then you realize that's it's a pain in the butt to record everything you have on CD over to the MD. You just end up carrying around your CD player. This is ALL from personaly experience. And if you're gonna carry around your CD player, then you might as well get one that reads MP3 burned CDs. So my personal winner: CD/MP3 players.

I agree, go with the MP3/CD player combo, just make sure it has an expandable momory slot

[ArkiStan]

Originally posted by PuTangClan
I agree, go with the MP3/CD player combo, just make sure it has an expandable momory slot

Do you really need a memory slot if you're using a MP3/CD player?? You get about 150 songs on each CD and when you run out of space, you just get a new CD.

[Devhux]

Originally posted by Nanotech9


[edit] Hey guruX - that wasnt aimed at you... i noticed in your other thread your new around here - congrats - stick around. Youll here me rant about stuff right up there with the rest of the lunatics that hang around here :D

No harm done........ I don't mind rants like that.... especially ones that make me laugh (Here Fluffy! Gotta plug these speakers into you.... MEEEEOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!).

Truth be told, I've had enough flames from reviews I've done at PCinsight, but most of them aren't like your "rant."

...oh, and as for the "lunatics" remark, please accept my application to join the GALC. (Got Apex Lunatics Club). I think I am qualified to be a member.... LOL! :D