A good choice
Written: Mar 30 '02
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Pros: Small, ability to edit, car kit, battery life, lot's of accessories.
Cons: Not quite loud enough, remote could be designed better, absolutely terrible software.
The Bottom Line: I think this is a great player. Definitely worth considering. Restrictions on Open MG really hold it back.
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| g-town_ed's Full Review: Sony Net MD Walkman MZ-N707 Personal MiniDisc Play... |
I've been looking at purchasing a portable audio player for some time. I bought the mz-n707 because of it's ability to record at faster speeds than previous MD (minidisc) recorders, good battery life, and the fact that it comes with a car kit and a remote. Also the MD format is pretty cool because it allows you to change the order of your music with ease or just delete one song off a disc if you're tired of it. I find both of these options to be very convientient because I often find myself getting bored with songs very fast.
The Bad:
I knew this when I bought the player so I wasn't suprised, however, it comes with terrible software. What separates MD from other formats is it's editability (if that's a word) like I said before the ability to change the order of a disc and delete individual songs is a major plus. Using Open MG jukebox (the software provided) takes away all the convienience of MD because once you've recorded onto a disc you cannot delete or move it unless you have access to your computer. This is incredibly annoying and because of this I never use Open MG. It also limits how many times one can record a song (3 times), this is easy to get around because you just get the program to rescan your hardrive for mp3's but it's like they were trying to make the process as tedius as possible.
Oh yeah, and the ability to record at 16X speed (LP2) and 32X speed (LP4) is a lye, I record my discs in LP2 format and it takes about 20 minutes per disc. The reason for this is because they don't include the amount of time it takes to convert into ATRAC 3 format (the minidisc format). I supposed some people might have converted files already on their computer for convienience but I'm assuming most people won't do that.
There are also a couple issues I have with the unit itself. Like so many of sony's portable products it is not quite as loud as I would like. Most of the time it is fine especially if you're using ear buds (plenty loud), but don't expect to use large headphones with this unit because it doesn't put out enough juice to run them very loud. Most of the time it's fine but I just wish I had the option to make my ears bleed once in a while.
Another beef I got with the unit is that the remote could have been a lot more accessable. It does the job but could have been so much better if they just put a hint of thought into the process. Some of the buttons are just too small I don't understand why the often used "pause" button has to be the size of a few grains of sand. I've gotten used to it and other parts of the remote aren't designed nearly as bad, it's just a shame because it could be so much better.
The Good:
Thankfully Sony decided to include a different piece of software in the North American release of this product. "Simple Burn" gives the user the ability to record strait from cd's but at Net MD speeds (about 4X for LP2). Although I'm annoyed that I have to burn a cd in order to record onto a disc I'm thankful that they included this in the package, this software is very easy to use it makes it easy to choose specific tracks you want to record onto the disc.
Open MG is good for naming your discs and tracks, no more messing with tedius track titling, just connect the MD to your computer and type away.
Sound quality is great, I record in LP2 and hear things that I never hear with my stereo system.
Battery life is pretty incredible, just one "aa" gets you 16 hours with the rechargable. I just carry an extra alkaline battery in the handy case that comes with the unit in case the rechargable runs out. You can get around 50 hours with a regular alkaline batter. Also the rechargable only takes about 2.5 to 3 hrs to charge which is nice.
This thing is small and compact, great for portability, you can even run with it. Speaking of which I haven't mentioned the shock protection. That's because I don't think about skipping anymore cause it never happens. I've shook this thing intensly for a couple minutes and the music kept on playing.
The unit also has a bass and treble equalizer in which you can save 3 different presets. It's very handy. It also gives you the regular play modes ie: shuffle, repeat, pgrm. Group mode is also possible, it allows you to split up your music into groups in case you have more than one album on a disc.
It also comes with a bundle of accessories, 2 cases for the recorder itself, 1 battery case, car kit (including power cable and tape adaptor), 1 MD (74 min), crappy headphones of course, a case for the MD, AC adaptor, Charging stand, optical cable, pc cable.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
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Epinions.com ID:
g-town_ed
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Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 1 member
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