Sony MZ-RH910 Personal MiniDisc Player

Pros: Price, live recordings can be imported, decent battery, plays MP3s natively, fast transfer from PC.
Cons: No backlight on the display!! SonicStage is a resource hog.

I have been a longtime MD user with 2 previous models. Recently I've been toying with the idea of an mp3 player. My NetMD was great, but I got tired of lugging MDs with me or docking to my PC to get more tunes when my musical mood changed. I ...

Pros: Storage, music formats, recording capabilities, cost, sound quality
Cons: Sound level, software, copyright restrictions

This Sony device is perfect for people they want to record music from analog sources (consider musicians). I bought t from pixmania.com for 194 Euro (28 Jully 2005). You can combine the recorder with a microphone (I bought also one from pixmania - the ...

Pros: Battery life, recordable, durable, portable, cheap media, replaceable battery, quality.
Cons: no remote, no case, but that is only a small complaint.

This HiMD player is a very good bargain. Compared to the next models up, it has all the functionality without a lot of the extras that you don't really have to have anyway. The HiMD format is very good, lots of songs on one disc. Really you don't want to have more than 1GB of songs in one place anyway because it gets hard to find things when you have SO MANY songs to scroll through. Also the media is CHEAP! I like that it is backwards compatible with the MD formate (13hrs.!!). Upload and download very easy. Recording capability is very powerful as well. Will record CD quality music if you have the microphone to do it. Battery life is phenomenal. Overall a very good bargain. Beats most Flash and MicroDrive based MP3 players hands down.

Pros: sound quality
Cons: Sony

You will be very, very sorry if you purchase this unit, or any like it from Sony. I have been a dedicated Sony user for years, and I have owned several MD units. While this player might look attractive, keep in mind that Sony's software (Sonicstage) is the buggiest, most horrible, most angering, etc. software you can find on the market. (Check forums.minidisc.org and read about Sonicstage; you will see I'm not just spouting hyperbole.) The company doesn't offer support for it, and God forbid you lose the included CD-Rom, as Sony will make you buy a new version of it. iTunes - and others like it - is free. DO NOT BUY SONY!! [I will repeat this for every other unit listed.]

Pros: Recording features, battery life, inexpensive storage media, file compression
Cons: Sony file management software

I bought this partly to have portability of my CD collection, but mainly to record live music. I am very happy. The recording quality seems to be limited only by the quality of the microphones I use.

The Sony Sonic Stage has many peccadilloes, including ONE TIME ONLY TRANSFER OF YOUR OWN RECORDINGS TO THE COMPUTER. Very frustrating and incomprehensible. The file management on the recorder (convenience, information, readability) is much worse than that of the IPOD. The volume of output is not as high as I would like for most recordings. If you need remote and backlight for the display, get the RH10. I felt that these were not worth the extra money.

However, battery life is excellent, the microphone and line in recording is superb, and the Sony compression format seems to be excellent for sound quality and compression. I would buy it again.