Sony Net MD Walkman MZ-NE410 Personal MiniDisc Player

Pros: Nice and small, fairly easy to use. Better than CD player for not skipping.
Cons: Menus can be a bit confusing. Also, the software is absolutely terrible.

In general I've been fairly satisfied with the MD player. It's nice and small, and never skips, so it's perfect for running/exercising. A lot of music can be fit onto a single disc, assuming the software doesn't crap out after the first couple of songs.
I honestly haven't come across such poor recording software before in my life. At times it seems to work fine, and I can fit as much as 5 albums on a single minidisc. This is fairly rare, as the rest of the time it stops after recording only 5 or 6 tracks, and says the disc is full. The only was to keep recording it to close the software, unplug the MD player, take out the disc, put it back in, and start over. Needless to say, this is a huge pain as it happens 80% of the time I try to record.
If I'd known how horrible the software was, I wouldn't have wasted my money on this MD player.

Pros: Simple burner works for copying your CD collection.
Cons: MP3 software is useless, Not durable

In theory the Net MD is a great idea unfortunately the inability to move mp3 files easily means that the product does not do what it is advertised to do. If you want to use the MD’s Simple Burner software to store your CD collection this unit will work. All mp3 files must be converted to atrac format, double your storage double your headache! Checked in and out files more than 3 time and you violate the rules, then you must erase the file and reload it, it’s all just a pain.
I dropped my Net Md just passed the 90 day warranty the case cracked and the disc erased and shortly there after the MD was toast, Sony wanted 85 dollars to do an out of warranty repair.
I have long been a Sony fan but this is it for me I will buy a Rio and never another Sony product, what a frustrating experience. Stay away from Sony.

Pros: Tiny and versatile-you don't need a separate burner, Uses efficient music format (Atrac3)
Cons: Slow records, on smallest-size file there is noticeable hiss in the background

Even though it holds less music per MiniDisc than an MP3 CD player does per CD, the small size makes up for it. I broke 2 MP3 CD players in 5 mos., and I've had this a year and nary a scratch. I just bought a 20 GB MP3 jukebox because my music collection began to exceed the amount of minidiscs I could find space for. Even though I could just re-burn the minidiscs, it takes about 25 minutes to fill one up at the medium-quality compression setting and there is no optical input for recording from sources other than computers. SonicStage (the included recording program) is one of the most refined and appealing music-management programs out there, but the copyright protection built in is almost nonsensical. You can't import music on a different computer than the one you recorded it on, which created a real problem for me (I switch between a notebook for traveling and a desktop at my office)

Pros: Fair price, great media cost/size ration, compactness
Cons: Stupid simplicity, long pre-buffers, slow but phenomanal software

Wow is all I can say. For less than 110 dollars (now, that is) you get such a great, portable device. Man...anyway, out of the box, you MUST take the small size into account. Thicker, yes, but half the dimensions of your average MP3-CD (no way you can compare this to a regular CD player...). The interface is simpler than a Slipknot album. Volume, play/pause,stop,next,previous (double as frwd/bkwd in menus). This works, given customizability includes EQ (1 of THREE settings) and display type. Now, durability. You're MD will take a fair beating, to NO (it's an enclosed floppy in a harder case) consequence to the MDs and little to the player. What happened to mine? Out of warranty, I accidentally broke my previous button. It works, with appropriate pressure, but not the same. It'd cost Sony 30 bucks to even look at it, so.... All in all, if you don't need the fanciness/size of even a mini-HD player, yet you want up to ~40 songs on you at once (per disk), MD players are for you.

Pros: Easy to use, skip free and the disks hold 5 hrs in lp4 mode.
Cons: Have to have a computer to load and unload longs.

This is my first adventure into Minidisc and since most players are flash memory I thought that I might be buying a BetaMax machine. It still could go away but probably not in the lifetime of this player. I have read several reviews about the software and have to agree that it isn't the best, but is average. I was concerned that my downloaded files with DRM (digital rights management) wouldn't convert to atrac, but solved it easily by making a redbook CD and then used the Sony Simple Burner to copy the songs to the 410. All told, I like this player and I am looking forward to using it while snowboarding this winter.

Pros: Phenomanal Battery Life, good sound, good skip protection
Cons: no native mp3 playing, needs thinner case

Great little personal audio device. I bought mine from Circuit city for $79 in March'04. I really have enjoyed using it while walking to work (25 minutes each way). I can go a week or more on one AA battery. It took a while to copy my mp3s over to the ATRAC format, which was kinda silly.
If I could change *ONE* thing, I'd hack the firmware to play mp3s natively. Why doe it not play MP3 natively? Are you listening Sony? MD *NEEDS* this to survive? MD is a great format, I don't know why it has been handicapped by Sony. Such an articial limitation. I plan on purchasing more MD players in the future, NetMD is a great direction to take things in. I'm looking forward to the HiMD players, 1gb is a good start.

Pros: Great Software and Minidisk is a great alternitive to CDs
Cons: Keypad doesnt work!

Look it was nice to be able to put several cds on one tiny thing but it doesnt work when you pres the forward button it goes backwards and turns the volume down and the same thing for pressing the backwords so going forward doesnt work... This problem was present for some of my freinds minidisks too...

The Software did work nice though...

Pros: Battery Life, Cheap, Simple, USB, Extended Play Modes
Cons: Display size, Sometimes difficult to read, software can be confusing until fully learned

I purchased this MD player to see what the MD hype was all about. After careful consideration I chose Sony's cheapest, lowest-end model. Primarily, I need something to make MD's so that I can eventually upgrade to MD in my car.

This model is nice because it has a USB computer interface, and extended battery life. I can't believe how long batteries last in these MD players. It's also very simple to use.

Turns out the sound quality is exceptional in the SP mode, and also good in the LP2 mode. In LP4 mode, the mode which allows you to put approx 5 hours on a single MD, it looses a little top end fidelity, however, still decent enough to listen to.

The software is sorta tough to figure out...but it works. I would recommend this to anyone that wants to try MD for the first time, or anyone that needs a cheap way to get music onto their MD's.

The major drawback is that you can ONLY put music on MD's via USB...no optical inputs or otherwise. The display is also smaller than it needs to be, and is sometimes hard to read because of lighting.

Pros: Size, battery life, cheap discs, songs can be added and deleted from the discs.
Cons: Software software software, no AC power input, recording speed.

I was searching for something that would allow me to listen to music while running and would not skip. Being new to all this I thought that an MP3 player was the answer until a helpful clerk suggested a minidisc. After doing a little research and some price checking I realized that for a number of reasons a minidisc was the way to go.

I am by no means a techie but I know what I like and I like the fact that I can record several discs for running and swap them as I choose and I love that I can add and remove songs from the disc without having to start from scratch.

What I don't like is the Sony software so I tried RealOne(not a fave either) and found that it works much better for me.

As an added bonus I got the arm band free with the purchase at the disc and a 10% discount for signing up for the store's credit card.

All in all this was the right choice at the right price for me and made better with a couple of bonuses.