minidisc players

I've been using this mini-disc player for a few weeks now.

Pros: The battery life is excellent, although burning music to the device zaps its battery life much faster. The cost for blank mini discs is very low. It is lightweight and easy to transport. When recording music on "mininum bit rate transfer" the quality is still excellent. I can typically transfer about 80 songs to one minidisc. You can add, delete, and rearrange music as much as you want on the minidisc, so you aren't stuck if you make a mistake.

Cons: The Sonic Stage program it comes with converted all my music files from Windows Media Player/Real One, etc. without asking me first. The Sonic Stage program is tricky to learn how to use; the "help" section is very unhelpful. The actual player lists the name of the song as it begins, but the viewing area is so small that it's hard to read, and if you miss the initial display, you're out of luck!

Despite the drawbacks, I am basically happy with this product.

When I bought this mini-disc player, I already had many songs I had bought and downloaded to my computer. I thought I could just transfer them especially since the package says it works with WMA files. What this player (and none I have come across) fail to mention, is that they are not compatible with different music download stores. Sony told me it was because Buymusic.com uses a different security system, but their website, said sonicstage, their software should still play the wma's regardless even if it won't transfer. It didn't. THere was talk of converting the files, but that didn't work either. Since none of this was clear until after I cut open the copius packaging, I am stuck with this thing. I also couldn't tell that the player would be as heavy as it is and it has no belt clip so if you want to use it while exercising or something, you have to buy a silly velcro case. So far the only store it is compatible with is connect.com, but their music selection is so poor and the site is unbelieveable slow. If you have a music site you like, research on that site what portable devices are compatible before you buy. realplayer only had a handful of devices and buy music had about 15. I cannot use itunes because it doesn't work with windows me. I am not sure about napster. If I had it to do over again, I would spend the money on a portable device with a hard drive like the nomad jukebox (or ipod if I could get itunes) and forget about mini-discs and extra memory cards.