Community poll forum: 1/25/05 What portable device rocks your ears?

I walk about 5 to 6 miles each night and rock to my Sony mini-disc player. Each disc holds up to 5 hours of music (the newer models hold substaintially more) and I can take a number of discs with me as they are very small. A GREAT device!

Agreed Bren, who wants a mere 5 hours music when you can have your entire collection with you. MD? No thanks
Oh and I HAVE had the misfortune to have a MD recently, I reckon it will soon be obsolete technology forget it.

I have to disagree, I was given an MD at Christmas, it took not long to realise that within a short space of time it will be obsolete. Why?

A) who wants to carry loads of little disks around with their player? All you are doing is compressing your CD collection - not replacing it.
B) I admit I had the basic model but it certainly is not cheap compared to an MP3 player and even the 1GB discs cannot keep anywhere near as much data as a decent sized Jukebox (I have a Zen and am up to 75 albums and less than 4GB useage... I have another 100 or so albums to go. Go figure the number of Minidiscs you'll need)
C) the MD Functionality is dire.Possibly as I have the basic model but the MD has nowhere near the functionality of the Zen Jukebox. Shuffle, repeat, single track, Profiles, time/date!! I daresay there are MD's with equivelant functionality - but at what cost?
D) the Software - Sonic stage is not as flaky as Creative's product and I found it very easy to use, yet now I have the latest Creative downloads I find it comparable and what's more much much faster at ripping and burning, Can an MD burn a CD in 60 secs? I doubt it.
E) Downloads, I could not legally copy downloaded tracks from Napster onto the MD, you have to rip and burn to a CD THEN copy to the MD?? What kind of nonsense is THAT? I suppose you can get the software to do it for you.. well I found copyright protection stopped me from using that too. With the Zen? No problems. And I'm talking LEGAL downloads here.
F) Future proof - The MD I have is already obsolete in my view. (It cant read 1GB discs for example) The Zen firmware can be upgraded
G) What does my PC think of it? Well it hardly knows what an MD is. It "sees" it as some kind of device, but I can't drag and drop and treat it as a hard drive. You can with the Zen, hang it, if I want to I can probably back up most of my hard drive to the Zen as well as listen to my music.. I guess that will chew up battery life though...

and that's where the MD scores.... Battery life, I have a "mere" 14 hours on the Zen.... I found the MD lasted longer.

As for sound quality the MD sound quality is superb, but hardly worth the difference in cost of the Unit. Ask yourself, how many tracks and how much flexibility do you get with a 5 or 10GB MP3 such as the Zen touch compared to a 1GB Sony MD plus (work it out how many discs you'll need to carry around with you)I also believe that for most people the difference in sound quality is not significantly worth it.

The final straw for me was realising my local discount retailer had stopped stocking minidiscs... like Betamax the market has spoken. Sony also produce their own MP3 player now, I am sure it will be a quality product - and I don't deny the Sony MD is a quality product, my decision is based on technology and practicality not on build quality. So for me, "MD? No thanks"

would count

MiniDisc is great and fit a lotta music, Flash Mp3 players don't fit as much music, but the music quailty is great and they never, ever skip, i mean, its impossible for it to skip, it has no moving parts. Flash mp3 players are much smaller and better than MDs.

With any player that uses discs (like the MD), you have space considerations around the house. I don't know about you, but I have enough CD's (music and data) hanging around that I don't need another device that uses discs. Flash MP3 players are cheap enough that I will take the chance of having to buy another one. Some of these devices also allow for additional memory expansion, which means that you will be able to replace the memory and keep the player. There are also utilities out there that allow you to recover items from memory that can fix the problem in some cases.

With the skipping issue, I work out at the gym at least three days a week and have had disc based systems skip like crazy. I even had one scratch up a disc I had in it. Not cool - so I like the memory based units better for that reason.

Like you said though - it is up to the individual.

own one too

Sorry folks!
-Lee Koo
CNET Community

and eventually going to move on to a hard drive based player, either an iPod or Creative Zen Micro. Still haven't decided yet.

Pretty much all the other portable device I have, MP3 cd player and mini disc player are in the closet. Never really thought about reviving those items to be use again, because of convenience of my current flash based player...

thanks for asking, Alan.

Best regards,

-Lee

I got the Sony cd-r/w walkman for Christmas from my son. It plays pretty much any file format but I've been using the Atrac3plus format. Just a mini-disc plays for about 5 hours and sounds good. Justa few normal sized cd-r/w's will hold my entire rather extensive music collection. The conversion process is best done when going to bed because it does take some time but I can leave the same cd in for days before I hear a song repeat. They include the Sonic Stage Atrac software in the package. I was going to get an Ipod but I see no need.

I have a Rio Cali and my son has RCA Lyra. What I like about these types of players is the fact that they are expandable using an SD memory card. With so many devices using SD cards this method of transporting music, files and pictures is simply the best due to its flexibility. Many computers have card readers now built in. I have both a SD based digital camera and a jump drive. More flexibility and interoperability add up to less money and less hassle between different technologies.

It seems unreasonable to compare MP3 players to satellite radio. If you're going to compare two musical devices, it makes more sense to compare MP3 players to CD players, or satellite radio to AM/FM radio.

Portable flash MP3 players are awesome because you can hold ALL your music on a small handheld device. Cool! When compared to a CD player, an MP3 player wins hands-down.

Portable satellite radio players are awesome because you can get COMMERCIAL-FREE music on about 40 different channels, each with its own specialty. (I especially like Unsigned, the radio channel that plays ONLY unsigned bands.) Of course, there are also news channels -- CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN -- and other specialty channels. Baseball in 2005, also. Sure, the reception is a little spotty at times. But the pros of the quality and varied programming outweighs that con. (By the way, the MyFi can also record 5 hours+ of the satellite radio programming.) Cool! When compared to an AM/FM radio, a portable satellite radio wins hands-down.

In conclusion, both musical entertainment choices are GREAT. The best bet would be a portable satellite radio (with more and better features than the MyFi) that can also store and play MP3s. I'm sure it's already in the design stage.

How would you catagorize Sony NetMd in order for me to respond to your survey? I know it is not a very popular device but there are many of us who do have them/

miwi98

I'm in love with my Sony MD optical disc recorder/player. I've got an older model that only records 80 minutes or so on a sturdy, cassette-based mini-disc using Sony's ATRAC compression system. But I'm hankerin' to get the latest Hi-MD model that allows something like 20 hours on the re-recordable discs that cost only about $1.50 in bulk. The player connects either to my stereo system or my PC via optical cables and will record in the field, too. Another useful option on the newer models is a built-in FM radio. And it's all shock-proof with the form factor of a typical MP3 player. Plus, an entry-level model is under a C-note. Now, Sony is embracing MP3 alongside ATRAC, too. Way to go, guys!

I want to be able to download, save and listen to specific mp3s from a server, or listen to a satellite type radio station, on the same handheld size device, like some subscription services allow you to do on your home computer or laptop, but while I'm riding a train or something. If the device will play/burn a CD or mini-disc, so much the better; still better if it's a camera/phone/organizer too. I want it all in one little unit, without having to turn myself into a member of the Borg Collective and without having to find a WiFi hotspot. Whoever makes this gizmo, and designs it as sleekly as the iPod, will make a huge fortune, and that's a promise. Just mention that Guitarface was your inspiration.

I use an extraordinary device called portable Minidisc Recorder/Player. My Sony MZ-G755 has also a FM tuner in the remote control chunk.
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