uk-airraid's Full Review: Sony Net MD Walkman MZ-NF610 Personal MiniDisc Pla...
I find it quite odd, that one of the greatest inventions in the 20th century has still not quite taken off! The minidisc. Remember when the CD first came out? It was the greatest, the sound quality was incredible, no more broken or mangled cassette tapes. Needless to say, we are strong into the CD age. Do they still make cassettes? :-)
But even CD's have their faults, they are so easy to scratch. I'm quite sure the R&D folks at Sony were brainstorming one day and said, "Hey, what if we could develop a smaller CD, with the same storage capacity, but make it protected like a 3.5" floppy disc and make it recordable." Well, they did. And it's an awesome concept. But ask 10 people on the street and I'll bet 2 (at the most) know about minidiscs. For that matter I'll bet 2 out of 10 electronics personnel at the big retail stores know what they are. OK, so now that I've had my say on minidiscs, let me tell you about my little blue buddy.
The Sony MZ-NF610 is a wonderful minidisc recorder. It is compact, coming in at a 3" X 2.75" front and only one inch thick. It only weighs a few ounces and easily fits in your pocket.
Controls
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It is obvious that a lot of thought went into the design of the control buttons. The Stop, Start, FF, and REW functions are all on one circular button but easily controlled by pushing left, right, up or down. The volume and record buttons are on a ring surrounding the play function button.
Remote Control
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One of the great features with this unit is it's separate remote control which includes a FM/AM/TV and Weather radio! The remote allows you to fully control all functions that are on the unit itself. The FM reception is very good, the reception on the other three bands aren't bad, but they're nothing to write home about. The remote plugs into the headphone jack and then your headphones plug into the remote. If you have headphones with a long cord, you will find yourself with a lot of wire to tote on walks.
Recording
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Recording on minidisc comes from two sources. A USB port and an optical/analog line in. The USB allows for fast downloading of music stored on your PC. My personal favorite, however, is the analog input. I can record from unlimited sources like cassette decks, receivers, turntable you name it. Under normal recording modes a minidisc can hold up to 74-80 minutes of music. With this recorder, a form of compression allows you to record up to 5 hours of music on one disc in LP4 mode! A very nice feature.
** Side note - This unit will not record from the radio on the remote.
Battery
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The unit comes with a rechargeable NIMH AA battery. You simply charge the battery inside the unit with the included charger cord. You can also use a normal AA battery. The rechargeable battery will run about 9 hours of play time.
MISCELLANEOUS
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There is a hold button on the side to keep you from accidentally pushing any functions, particularly if you are exercising and you have the unit in your pocket.
SOFTWARE
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I'll have to confess, I am not a fan of the Sonic Stage software that comes with the player. I already had a version on my Sony Vaio PC so I didn't load the version that came with the unit. Apparently it has check-in and check-out functions that give lots of people fits. The purpose is to avoid music piracy, but it can be quite a pain to users.
My hope is that this review might just turn someone on to the wonderful world of minidiscs. For more information on minidiscs, checkout minidisc.org
Stores more than five hours of music on an 80-minute minidisc; speedy USB connection minimizes recording time Compatible with MP3, WMA, and WAV music ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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