Sony MZ-N505S Net MD Walkman Player/Recorder (Silver)

If your trying to decide if you should get this or not. I say yes. I personally bought one of these used, one of the refurbished ones, about 2 years ago. Since then I have bought an IPod, but when I travel I still use this thing. Why is this? Because the single AA battery on this thing (Yes, its AA not AAA) will last for a very very long time. I beleive the number they say is 50 hrs and this sounds about right. A single minidisk will also hold a lot, maybe 70 to 90 songs. If you need more space you can simply buy more minidisks which are fairly cheap, and are quite durable. The device definately deserves a 5 star review, but the software that comes with it is a little weak. By comparison to most mp3 player softwares it is very bad software, and after using ITunes it certainly is a pain. You can basically do everything you want with the software, but it will take about two or three times as long as it would with ITunes for instance.

I bought this minidisc player about one year ago and have liked it very much. I would have rated it 5 stars until about a month ago when the head phone jack began to make a poor connection. Now it is almost impossible to get clean sound from the unit. Now it is useless. I would not give it even one star now. I checked with Sony's website and they will only replace with a refurb for $80!!! A brand new unit is only $100 and I only need the headphone jack replaced or fixed. I can't believe that Sony would include this junk into such an otherwise fine product. I'm not the only person in this section that has had this problem with a Sony Minidisc player so WAKE UP SONY and offer a cheaper fix!
I mostly used the Simple Burner which worked fine for me. The Open MG software is a nightmare requiring a real computer geek to figure out. Most people consider me a computer geek but frankly, this piece of software seems to have been written by a team from Microsoft that didn't speak to each other.

I, like many other people who bought a Sony net minidisc, have experienced no end of problems with the awful software and the useless hardware.
When the software is actually working it's difficult to use, and only allows you to make three copies of each track. Transferring music takes a long time, and it's touch and go whether your music will transfer to the netMD at all due to the frequency with which the buggy Sony software crashes. I've had to delete and reinstall the Sony software more than any other program on my computer, and have spent many hours on the telephone 'helpline' with unhelpful Sony 'engineers'. The final insult came afer a year of owning the minidisc player - the unit (not the software) simply refused to record new tracks, and would totally erase the minidisc you were trying to record to. Even though there are forums and even on line petitions where countless other people have complained of the same problems, Sony refuse to acknowledge that their product is shoddy - you shouldn't have this much hassle with a consumer electronic product so soon after purchase, especially a Sony product.

Do yourself a favour, give this Sony dud a miss and go out and buy an iPod.

Sony's NetMD software is not user friendly. In about a year after purchasing any Sony MD player you will be unable to record onto the minidisc. You will see a "Blank" or "Error" on the LCD. I have both the MZ-N505 and MZ-N 707 with the same problem. Buyer beware don't throw away your money on Sony's crappy product.

I got this MD player about 10 months ago and it is still working as great as when i first got it. Sure some of the colour is fading and their are a few scratches but that does not affect the quality and it your won fault so if you dont want scratches be carefull. Anyways, i read many reviews that pwoplw think that the Open MG software it comes with is crap. I found the perfect alternate. I use Real One player to copy congs. htis is a better less buggy program and best of all there are no copyright protection so i dont need to worry about the limitation of the sony software (nice try sony, lol). I still use the Open MG but only to make playlists never to copy songs. Anyways I never buy cds, why woudl i need to everythign is on Kazaa and morpheus, Imesh and such, i dotn care if it illegal. So i copy these songs to minidiscs. Always record in Lp4 and you fit abotu 75 songs. I filled one disc so i went out and got a pack of 2 new discs for about $6. thats $3 a dic, and these disc can be rewritable. the MD menu has everything youl need (varoius play modes, bass boost, many opyions, and a menu to alter the display). Batery is crazy it is abtou 56 hours, but thats with a brand new high quality batery liek energiser. i used to just buy cheap batteries from teh "dollar store" (4 "AA" for a dollar) and these ran for about 25 hours since they are cheap but stil out does and 128 MB Mp3 player. now i have a panasonnic rechargable in there and it runs for well around 40 hours, and the best part is that if you get rechargable you just plug the player's adapter and it charges right in the player. the only thing i wish when i bough this player is that it would come wither better headphones, and a remote, and a carrying case. I found myself but a "case logic case for $15, and new good headphones for $20. anyways overall this player is best for the price. im your looking for a portable device the only reason why you would not want this is if yu want some hard drive player liek 10 gb or 20 gb, then you wont get it. but if your getting any memmory based Mp3 liek 64mb or 128 mb dont bother get an MD (better battery and cheaper discs). im even listening to it right now its crazy!!!!!!