Best choice in portable audio

Author's Rating:

Pros: 60 hour battery life (hicapacity AA), doesn't skip, portabilty, excellent sound

Cons: no backlight, cheesy headphones, poor software

The Bottom Line: 
Sony got MiniDisc right with its NetMD series. Offering vast storage, sound quality and portability for an affordable price. Experienced users will opt for third-party software (RealNetworks/Nero) over Sony's OpenMG.

Author's Review
The MZ-N505 is one of the best alternatives in portable audio. Sony's advances in MiniDisc technology (allowing transfers of mp3s to MD) make for excellent storage capacities, a long battery life, and great sound quality.

Being a very active person, I was looking for a portable audio player that would hold a large amount of music and be able to stand up to hard workouts at the gym, as well as bumpy mountain bike trails. Not knowing any better, an MP3 player was my first choice. But after doing some research, I realized Sony's new line of NetMD's players were the smarter way to go.

Having almost 10 times the battery life of comparable MP3 players, REALISTICALLY the same storage capacities, and giving up only a slightly bigger size, the NZ-505 shines. (I say realistically because most players tout hours of music storage, but neglect to inform the consumer that it is at the lowest sound quality possible. Sony themselves do this, announcing their player holds 320 minutes of audio. Expect more along the lines of 180 , or roughly 60 tracks at near CD-Quality sound. In comparison MP3 models hold roughly 11 tracks per 32 MBs of memory. So you would need just about 192 MBs in an MP3 player to match a MiniDisc, which would well exceed the NetMD $150 price tag.)

Sound quality is exceptional on this unit, with Bass boost capabilities, it holds true to the quality you'd expect in a Sony. (Just don't expect to realize that quality on the included headphones, plug in some better ones.) And whether you are pounding the treadmill, or dropping off cliffs on your bike, this little guy won't miss (or skip) a beat.

MiniDisc media is also relatively cheap. 12 dollars will get you a 5 pack of 80 min. MiniDiscs. Compare that to the much more expensive flash media upgrades. But don't let the idea of a MiniDisc fool you - they are erasable. Just like an MP3 player you can add or remove any songs you choose. So if you choose, you really only need one MiniDisc.

But for all the amenities Sony provides in this marvelous toy there are some draw backs. First off the software leaves ALOT to be desired. When you first start the install, go make yourself a sandwich, because it'll take awhile for the bloat-ware software to finish. (And yes I have a fast computer.) Sony also has incorporated the most inundated of copyright protections. Users are only allowed to "Check out" or transfer music from their own computers - and there is no way to "Check In" or upload data from the NetMD that was not on the computer to begin with. This means if you made any recordings on the go, you won't be able to upload them to your computer. More experienced PC users will find themselves using the included "Easy copy" software over the behemoth that is OpenMG Jukebox (Jokebox, Junkbox??) This allows already made CDs and Nero MP3 cd images to be burnt much easier. If you buy or own a NetMD, research the Nero process - it makes life much easier.

Besides the software the unit itself has some minor flaws. Using a USB interface, into a mechanical device over a digital one, makes for some loss in speed of song transfers. It takes approx. 10-15 minutes to write a *full* MiniDisc, MP3 flash and harddisk memory is much faster, but again 10-15 minutes isn't that bad. The unit also lacks a backlit display, which can also be annoying at times, and has no MIC inputs.