Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman

Other products by Sony

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001M3MVG
• Item model number: MZNH600D
• Batteries: 1 AA batteries required.
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,504 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #2 in	Electronics > Portable Audio & Video > Minidisc Players
  #5 in	Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Minidisc Players & Recorders

• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 25, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer
Taking your music collection on the go has never been so easy. The MZ-NH600D uses MiniDisc technology, which allows you to put 45 hours of music onto just one Hi-MD 1GB MiniDisc. This makes your music library incredibly portable, and the MiniDiscs are so small they can easily fit in a shirt pocket. The player also features long battery life, providing 25.5 hours of continuous playback with just one "AA" battery.

The MZ-NH600D Hi-MD Walkman Digital Music Player is also compatible with Standard MiniDisc Media and supports multiple audio formats. Its Easy Jog Dial and reg: Navigation lets you scroll through playlists and songs with incredible ease.

Features

• Includes free MD-CASE4 carrying case
• Includes one HM-D1G (1 GB) Hi-MD disc
• Up to 1GB1 of Music Storage (45 Hours)2 on 1 removable Hi-MD Disc
• High capacity/low cost media: Hi-MD media is expandable and provides unlimited storage capability.
• Compatible with Standard MiniDisc Media : Hi-MD Walkman recorders are backward compatible with the MiniDisc media available today. You can store 13 hours3 of music on standard MiniDisc media.
• Super Long Battery Life of up to 25.5 hours of continuous playback using just one "AA" battery (varies with usage)
• Record your MP3s or CDs at up to 100x speed4: Transfer your music directly from your PC to a Hi-MD Walkman recorder at up to 100x speed.
• Easy Jog Dial Navigation: Easily scroll through playlists and songs on the device with the Jog Dial navigation system.
• 3 Line LCD Display: View album, artist and song title with the 3 line LCD Display.
• Data File Storage: Store and Transfer Presentations, Documents and Spreadsheets with Hi-MD Media.
• Music Transfer Powered by USB: No need to worry about draining battery power when transferring music to the Hi-MD device. The USB will power the unit when transferring music.
• Plays back in ATRAC3 Audio, ATRAC3plus Audio and Supports Multiple Audio Formats (MP3, WMA, WAV): The Hi-MD recorder plays back in ATRAC3 or ATRAC3plus audio format and supports the most popular Internet audio formats, including MP3, WMA and WAV.
• Music Management Software Supplied: Hi-MD Walkman recorders come bundled with SonicStage and MD Simple Burner Application, which makes it easy to import, manage and transfer your music collections.
• Skip-Free5 G-Protection Technology: Hi-MD Walkman recorders come equipped with Skip-Free G-Protection technology which provides virtually uninterrupted playback of your music.
• Group/Folder Function: Allows for easy navigation between multiple file folders transferred from PlayList.

Product Description
G-Protection * up to 30 hours playback time * direct USB interface and software for high-speed recording from PC * stores music or data to high-capacity Hi-MD media * compatible with standard MiniDisc media

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice System, but what is SONY thinking?, October 23, 2004

By	A. Pena (South Riding, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This Player is very nice and capacity is OK for a removable media, however the whole Hi-MD---OpenMG----SonicStage---ATRAC is very inconvenient to use.

I will summarize:

PROS:

-ATRACplus algorithm sound decent at 64kbps, comparable to MP3 at 128kbps in my opinion. There is also a 256kbps option which sounds very good, but files are pretty big for the Hi-MD capacity, makes it inconvenient.
-The advertised price for the Hi-MD blank disks is ok, around $7.
-Price compares to that of the MiniIpod or some Flash MP3 players, however this is "supposed" (read below) to be upgradeable by buying more blank Hi-MDs
-Runs on AA battery.
-You can run with it and get no skips.

CONS:

-You MUST use SonicStage software to transfer files to / from the MD.
-No MP3 support on the unit, only plays ATRAC. MP3s are transcoded by the PC software.
-SonicStage is a little bit unreliable.
-You CAN NOT upload songs from MD to your PC. So you can't use the MDs as a backup of your PC music collection, because if your PC fails, you can't upload the songs again.
-Even if you encode songs in ATRACplus with SonicStage, you can't move the files to another PC. And I'm not talking about illegal moving, you might have more than one PC.
-You can only play (so far) ATRACplus files with Sony's software (in your PC, I mean).
-Hi-MD blank discs are scarce, not even sony online store has them in stock at the moment of this review.

I think this unit is a good alternative to a Flash based MP3 player of medium capacity (256-512MB) if you can find it for less than $200.

For a little more than this you can get a 4/5 GB HD player like the MiniIpod and save the hassle of the propietary format, algorithm, rights protection format (OpenMG) and having only one choice of software.

I think Sony could have made a good product but it's taking the wrong path towards protection of copyrights. They shouln't do so at the expense of reducing the product functionality and reliability.

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome player AND portable drive, June 15, 2004

By	Nazeeh Amin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

The player is on par with Sony's excellent track of Minidisc players. The new 1 Gig discs are awesome! They can take up to 45 hours of music. 7 hours if you are using the best quality.

The player increases the capacity of regular 5 hour Minidiscs to 13 hours! So you can more than double the capacity of your old dics.

Battery life is awesome. 30 hours or so with HD discs and 50 with older ones.

Best part for me, the player can be used as a portable drive! Only using HD media, you plug the player to your PC using the USB cable, and voila! You have a 1GB drive ready to use without installing any drivers! Just works! Best part, no adapter needed for the player when it's connected. The player takes power from the USB cable and does not use your battery while connected to the PC.

Overall, this player is awesome! I love it! Go get one :)

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Sound, Perfect Alternative to iPod, July 25, 2004

By	SVrider "George" (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

OK, right off the bat I have to wonder how the earlier reviewer took 12 hours to download 1GB of music to the MZNH600. It took me about 1 hour! While that may still seem like a long time, considering how much music you're transfering, I don't think it's a problem.

I was seriously considering the Apple iPod. The Sony Hi-MD won me over as a great alternative - it uses a standard single AA battery which last an incredable 25 hours. There's no hard drive to worry about - excellent shock resistance. It doesn't hold as much on a single disk but it's not that big a deal to change disks. Besides, 1GB on the Sony is about equivalent to 35 CDs... it works for me. Took it on a 800 mile car trip to Oregon and back and it was flawless.

Some have complained about the SonicStage software but I've found it to be just fine. I've used iTunes and I'm annoyed at how iTunes takes over the CD-ROM functions to the point that it disables other CD software! At least the Sony SonicStage doesn't do that!

Sound quality is excellent at the Atrac3 64kbps rate. This is the next to highest compression which allows about 35 hours of music to fit on 1GB. At the highest compression, I noticed that voices started to sound a bit odd. Still, at 64kbps, I can fit more music on 1GB than a typical mp3 player - I estimate about 50% more. So compared to other mp3 players, the Hi-MD is really equivalent to 1.5GB to 2GB.

If I have a gripe, its the tiny display. It actually works fine but it's not backlit and navagating the menus takes a little practice. The controls, while small, actually work quite well, though.

I also considered some of the solid state mp3 players but to get the same amount of music on a Rio Chiba for example, would raise the price way beyond that of the Sony. This little Hi-MD player is an excellent value - Oh yeah, and did I mention that it doubles as a 1GB plug and play portable USB data drive... I highly recommend it.