Sony NW-MS9 Review

Overall Rating

This thing look great and is very small. It is a sony and Sony believe by 2003 they will have 2gig memory sticks!!!!!!!!!

Magic Gate Memory Sticks!!!!!!! Please read into this before buying this product. I did major research into it and it does not look good. Look below for more details.

This NW-MS9 portable MP3 player from Sony is really great. However there is software that comes with it and won't play your MP3's, that's right. Sony has brought out some software to make sure that you don't copy other peoples music. Which is great because, at the end of the day, not that many people do. However to play music you must copy your music from a CD or download it from SOME websites (I say some because you must FOR REAL OWN THE SONG). This is not good if you have a whole bunch of sony already on your hard drive and want to use. They will not be able to be played on this device. Also Only WHITE MEMORY STICKS CAN BE USED. I say this in CAPS because they are almost twice the price of the blue ones. So don't be fooled into thinking that the memory sticks are all the same. White are the Magic Gate ones that can do anything (cameras, video cameras, laptops and on this device). Blue ones do the same but don't work on this device.

Another part I don't fully understand - the software allows some type of check in and check out process. I tried to get more information about this but, from what I have read, you can only check in and out three times. Which does not make sense. Because if I had one I would change my songs quite a bit (meaning I would copy a SAME song back and forth more then three times)

Sony is doing this to stop people from copying their music which I understand. but it is not easy. I say this because I am in Austria at present. I live half of the year in Australia. So I copied all cds onto my laptop (SONY PICTURE BOOK with a memory stick slot) and was planning to buy this device at duty free and was told half about it but the guy told me not to buy it. This is when I did some research on it. I cannot use any of the music I have on my laptop due to the software on protecting music. All my cds are in australia. What am I to do?

However if you understand all of this and don't really mind then buy it, but be careful because it is so small you might loose it.

Also, I say again 2 gig sticks in 2003. That is more music then I own!!!!!!!!!!!

Please look into this music protection software. Oh yeah, one more thing - the software can be used on one computer (only home and not work) and music can only go from that computer to that device and to no other!!! Good work Sony!!!!