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“Sony's 10th aniversary of the MD has brought upon us a...”

written by Hades. on 16/04/2003

Good Points
Great Sound
High Speed Transfer
Looks Great

Bad Points
Shorter Battery Life Than MZ-N1
Useless (sounds bad) VPF engine
Still has the annoying check-in/check-out stuff

General Comments
Sony's 10th aniversary of the MD has brought upon us a new top line MD. The Net MD MZ-N10 isn't just a MZ-N1 with better looks, (which I originally thought it was) but adds really some really cool features. Listing them is the easiest way to present it so: ~Body asthetics~

the unit is made of magnesium and is very sturdy. The solid feel to it makes up for the small size in terms of solidness. (remember the some of the nokia phones? they got so small that they felt like they were falling apart, some not all) The LCD display displays more infomation and a scroll dial on the side of the unit makes it easy to select songs and menu options. The remote, unfortunately made of plastic, looks great it has a sharper LCD display to the MZ-N1 and also feels solid. The clip on the back is reversable so it clips on to your clothing with less cable mess. ~Net Features~

Check-in/Check-out is still here, no matter how many petitions were made to improve it, but still it isn't that big of a deal. It just means that you can only check-out, transfer music from computer to MD, three times and if you want to put the song onto another disk you must check-in first. A little confusing but once you've done it once you understand. Another annoying quirk is you cannot transfer songs from MD to Computer through the Net-MD program, known as SonicStage. SonicStage is a huge improvement to OpenMG, still it contains a few bugs but alot less than OpenMG. The transfer speed is quicker thanks to USB 2.0, but still is compatible with USB 1.1. The cradle is a quick snap, just put your MD on top and off you go. ~Sound~

This is where, in my opinion, the MD really shines. LP4 on older MD players really sounded, in bitter terms, crud. but the MZ-N10 improves this by introducing a 6-band equilizer. This feature was much needed and I for one am glad they included it. Now songs don't have too much bass or too much treble but also enabling you to edit mid range improves listening quality. There is another sound engine called vpf acustics engine. It is suppose to give a good virtual surround sound to your headphones but sounds really bad. It loses bass and treble sounds a little like you were in a fish tank. ~Battery~

The battery is a little of a short coming, excuse the pun but it is. This is because the Li-ion battery is now an internal unit. This though makes for a lighter unit, which is great because I don't feel it in my pockets at all, but a shorter battery life means more frequent rechargings and a shorter (long term) battery life. Of course the unit comes with an external battery case, you should see it it is huge!! its about two thirds the size of my phone. This is because this is where you can also plug in an external power supply as well as a AA battery. ~overall~

Though the MD has a few quirks they are easily overlooked. Why? cos I said so! just kidding, just getting a little annoying to write such a long review, because you don't have to have vpf engine on, the external battery isn't needed, the internal battery can last about 25 hours playing LP4 and check-in/check-out its not a very big deal. Checking-out three times is more than enough. It all comes down to the price though. Since this is a top of the range unit, and also good bargining skills can get you 10% off(in australian terms) or 4% (in pounds) it makes it a pretty good priced unit considering the sound quality the MD produces. If your like me save for this unit but the units down from this one are perfectly fine... just not as fine as this one!