Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony MZ-N520 Blue Personal Net MiniDisc Player

Got this today and am really pleased with it, small size and good sound quality. Feels well made and comes with a dinky carry pouch. (Could do with a belt clip though). All the functions are clear and the inline remote does the basics. Sound quality is very good and volume can be increased via the inline remote stick. Brilliant price for such a quality product.

This is NOT an MP3 player. It is a mini disc player, so it contains different hardware, uses different encoding [ATRAC rather than MP3] and requires mini discs, which retail at about £1.00 each. However, you can just as easily transfer your MP3 or other audio files from your PC to this recorder AND mini discs are an extremely robust medium, so don't be put off. The old problem, of having to transfer music in real-time, has been solved as Sony say you can transfer a CD's worth of music in 2 minutes. At this price of less than £40, this is a tremendous bargain and a really superb alternative for people who refuse to be caught up in the iPod hype.

Received this item and was impressed by the small size of it, and the range of accessories in the box. The unit felt a bit plasticy, but then for £39.99 you don't expect much!

Unfortunately, examining the unit, there is no microphone socket so it can only be used for recording afrom line-level sources such as a CD player. It cannot be used for recording sound from a microphone on the move, so as a portable recorder it is useless.

Looking back here, it is buried away in the tech specs, and I should have read it more carfeully but I felt a bit mislead by the main description. If that's the reason you want this product, look elsewhere!

BUT - I'm sure as a minidisk player and for recording your CDs or from a computer, it is a good enough product.

I was not disappointed...this item has all the functions I expected, and the price is really good. Really good sound as well.

I think this mp3 player is ace, as i have never had an mp3 player before I wasn't really sure what I was buying and what all the functions were on it. But once i had it I was really pleased it's super easy to use and a nice colour. It's also a nice size fits in my hand bag easily which means I can spend my time on the bus to college more enjoyably. Also very good quality playback for such a good price , I would defo reccomend this for anyone who wants a decent mp3 player for not too much money