It would be a pity if MD were abandoned. I've been using MD since 1998. The first unit I bought was MZ-E20 walkman in 1998. Since that was just a player I also bought an MD deck: MDS-JE520. MZ-E20 was rather big and very eager regarding battery life so one year later I bought MZ-E25 player. And this player is now my favourite. In orange colour looks really great, much better than most players nowadays. Since 1999 I've been using MiniDisc exclusivelly. I admit I was tempted by mp3 players but mp3 players have one disadvantage. They do not have a removable media. MD does. I also always wanted to use MDisks as storage media to store different files etc. Once The Matrix movie appeared and I saw a scene where Neo gives a man (with a girl with a white rabbit on the shoulder) a MD disk with some data I realised that I'm not the only one who thought about MD as a storage media. Then, I saw Hi-MD units. It was like a dream come through. I got one unit: MZ-DH710 and am very pleased with it. Some of you may think that I chose rather poor man's unit but it is not so. It was carefully thought over decision. I've never wanted, don't want and will never want any device with a proprietry battery. I hate these things. I want to be able to insert one battery AA-size and listen to the music. I don't want any chargers, any built-in chargers etc. That's why I've chosen MZ-DH710. Just place the battery and you can go. If the battery is low, replace with a battery you can by virtually everywhere. There is however one problem with Hi-MD unit I own. It's bigger than my favourite MZ-E25. I just love the size and design of MZ-E25. And it seems so durable. MZ-DH710 isn't so durable even in 50%. I hope to see some day a Hi-MD unit which looks like MZ-E25, uses AA or AAA battery (only one) and is really durable, with metal like body etc. There is also one thing I don't like what Sony does. AFAIK there is no MD decks which allow to play Hi-MDs. And it's a great pity. I would love to replace my MDS-JE520 if there was such unit. I think the problem is, that Hi-MDs are like mp3 players. They are only meant to be used as portable devices. What about users who use MDs in there Hi-Fi systems? Why can't I use Hi-MDs in my MD deck? I don't want to make 2 copies of disks, one for my MD deck and one for my Hi-MD player !! And one more thing, software. I have to keep windows system installed only to be able to download some stuff onto Hi-MD. WHY?? WHY?? Why can't sony buy QT library and write software system independent which could be run on Linux, MacOS (X) and even damn windows?? WHY ?? Why sony tells me to buy winodws to use there stuff ?? Sony, do you know why MD are not so populars as mp3 players? Because they are usb-storage class devices. You plug it in, download stuff and that's it. No windows software is needed. If I were asked if I wanted to use technology which demands sophisticated software to download music to my the music media of my choice or some simple way to do it the answer would be I don't. That's why sony's MD format will stay alive only among users who use it as a Hi-Fi componen, MD decks and so on. Regarding portable players - MD will be beaten by mp3 players. Sad truth, but sony deserves it. But do we ?
