Dear All,
following our discussions last summer, I was disappointed to find that now I
have a portable minidisc, persons of the gender(s) to which I am attracted
obstinately refuse to throw themselves at me. Perhaps I should hold the MD
in full view and kinda sashay down the street to make my new coolness more
evident.
I'm very pleased with my new MZR90, but I have to say that its user
interface leaves a LOT to be desired.
Right out of the box, I plugged it in the charger and discovered that there
is no indication of how long the charging process has to run. The little
battery icon cycles all its segments in a thoroughly pointless way, but you
can't tell if there are 3 hours or 3 minutes to go. It would have been easy
to use the level bargraph to show progress, assuming the charging software
KNOWS where it is up to.
The "jog" lever. I've used the jog wheel on an MZR30, and found it an
excellent input device, easy to operate with one thumb, giving good
mechanical feedback as it clicks once for each step, and requiring only a
gentle push to enter. The jog lever is a BIG step back. There is no click as
the options/characters spin on the display, and the you need a firm push to
enter, in fact, it's possible to think you've pressed enter without it
registering. They have not taken the opportunity to make the speed of
scrolling proportional to the up/down movement of the lever, so you easily
(usually) overshoot.
By default, the LCD panel on the unit displays the track number. If you want
the track name, you have to do: enter,jog,enter,jog,enter. When you press
STOP, it goes back to track number. It's easier to get the track name on the
remote, but I can't actually focus my ageing eyes on this when it's clipped
to my shirt :-(
The track mark button is hidden round the side for no apparent reason.
Incidentally, the track mark is great, working on record or playback, much
better than the awkward procedure on my MDJE 520 deck, but it gives an
annoying loss of music for a second when pressed.
End Search - well, it hasn't got me yet - interestingly, it is only
mentioned twice in the manual, and only once in the context of recording,
and there is no explicit warning that you will overwrite an existing
recording if you DON'T press it. Almost as if they wish it would go away by
itself ....
Joint text (crazy name) - this means taking the track names from a CD with
CD Text automatically titling the tracks, except: 1) You need a special CD
player 2) You need a special lead 3) and this beggars belief, you have to
manually confirm that you want to title EACH TRACK !!! as if you might have
connected up all that fancy hardware, but not want to use it with some
tracks ?
The pause button on the remote actually replaces the music with an
irritating beeping sound, which is very handy if you are trying to listen to
someone talking to you.
In general, I find myself repeatedly referring to the manual to find out how
to do things. I can't help feeling that it could have been made much more
obvious.
Mr. Picky
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