Sony MZ-R55 Personal MiniDisc Player

i was in hong kong looking for a hand held system. it was either going to be a really nice cd player or those new mini disc players. well i chose the mini disc player. why i don't know. mini disc players are quite compact as opposed to cd players. i mainly shopped around for the smallest unit which was the sony mz r-55. i knew nothing about the system except for the fact that it was small. i did not know that the battery life was so short (around four hours play time) and did not know how long it took to recharge the battery (around three hours). in addition if you want to listen you have to carry around batteries and the batteries are external so this adds bulk to the once same md player.