I got the sony mini disk after my last cd player broke. It was a bit pricey compared to the average CD player, but i believe it was worth it. First of all, you're able to put music on the mini disk in two easy ways.
First, the optical port which is basically a head phone port but its for input. So you hook a two sided cable that cost about two bucks from just about any electronics store and plug it in to the head phones jack of the device you choose where the music is coming from and plug the other end into the input port on the mini disk. Press play on the music and press record on the mini disk. When you're done just press stop and that's it!
The second was is through a USB cord that plugs into your computer that the minidisk comes with. This is alot faster, because you don't have to listen to the song just press send to minidisk and it burns it in a matter of seconds.
Another pro of the mini disk is that you're able to put WAV files on the disks or MP3's.
Most CD players takes two double A batteries and don't last long if you use the anti-skip option. The mini disk uses only one double A battery and lost for about ten hours or more, and NEVER skips.
Unlike CD's the mini disks themselves can not become scratched, and are very easy to store, and are very small easy.
And like a CD player the mini disk player has all the common functions of a CD player such as, shuffle, meage bass, groups, etc.
I've had my mini disk for about two years now and the only problem that I've encountered is that the buttons got a little screwed up. The play, fast-foward, rewind, and stop buttons are all on one "pad". But now if you press one it might miss. This also could because I brought this thing to my dorm and people were very rough with this thing.
Overall i recommend this to anyone who likes music on the go.