I was shopping for a new MD player because I was very unhappy with my MZ-R55 and it's god-awful battery life. I already have a Sharp MD-X5 so I thought that would get a portable player instead of recorder. I was out in search of a player with the best battery life possible. During my searches I came across the MZ-E7W, and all I have to say is WOW. I've never been so happy with a MD purchase after owning 4 of them. First thing I noticed is the great size. The unit is slightly thicker than the MZ-R55, by about 4MM. Weighs less then the R55 and DEFINETLY has better longer battery life. As I am writing this review it is almost 10AM and I turned it on the night before to try and drain the battery from a day's use at about 9:30PM and it's still going with stop in sight. I am very impressed. The watch remote that comes with it look a little bit gaudy and big, but you have to realise that it's transmitter as well as a receiver. As long as the unit is on your body you can essentially control it or us it to look at the track. The watch also tells time (what a concept for a watch), has built in 3 alarms, tells the date, and is a stopwatch. Batter life is supposedly about 3 months of regular usage and that's supposedly about 60 uses a day using the remote function. There's no plugs on the actual unit to use and AC or a lineout unfortunately, however there's the extra battery pack that looks pretty cool and definitely a lot better than the other battery pack I've used with other MD players. It looks like a funky twist off battery canister tube. At first when I was going to buy it, I thought that I would have to buy a remote for it because the headphone were the normal ones without the remote, it just so happens that the store I was at sold extra remotes, and the unit's headphone jacks have the remote plug on it, but that would have set me back about $85 Cdn. However as I played with the unit one of the coolest thing about the unit really shown, the ability for the main unit to send the information back to the watch. The unit actually send a signal back to the watch to display the MD information. The volume is also controlled from the watch, and so are the mode settings. My only gripes about the machine are that the buttons on the underside of it is the same as the E75, the headphone that came with it are not that great. However one of the best things about it is the sound. WOW, the volume is amazing compared to the R55, very loud and the bass is extremely loud and bassy. I would recommend this unit to anyone who can afford one; I had to haggle from $699 to $650 no tax. If you're going to get it in North American then you know your warrantee is not going to valid anyways, but hey, it's a Sony. Can't go wrong there!