I purchased my MD new about four years ago. Then the prices were quite high and that was the latest model of Sharp.

I know that Sharp has the rumor of making durable devices. I was a little bit dissappointed on that matter from my Md. I bought it new but maybe was one of these products that were reconditioned and sold like new on the High steet market.
Well, even if it was like that, shouldn't be very much used since the model was only a couple months on the market.

The reason i had these suspicions is that it started to give me trouble after 4-5 months of operation. It was skipping (clicking noises heard) portions on tracks and sometimes could not even read the TOC of the disk. These were disks recorded by the same device and not someone else's.
Service could not find anything wrong with it. I wonder if that was because the device was still on guarantee...

One day i tried to remove a disk and it was quite difficult. Besides that was a common thing from the start, i found out that the slot walls had come closely together by me applying minimal force. I easily brought them back to place.

As performance goes, this devices is not bad at all. Reproduction is quite good and can be even better if you record optically (oh yes, it has optical line output).
Features are plenty to work on. Weight is somewhat more that suppose to be but the compact design (which has awesome image) makes it a true portable.

Lifetime and endurance of the battery is more that adequate. Haven't changed it yet!

Summing up is a quite good device to purchase. I would have rate it even more if it didn't give me any probs.
I don't know if there are any new ones left but if you go for a used one , give it a thourough test. If is a good unit , it will provide features and performance way above its price.