Save yourself all the heartache and start bidding on Ebay for a portable digital recording studio (eg Roland 880). As technology moves on quickly, and people trade up faster than they change their mobile phones, you get a great piece of kit for the price of a decent minidisc recorder (and there the similarity ends).

Recoring on minidisk is OK to pick up the odd song, tune, lyrics in a pub setting, but seriously limited for serious recording.