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User friendlyness:
Pro: On the latest recorders you can enter and edit song titles of your own recordings.
Contra: Searching is relatively slow because of the sequential nature. However, it only takes about 60 seconds to fully wind/rewind a DCC tape on the latest turbo-drive decks. On prerecorded tapes (not on user-recorded tapes) searching may take shorter because you can search by title and the recorder will know where to go. Precision editing is difficult except when you have the DCC-175 with PC-link.

Portable use:
Pro: Portable DCC players and recorders have the same sound quality as stationary recorders (in principle) because they are digital. Also, they are small enough to carry around (though generally bigger than portable analog cassette players/recorders)
Contra: Portable DCC players/recorders are heavy (500g), and battery life is only about 2.5 hours. Also, you can only use the special rechargeable Philips battery that comes with the recorder, using standard "AA" or "AAA" batteries is impossible except if you use some kind of external holder.

Playing time:
Pro: With available tapes, playing time is 2x45 minutes maximum (Philips once promised 120-minute tapes but this was never realized). All DCC-players/recorders are auto-reverse.
Contra: Unfortunately all recorders need to interrupt the recording/playback when they switch over from one side to the other.

Compatibility:
Pro: All DCC recorders play analog cassettes as well and have Dolby Noise Reduction as well.
Contra: You cannot record analog cassettes with any DCC recorder as far as I know.

Vulnerability:
Pro: In normal use, DCC is reasonably shock- and fool-proof.
Contra: Invisible magnetic fields e.g. from a speaker, transformer or picture tube may erase a tape. Also, it is relatively easy to damage the tape e.g. by opening the protective sleeve or by standing on the cassette (but this can hardly be called "normal use" of course). Small drop-outs are inaudible because there is a data redundancy on the tape: Philips claims that a 3-second all-tracks drop-out or a full-time one-track drop-out is acceptable.

Price/availability:
Pro: Just before DCC was discontinued, a DCC recorder was cheaper than a good analog cassette, MD or DAT deck. If you can get a DCC recorder now, it's probably almost for free.
Contra: As time goes by, it will become harder and harder to get your hands on a DCC recorder: they're out of production. The most interesting DCC-recorder, DCC-175, which can be connected to a PC, was never available outside the Netherlands.

User friendlyness:
Pro: Searching on a CD is fast because of direct access.
Contra: No titles are stored on audio CD's (when recording your own CD's, you can add a CD-ROM session with information of course). When recording CD-R's for playback on a regular audio CD player, you should record it in one session (audio players are not multi-session compatible) and preferably in disc-at-once mode to prevent 2-second pauses from being inserted between tracks.

Portable use:
Pro: Excellent quality (in principle) because of digital audio format. Battery life of portable CD players is longer than DCC, but shorter than analog cassette and you can (usually) use general "AA" or "AAA" batteries. Weight is lower than DCC-portables.
Contra: Portable CD players are big (they must be because of the CD's size). There is no such thing as a portable CD recorder.

Playing time:
Pro: On "plastic" CD's, playing time can be as long as 80 minutes continuous.
Contra: On CD-R and CD-RW, playing time is limited to 74 minutes. You can only extend this by using another format, e.g. CD-ROM with WAV files with a lower sample rate, less bits or less channels (mono), or compressed files e.g. in MPEG format: you can get about 10-12 hours of CD-quality music on a CD-ROM using MPEG-layer 3 compression.

Compatibility:
Pro: Audio CD-R's can be played back on (most) audio CD players.
Contra: A notable exception seems to be car CD players: apparently many car players and changers have trouble reading CD-R's. CD-RW's cannot be read on anything except CD-RW recorders, DVD players and only a few CD-ROM drives (the only one I know is the Plextor 12-20Plex). Most DVD players cannot read CD-R's either.

Vulnerability:
Pro: CD's are extremely shock- and fool-proof. A good-quality CD player should be able to read a cd even if there is a severe scratch on it. Philips claims a 1mm hole is acceptable.
Contra: In practice, many CD players are not that good, especially portables. Stability on some players is so poor that you can't even use them in a car. And of course, the laser unit is delicate and easily damaged (fortunately not during normal use).

Price/availability:
Pro: Price and availability is excellent. What can I say...

Sound quality:
Pro: Digital Audio Tape carries uncompressed audio at 32000, 44100 or 48000 samples/second.
Contra: In Long-Play mode, the sample rate is fixed to 32000. The number of channels is fixed to 2 and the number of bits is 16.

User friendlyness:
Pro: User-friendlyness is reasonable; you can add and remove track-markers and search for markers with most recorders. Thanks to the Helical system (similar to VCR's) tape speed is low so even for the longest tapes, the time to wind/rewind is relatively short.
Contra: Editing is virtually impossible on consumer recorders. No text can be recorded.

Portable use:
Pro: Even on portable recorders, sound quality should be very good because it uses a digital format. Since DAT tapes are small, one would expect recorders to be quite small too; however, some space for the rotating head drum is always needed and I've never seen a really small (i.e. pocket-size) DAT recorder. Since DAT is aimed at the professional market, some very good (but big) portable are available with features like symmetrical microphone inputs.
Contra: Portable DAT recorders are big, and they are less stable and more vulnerable than DCC or analog cassette recorders (see also under vulnerability).

Playing time:
Pro: Maximum playing time is 2 hours continuous on an R120 tape at standard speed, or 4 hours in long-play mode at 32kHz sample frequency.

Compatibility:
Pro: Since data is stored uncompressed, a recording from a CD is an exact copy. Some DAT decks even lack SCMS so you can make endless copies of tapes.
Contra: I don't know anyone who uses DAT, except some people who use it professionally.

Vulnerability:
Pro: In normal use, DAT is reasonably shock- and fool-proof.
Contra: Tapes can be erased by invisible magnetic fields or damaged if you open the protective sleeve or stand on a cassette. Also, the rotating heads of the Helical system are very delicate and expensive to replace. This also makes recorders unstable compared to DCC or analog cassette. For recording in a "rough" environment, DAT is probably not a very good idea.

Price/availability:
Pro: Prices are reasonable if you keep in mind that this is a professional-quality system.
Contra: Prices are still high for a home recorder and they don't seem to drop much anymore. Availability is low: you'll have to look around at professional dealers for recorders and cassettes are also hard to find. As far as I know, there are no prerecorded DAT tapes.

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