Some one gave me an old Spny VX-700. Is there any reason not to use this as a playback deck.
They never want it back and my primary camera has much better sspecs so I don't intend on using to shoot.
And although it seems pretty straight forward am I missing something that would/should prevent me from using it as a dedicated deck?

As long as the tape transport is in good working order, it has firewire out, its firmware is compatible with your firewire controller (it should be), and you record and playback in SP mode, it should work fine as a deck.

I think you'd do better though by selling it for $500-ish (maybe higher), and buying a new cheapo MiniDV cam (I think Pana has one going for $285 and under now...PV-GS4?). There's a VX700 going for $800 on Half.com right now.