They are finally out in australia, and for me the long wait was bitterly disappointing. Although they are smaller and a bit better looking they are the same price as the 15 gb normal ones. The minis are only 4 gig or 1000 songs. They re both 400 dollars. Actually the 15gb is 450.
But i think the extra 50 dollars is better spent on an extra 11gb then on a few centimetres of size shrinkage. I think i am going to buy the plain old ipod. What do you guys think of the Mini?
Ipods are awesome.. the pros far outway the cons.. I've owned one for about 8 months now.. and it never leaves my side... (20gb) however.. if you want music that can be listened too you have to update it at home with iTunes (itunes matches with the ipod) Thats about it really.. I few over things are frustrating about it but it iss ssssooooo cooooooool
These are just some of the probelms I have read/heard with them. It will be cool to see if Me109 has had anything bad happen :)
- As it is a hdd instead of RAM, when you do shock it, it can be shocked fairly badly. I've read of people killing the hdd through shock. How much movement do you do Me, and has it skipped at all? That's the major one I was worried about when I was looking at one.
- The battery life. Not really the run time between charges. More how many times you can charge the battery before it will die. People who bought them originally started finding troubles with them after a year. A friend of mine now has a job at a Mac store and he said that if you do choose to get one, make sure you get extended warranty or the replacement battery will cost you.
- Read that the screen can crack very easily. That can happen with any lcd based screen though.
- Upgrades that included making Solitare better instead of trying to improve battery life and file format compatibility.
- Can't play oggs :/ Major down side.
All Mp3 players have their downsides. Have a look at all of them and what features suit you best. The Rio Karma looks wuite nice, but I haven't looked into that much. I'm not interested in buying at the moment so I'm not really up with what is good and bad at the moment. I'm happy with my O2 XDAII :)
Just do your research.
actually the LCD screen thing remind me of a digi cam series LCD screen that was allways cracking (cant remember the manufac) because they made them too small, i think the ipod suffers from a similar problem (or it could be just the general LCD screen problems).
Something i keep telling people about all this storage is that even 4gigs is pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeenty. Now i know theres mp3 fanatics that will cry "pffft well iiiiiiive got 7 gigs worth of songs" to which i reply "yes, but are you going to listen to them all before you have the chance to change them around again." Not likely.
Pesonally im happy with my CD player (plays CD-RWs, so i can have MP3 CDs) but if you insist on getting an ipod id go with the cheaper one because you really dont need all that space.
oh and course i couldnt make a post in an ipod thread without posting this link: http://www.ipodsdirtysecret.com/ [;)]
I'd be looking at getting one of the Creative Zen Touch MP3 Jukeboxes that are soon to be released. From all reviews I've read the Creative series seem to have superior sound quality to the IPods. The standard Zen and Zen Xtra are not as stylish as an IPod, however the new Zen Touch looks quite nice (and is obviously cashing in on the apple look) They are also extremely good value for money, especially when compared to the Ipods.
Another brand worth looking at would be the IRiver series of jukeboxes. These things are packed with a huge amount of features and still retain excellent sound quality. One of the best things about these is that you can use them as a portable storage device without the need to install drivers on the PC you are connecting it to.
My brother ordered a 20 gig ipod from apple.com.au 4 weeks ago, it still hasnt arrived. He has contacted them constantly but they keep making excuses up, he is getting really pissed off. However, he is wondering if they are going to send him a 4th generation ipod, since they were announced just after he ordered a third generation 20 gig ipod...
Oh well, from what i have heard they are fantastic! But i feel sad for some kids at my school, they have ipods and they have about 50 songs on them [:(]. For shame i say, if you arent going to use that space, get a 256mb MP3 player or something and hand me the ipod [:)].
Oh and Moonunit, i have 6 gigs worth of songs [:p], 98% of them are my brothers. All of them are ripped from my brothers CDs though, my brother and i hate downloading songs off Kazaa etc... they will always have some distortion or something not right, so we go the proper official way.
/slogan for the kids
SAY NO TO PIRACY, YOU ARE JUST HURTING THE PEOPLE WHO CREATE THE ITEM YOU ARE PIRATING.
yeah with the creative labs machine.. you can't just plug it into any pc or mac and get it to work... you need to install drivers... Ipods are one of the very few that work straight away on connection.. no drivers needed..
as for cracking the screen and stuff? shouldnt you be looking after your $700 ipod a bit better?
yeah as for battery life.. I think its just ignorant to think that the thing is going to last more than two years.. its a rechargeable battery.. they die.. end of story
As for the hard drive... yes mine did die... data went on.. didnt come off.. bad sectors or something.... this drove me insane.. but it was replaced (brand new) under warranty withing 3 days.. so I was extremely happy with the service..
I use the thing half for music and half for data.. I always have 10gig free for programms movies.. anything.. you can never have enough space!
Hey Me109, with the ipod working as an external harddrive, is it recognised on both mac and windows platforms? I heard that if you format it for PCs, it only shows up as an external drive on PCs, but not on macs. Same the other way around IE: Format for mac it will only show up on macs etc..
I'm thinking about getting one but I really need it to be cross compatible so I can transfer files between PCs and Macs.
I like the ipod mini's casing and design (the metal casing seems more sturdy than the white acrylic casing of the normal ipods), but it just seems like such a waste to pay that much for it when I could just pay a little more for a 20gig ipod.
yeah it is a fat32 file system which works across both the mac and pc.. and compatible with firewire and usb2, so it takes about 5 to 6 minutes to copy one dvd's worth (3.6gb)..
dosent charge off the usb however?? just firewire (must be mac vs pc rivallary)
...
one of the main reasons I bought the thing was because at the time my minidisk playa kicked the bucket and I need portable storage.. and its worked well in both areas..
as far as the battery is concerned.. buying a battery from a wholesaler will cost a minimum of a $100 to get.. and installation would be a half to 1 hours labour at what ever that is an hour ($100).. even thou it sounds expensive, its standard stuff.
I'll be replacing the battery myself.. only because I have training and experience in doing that kind of thing thou..
I got one the day they came out... sure I could have got a normal one with way more storage for $100 extra, but when I went and had a look at the mini's when the shop got a demo model in march or april, I was instantly sold on the size, weight and interface. Compared to the mini, the regular iPod feels like a brick. And the fact that the regular ones have now got the click-wheel must say something about the interface.
It's a solid little bit of kit, I really feel like I got my moneys worth. It's about the same size as my mobile phone, and less than 1/2 the size of my wallet, so it's no biggie to slip it in my pocket. It goes everywhere with me already.
8 hours of battery life means I'm probably going to charge it 2 or 3 times a week - just the same as I do with my phone. It also charges off USB - I don't think the normal iPods can do that. As for the lifetime of the battery - it's like any Lithium battery - you get about 300 charge cycles out of it before the capacity starts degrading. I've had my iBook for a couple of years now and the battery time has dropped by about 1/2 hour to about 4 hours.
Edit: The reason why the regular ones can't charge off USB is because USB can't provide enough power, whereas FireWire can push a lot of power over it - enough to give you a nasty shock I believe.
yeah the usb thing is the only thing that shits me about it.. usb is good for 5 volts + firewire jams out 12volts plus..
I think apple, on purpose, choose to design the power needs of the ipod just outside the range of the USB (5volts is plenty for devices that only require 3.3 or 2.5 volts) who knows..(probably charge time) I'm sure apple knows..
yeah as redwyre has pointed out there are other products out there that are worth checking out.. at the time I couldnt finda satisfactory alternative.. but i'm sure thats changed now...
It's not so much the volts as the current that matters. As for Apple designing it to be just outside the USB range - How many USB-powered hard drives have you seen? It's all about the current. A bit of googling reveals that USB can drive 5v @ 500mA, where as FireWire can drive 40v @ 1500mA. IIRC, to get Watts you multiply current by voltage - so USB can push 2.5W and FireWire can push 60W (which is a figure I've heard of before.)
I would do some very careful research before you buy an iPod. I have just read a lot of horror stories about them.