I just picked up a 4GB iPod mini for $199 at a local shop. I was hoping to get an employee discount… but… no. I would have only saved $20, which would cover the taxes in my area… but enough about that.
The iPod mini is sweet! After having a MiniDisc I was very skeptical about these MP3 like players. With my MiniDisc I had the options to move discs out when needed… This meant that I could just rip my CDs to MiniDiscs. Well, Sony’s UI for the MiniDisc (JukeBox, Sonic Stage, RealPlayer) just sucks. I used my MiniDisc player on an almost daily basis for three years, until I dropped it right on the headphone cord/jack. The fall, err landing, broke one of the PCB layer connections to the audio amplifier. I got mad and melted the DSP chips with my soldering iron. It makes a mess. Anyone need a NZ-707 skin/body/cover with a working LCD and buttons?
Back to the iPod mini. Apple spends a LOT of time, effort, and money to make the player and its packaging look very sleek and nice. Simplicity at it finest. The package comes with a belt clip, a usb 2.0 cable (used for transfer and charging), and headphones.
The mini is slightly wider (X), shorter (Y), and thinner (Z) than my Nokia 6230. But, it’s about the same size.
iTunes is has a great UI… Go use it!
The only problem I have had so far is syncing the newly ripped music to the mini… sometimes it won’t transfer. Unplugging and plugging it back in seems to work just fine.
The UI in the iPod is great… You can sort by play lists, artists, albums, songs, genres, composers, and audio books.
The iTunes store, while a bit disconcerting that I can one-click-download-music, is really great. Really fast too. It takes longer for a CD to spin up than it does to play a sample from iTunes. A lot of the really odd and hard to find songs are in the store… but not nearly all of them. A lot of good German techno bands haven’t made it there yet… or the French Hip Hop artists…
So far, I think that I have spent $199 on the player and about $25 on music in the first hour of attaching it to my laptop. I think I’m going to have to monitor my one-click-download-drain-my-bank-account activities…
How does the iPod handle your own mp3’s with no DRM? Can you transfer any ripped music to AND FROM the iPod without issues?
So far I can move my MP3’s with out DRM to the iPod. It seems that the DRM is only needed on iTunes downloaded songs in AAC format.
I have not moved any files from the iPod to the PC yet. I think that is also where DRM comes into play…
iPod’s are some of the most sexy, and attractively designed devices anywhere, but you got suckered in hahah. One click downloading, easy bank account drainage so Apple can pay their artists to continue designing these little cash cows heheh.
Good luck, I don’t think I’d have the willpower to fight that urge lol.