Do you have a mini?. Review on Apple iPod Mini

The Apple iPod

Folks at apples are always innovating, and were innovative and manage to create a niche market for themselves. But with iPod they entered mass market. Apple iPod was an amazing product, but iPod mini is probably the greatest mp3 player on the face of the earth

About the Pod

Apple iPod Minicomes with a innovative click wheel, navigating between songs and volume control, all of iPod's moves can be controlled thru the click wheel. Good UI and very very user friendly The mini can store around 1000 songs, it has around 4 GB capacity.

It can store around 1000 contacts (compatible with VCF/MS Outlook) and comes with a calendar, clock, alarm and 4 games. So all the features of an organizer that you normally use; is also available in this baby. When it?s dark, you can enable the backlight.

The songs can be categorized by Genre, Album, Artist etc and the iPod and iTunes can do it automatically for you. You can create your own play lists too. Mini comes with Firewire and USB support, so you can hook it up with you PC quite easily, you need to have the iTunes software to keep you music library and iPod in sync.

Real player provides support for iPod but you can?t use both, songs imported thru Real player is removed by iTunes. I use only iTunes cos it has what ever I require. You can burn your CD's directly and the CDDB service looks up names from Internet so you don?t have to key in the track information. If the info is not found, you can key in your own and submit the info so that the next person can get it when he/she needs it

Ripping from CD's may take some time, particularly when you enable the error correction (useful for old and scratched CD's) but importing from iTunes is a breeze. Mini has various equalizer settings from Rock to Classical, but enable the Bass and it just Rocks. The default ear phone that is shipped is pretty decent but you can get a Sony in ear phones which are amazing. Playback is superb, and handling is quite easy and battery life is around 8 hours. It comes with a re-chargeable battery, and within 2 hours it charges 80%. I found this was enough for a day or two, as I normally listen when I walk to work.

Where to buy

Apple iPod Mini comes in various colors, I feel that green's the best and I have a green one. I spent 2 weeks looking for a green mini at Circuit cities and Best buys but finally had to go the Apple store. Yeah, I bought it online from https://store.apple.com, you can pick up ur mini and also other cool accessories from there. Pretty well organized site and option for normal and express shipping (for a extra price).

My iPod was shipped through FedEx and I got it in two days. (Within US). If you buy from the store, you can personalize it with Laser engraving, for extra cost. Useful if you are giving it as a gift for some one, you can club in a gift certificate for iTunes music store so that your friend can download some of his/her favorite songs as well.

Verdict

1000 songs in your pocket, where ever you go, good battery life, good looking, great playback quality, easy to manage and configure, and extras like contacts, games and calendar/alarm makes it a amazing product. It may be bit expensive at $249.99 but I feel it?s the best thing that money can buy. Get out there and get your own mini!!!

'Peace'

Ranjith.

Note

The only hitch is that if you want to buy track from iTunes, you need to have a Credit card issued in USA with a US billing address. I had to use my friend's card to download some songs as I have a international credit card issued in India. I sent out a mail to support and they informed me that there are more countries in the plan.