I honestly tried to avoid buying the ipod because everyone else had one already and I’m not a fan of being part of the flood of ipod users in my college coffeehouse. But in the end I could not deny that this was perhaps one of the best designed mp3 players on the market. I had played with my friend’s 20 gig version for a few weeks and fell in love with the simplicity of the touch-activated dial. As far as I know, no other mp3 player delivers such ease of use in controlling volume and in selecting songs.

So here’s the low down:

Design

Opening the box was already pure joy. Its deceptively small and simplistic, but extremely elegant and well made. Slide the exterior box off, open, and presto, the ipod sits sandwiched between two layers of cardboard. Open the tops of those cardboard and pull out the headphones, the belt clip, the charger cable, and the cd and you’re ready to go. My Dell Axim had an absurd amount of cables, one for synching, and a big bulky ac adapter for charging. The fact Apple kept it to a minimal with having one cable do both charging and synching is a nice benefit. In addition, the cable itself comes with a clip so that it stays at its minimal length, by clipping the cable to itself, reducing the amount of tangled wires attached to the computer.

Now, the ipod itself is pretty and respectable, though appeal is still dependent on tastes. I am not a fan of the 20 gig white ipod, but I do like the mini’s design. Unfortunately though, the paint on the mini is extremely easy to scratch. It took me no longer than a few minutes that I noticed a slight scratch on my blue ipod mini, which kind of frustrated me. If you want to keep your ipod in good condition it will require purchasing a case of some sort.

The device is pretty sturdy though despite being easily scratched. I use the ipod belt clip and when clipping I’ll put one thumb on the screen and the other on the clip to attach it to my belt (I don’t recommend this) but even so the screen is solid and rigid. There is a strong plastic cover over it that seamlessly flows into the aluminum casing. Although the case is not scratch proof, the lcd case seems to be fairly durable and mine still is clean of scratches.

In addition to durable casing, the ipod mini is light and compact. The size and weight makes it perfect for me to use it when I do scientific research. I can move around easily without worrying about it when it’s clipped on. Overall, it’s a lot nicer than using my dell axim as my mp3 player which feels like a bulky heavy brick compared to the ipod.

The LCD screen is backlit with a very bright blue-white light that makes it very easy to read in pitch-darkness. I do find myself using this feature when I have my ipod mini hooked up to my car.

Despite, the white headphones being so ubiquitous it is almost tacky to use them, they still have a simple elegant feel to them. The length of the headphone wire is just perfect, and it’s short enough that it doesn’t get too tangled up, but long enough to accommodate clipping the ipod on your belt or putting it in a pocket. Some of my friends who use these headphones complain that it’s uncomfortable, but I found them very comfortable to the contrary. It’s a matter of ear size I suppose and also whether or not you can stand having earphones or prefer the larger headphones.

Controls

As I’ve mentioned before, I love the scroll-click wheel. The controls are so natural it’s easy to adjust volume (especially since not all mp3s are encoded at the same volume though iTunes tries to compensate for this). In addition the same touch scroll button is used to navigate through menus, and it also is extremely easy to use. To really get a sense of whether this is your thing, a potential buyer should go check out an apple store and give it a whirl. It isn’t for everyone granted, but if you like it, this is probably one of the model’s big selling points.

Battery Life

The battery life of the ipod mini is toted to be about 18 hrs. I still don’t know if this is true as I recharge mine daily, but I do know that my friend’s who use the ipod mini get at least 12 hours. That said, it is usually more than enough to go a day to even a week depending on how much you use it, which is plenty for most users.

The best part of it too is that charging 80% of the battery life only takes 1 hr with a maximum of 4 hrs needed for a 100% charge. I got to use my ipod right after taking it out of the box and charging it for 1 hour which made me pretty happy.

Pricing

At $199 for 4 gb model it still is easily one of the cheapest mp3 players on the market. Even the newer models being released like the Samsung Yepp, while they sport smaller designs, they usually don’t arrive around the same price range in terms of gigs per buck. Though a few of them have nicer features such as FM radio and maybe color LCDs, who really needs that? I wanted the ipod purely for the mp3 player, and for users looking for that, it delivers.

In addition, if you are a college student, go to Apple and check out the educational section. The ipod mini sells for $179 for students, and that’s including free 2 day shipping and free engraving.

I had originally planned to buy mine online, but in the week of May 31, CompUSA had a free iTrip promotion with purchase of Ipod mini, so I paid for mine at a store, and got it for $216 (after tax). It’s not cheaper than buying it online, but the iTrip is worth about $25 and it is nice to be able to have the product in your hands without waiting for shipping.

Sound Quality

The headphones that are packed with the ipod deliver sound quality so high it surprises me. I notice a lot of ambience and background sounds I never noticed before playing my mp3s on my 5.1 Altec Lansing system. I hear applause in certain live recordings I have that I never was aware of. It’s really amazing. Given that these headphones came with the system, and most mp3 players don’t package good headphones with their players, hats off to Apple.

Synching

Synch time for 3 gb (my music collection) took about 10-15 minutes I believe which was fairly solid given the large amount of data being transferred. The ipod mini uses itunes as its program for synching, which is a fairly solid program for organizing music and making playlists. In addition although the itunes store is one of apple’s ways of making money off their customers, I can’t deny that it’s extremely convenient to be able to purchase a song you like for $0.99 almost immediately. The ipod synchs every time it’s charging so new songs are added as they show up on your computer.

Conclusion

Apple has won me over with its mini. The product is simply too good to ignore, and now also well priced and possesses a long battery life (the main complaint of the first generation). It makes the ipod mini the perfect mp3 player for portable use. I only have one picky complaint that occurred during use and it happens when synching with the computer. When pulling off the charging cable, one has to pull it off quickly and carefully. If not the computer thinks you’ve reconnected it and tries to synch. If you pull it out when it’s synching you can corrupt data on the ipod. This has happened to a friend of mine who lost all his mp3s and had to resynch his ipod again to retrieve them. It’s not a huge problem, but it is perhaps the one major pet peeve of mine when using the mp3 player. Other than that I can say I’m happy with my purchase and now am an Apple fan.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 199
Recommended for: Beginners - Easy Enough for Tech Newbies