Join The iPod craze...

Just about everyone is buying mp3 players these days. From the Philips Go Gear, to the Zen Micro, mp3 players are one of the hottest new trends in technology. Apple's iPod started it all, and they still happen to have a brand of top mp3 players.

Apple's iPod mini model appealed to me most, and I decided I had to have one. Finally, after paying for my books and tuition this semester, I had a little extra money and I knew it was time. I searched on eBay, got a great deal ($160- including shipping!), and within a week my iPod was in my hands.

Design
The iPod mini comes in beautiful packaging; in fact, I still haven't thrown away my box. A silver cover slides off to reveal another box that holds the iPod and its accessories.

One of the first things you'll notice about the iPod mini is the size. A bit bigger than a deck of cards, it fits perfectly in a pocket, purse, backpack, or hand. The minis were also unique in the fact that they come in several vibrant colors, including green, pink, and silver (which is the color I own).

I've heard that the paint on the mini scratches off easily; supposedly if you drop it, the paint will chip off. However, I already anticipated this, and bought covers for my mini. Most of them are pretty cheap- I actually bought a three pack of rubber covers (pink, green and blue) for $1 at Target. Since the mini isn't the latest iPod on the market, it's pretty easy to find a majority of the accessories at discounted prices.

For those that buy their iPod online, or at the Apple store, you actually have the option of laser engraving. You can have your name imprinted on the back of your iPod or even your favorite song lyric.

Like all iPod models, the mini comes with the click wheel, a innovate wheel that is used for navigation. With the mini's, however, the buttons on the click wheel actually match the iPod's color, which wasn't available on older models.

The mini's also come with the trademark white earbuds, which have become easy to recognize; if I spot someone with white earbuds on, I automatically assume that they're a fellow iPod owner.

Controls
As I mentioned before, the iPod has a click wheel which is used to navigate the menus. I'll admit that it took me about a day to get used to the controls. After a while, your fingers will become comfortable with the feel of the wheel, and it'll be natural to scroll down your song list, or adjust the volume. The wheel is easy to control with one finger, so if you're walking or even jogging, just a light spin on the wheel will do the trick. As everyone else has said in their reviews, the click wheel is probably not for everyone. One thing I do suggest, though, is if you are having problems getting down the controls, you should try playing one of the games on the iPod (Parachute is probably the best), as this will help you get used to moving the wheel in the direction you need to go.

There is also a 'hold' button on the top of the iPod, which comes in handy if you need to throw your iPod in a backpack or purse and don’t want any buttons being pushed as you go along.

Other Features
Besides storing your music, you can also play games on the mini. The four that are included are parachute, brick attack, solitaire, and music quiz (which is probably the most fun out of the four. The game randomly selects songs from your collection and plays a small clip, leaving you to guess which song it is before the time runs out.)

Battery Life
The mini advertises its battery life to be 18hrs, but I haven't seen that yet. However, I do use it for several long periods of time (2-3hrs) and the battery only goes down a bit. Of course, having the backlight on will drain the battery faster, so if it's daytime, I usually keep it off.

The iPod charges using the USB connector while it's attached to your computer. I've found that it charges fairly quickly; it usually only takes about an hour for me to get a full charge, and I don't even have the fastest USB port.

Pricing
Since Apple has released the Nano and the newest iPod Video models, the mini's prices have gone down considerably. Like I mentioned, I bought a brand new mini on eBay for only $145, but most go for no higher than $200 dollars. Pretty good price, when you think about how much music you can store.

Sound Quality
The sound quality is excellent. The earbuds actually work very well, and the quality is so good that since using the iPod I've noticed new instruments and sounds in songs that I've never heard before. A lot of people have complaints about the earbuds (they aren't comfortable, don't fit well, etc), but I have very small ears and unlike most other earbuds I've tried, the iPod ones fit perfectly. If you don't want the earbuds, most other headphone jacks will work with your iPod.

Synching and Software
iPod's software is iTunes. Most of the Window XP computers come with it already installed (at least, mine did), and it's a nice little program. You can import songs from your CDs, store them, and organize them by artist, album, track number, genre, rating, and many other classifications.

The import function is a bit on the slow side, however. It takes about 6-7 minutes to burn a 13 track album, and if you're impatient, like I am, that's far too long. However, once you have the songs in your library, it usually takes anywhere from a few seconds to 2 minutes to upload them onto your iPod.

Also, contrary to popular belief, you do NOT have to keep every song saved onto your computer and in your library once you have uploaded them onto your iPod (I just argued with a friend about this last night). The instruction manual says that if you delete songs from your iTunes library, the next time you update your iPod, the songs that aren't saved in your library will also be deleted. This is true, but if you don't have 4GB of space on your hard drive and still want to upload more songs, you have to go to your iPod's options and change it to Manually add songs. This way, you can delete the songs from your library that are already updated on your iPod, and drag and drop the new ones as you go along (in my opinion, this is the best way to do it. Who wants to waste a bunch of space saving songs that you already have on your mini?!)

Overall
The iPod mini is a great choice for an mp3 player. The small size makes it easy to take anywhere, and it's very simple to navigate and control. The organization is great as well; if I'm in the mood to listen to rock music, I just scroll on over to genres select rock, and I can listen to my entire collection of music that fits into that category. The iPod mini is a purchase you won't regret.


Update 8.3.06
So after eight months of owning an iPod mini, I've learned that it can be a tad bit buggy. It's frozen for no reason on at least four occasions, but a simple fix of pressing the menu and select buttons for a few moments will bring it back to life. Sometime in April a freak accident (I really don't know how this happened!) caused my iPod to self-destruct and erase all the songs from the harddrive. As I mentioned, I've always manually updated my songs, so I had to reload EVERYTHING back on my iPod. It was a pain in the butt, but things had been great since then.

However, this morning I dropped my iPod on the way to work. It was fine until I got off work, and lo and behold- the sad iPod of death appeared (when I tried to boot my iPod a little icon appeared on the screen of an iPod with "x"'s for eyes and a sad face). After checking the Apple site, I tried the troubleshooting suggestions, but none worked! It was either calling the Apple site or reformatting my iPod, neither of which I wanted to do. I found a site (http://www.notmike.com/archives/2005/11/ipod_rebooted.html)through a google search, and after reading the other testimonials decided to give my iPod a drop too. My carpeted bedroom didn't do the trick, but after firmly slamming it charge side down on my kitchen counter, my iPod returned to normal! Despite all this, I still love my mini :)