Travel Technology - New iPods

It's official. Apple has unveiled new mini Ipods.

- A whole family of anodized aluminum color enclosures for the iPod mini, will ship in February in the U.S. and in April world-wide. The colors include: Green, Blue, Gold, Pink, and Silver!

-The iPod mini supports Firewire and USB2 (cables for both are included), and can be charged with either. Comes with a dock, belt clip, and an arm band. To save space without losing controls, the buttons are now integrated into the touch-based scroll wheel.

- with 4GB of storage, holds 1,000 songs, half an inch thick, same user interface as the full-size iPod, retails for $249! A feature-by-feature comparison versus the leading flash play by Rio shows that the business card-sized mini-iPod offers vastly greater storage and features for only $50 more.

I was surprised at the $249 price, but I'm sure it will come down. I was also surprised at the $499 price of the first version, but I got one of those a month after they were released. The plain silver version would match my powerbook very well.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Tummy:
I was surprised at the $249 price, but I'm sure it will come down. I was also surprised at the $499 price of the first version, but I got one of those a month after they were released. The plain silver version would match my powerbook very well.</font>

Yeah, it would be nice to see the price drop a little lower - expect that to happen in June.

Then again, 15G will replace the 10G as the new low end of the regular iPods with the price remaining the same.

That $249 price is pretty poor. The only good news is the 15gb model being the low end for $300 is cool by me.

Nice Product. Bad Price.

I take it the initial price is intended to soak the hardcore Apple fans who would early-adopt at any price?

So... all those predictions for a sub-$100 iPod were way off the mark. Nevertheless, it's nice that there were no major compromises made on the new iPod minis.

Though as I have been reading, the price *is* in line with competitors - namely Rio.

Still, it seems rather high especially when you can pay just $50 more for a 15G iPod.

$200 would have been a much better price.

Or maybe the pricing does make sense.

Allows Apple to compete with Rio etc. in the high end flash player market but doesn't canibalize their own high end iPod market.

Worth noting that the mini includes the USB 2.0 cable (and can recharge via USB 2.0, which the larger one can't do), a $20 option for the larger iPods. So the price gap is $20 more for any Windows users wanting to use USB 2.0 anyway.

So for $299 you can get a pocket-sized mp3 player that holds 3700 songs, or for 16% less you can get a slightly smaller pocket-sized mp3 player with 73% less capacity. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like they should have gone with a substantially lower price. The early rumors were 2 GB for $100, which would have blown away the competition. Heck, for $250 you can get a 15 GB Dell Jukebox (http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/dj) with twice the battery life. Maybe I'm just not in their target demographic. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif

I was kind of surprised by the price myself. My guess is that you're paying for the tiny form factor.

Actually reminds me of its namesake, the mini cooper: Close to the price of a full-sized car, because it's made by BMW and has a lot of the performance, quality and extras associated with BMWs. It makes up for what it lacks that the other BMWs have in fuel economy and aesthetics.

shrug. I'd pay $50 more for the 15G.

I suspect it will all shake out down the road. (pardon the pun)

In other Apple news, looks like I now have to pay to upgrade iPhoto by buying iLife. :-(

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by StudentExplorer:
In other Apple news, looks like I now have to pay to upgrade iPhoto by buying iLife. :-(</font>


As a student you can get iLife '04 for only $29!

For $100 or $150, I would have gotten one of the mini iPods to supplement my 40 GB Creative Nomad Jukebox (which only cost $220). I've been considering a Flash player for quite a while, in fact. Different uses - the mini iPod would be great for grabbing and walking around or working out, then recharging at the end of the day, while I prefer the larger capacity and easy battery replacement (4 NiMH AA's) of the Jukebox for the car or plane...

But for $250, it's priced beyond "supplemental buy" range.

Apple is claiming an eight hour battery life for the Mini iPod. Taken as "best case" and downgraded to a more realistic six hours or so, it still last almost twice as long as the big iPod - a HUGE plus for me. The humungous storage capacity of the big iPod is nice, but I frequently listen to Books-On-Tape or to language lessons instead of music, so the files are swapped in and out as I listen to them. Unlike music, I only want to hear a novel once.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by modernbeat:
Apple is claiming an eight hour battery life for the Mini iPod. Taken as "best case" and downgraded to a more realistic six hours or so, it still last almost twice as long as the big iPod - a HUGE plus for me. .</font>


??? The claimed battery life of 3rd gen iPods are 8 hours (1st and 2nd gen. are 10).

Your other comment makes sense though - many people simply don't need as much storage as the iPod offers. For them, the mini might make sense. I still think it's overpriced though and misses it's target.

A more aggressively priced 1gig or even 2gig would have made more sense.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bp888:

As a student you can get iLife '04 for only $29!</font>


Sadly, no longer a student. Guess I'm also miffed because I don't need the other programs that come with iLife.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by GregLeg:
I've been considering a Flash player for quite a while, in fact. Different uses - the mini iPod would be great for grabbing and walking around or working out,
But for $250, it's priced beyond "supplemental buy" range.</font>

Good point. And makes the mini even more perplexing since it isn't a flash player.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by StudentExplorer:

??? The claimed battery life of 3rd gen iPods are 8 hours (1st and 2nd gen. are 10).</font>

My my real world experience tells me that my 2nd gen iPod battery only last 3.5 to 4 hours on a charge, and that at it's best, when brand new never lasted more than 5 hours. Maybe it's time for a new battery though...FWIW I don't power anything else with it, just ipod and Sony earbuds. I'm about to resort to a piggy-back battery to extend the usable charge.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by modernbeat:
My my real world experience tells me that my 2nd gen iPod battery only last 3.5 to 4 hours on a charge, and that at it's best, when brand new never lasted more than 5 hours.</font>

My 15GB iPod (with the non-rotating wheel - is that 3rd gen? I can never quite keep the iPod generations thing straight in my head) definitely lasts more than 4 hours. I've definitely listened to it all day at work (minus an hour for lunch, so say 7 hours) and still had enough charge to listen to a few tunes on the way home.

Allegedly, some of the software updates improve battery life, are you up to date on those?

BTW the iPod Mini is NOT a flash memory player

From what I understand, it has a tiny Toshiba drive inside. It is about the size of an IBM microdrive.

So, no, shaking the hell out of it is probably NOT a good idea.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ben1979:
BTW the iPod Mini is NOT a flash memory player

From what I understand, it has a tiny Toshiba drive inside. It is about the size of an IBM microdrive.

So, no, shaking the hell out of it is probably NOT a good idea.</font>

Yes, you are right that is HD based. I believe it's a 1" Hitachi drive, though - not Toshiba.

Although not flash, it is probably even more skip resistent then the iPod given that it is smaller and has fewer moving parts.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by modernbeat:
My my real world experience tells me that my 2nd gen iPod battery only last 3.5 to 4 hours on a charge, and that at it's best, when brand new never lasted more than 5 hours. Maybe it's time for a new battery though...FWIW I don't power anything else with it, just ipod and Sony earbuds. I'm about to resort to a piggy-back battery to extend the usable charge.</font>

I don't know which iPod you have but my G2 20 gig (touch-sensor scroll wheel) has a battery that lasts at least 8 hours. Apple now offers a replacable battery for just 99 dollars. I would look into that, or if it is still under warranty (or purchased with Amex gold/plat), then they should do if free of charge. FYI: oldest G2 iPods are from July 2002.

-aa4ever-