Price: £179
Website:
www.apple.com
Size (HxWxD): 51x13x91mm
Weight: 102g
Type: Portable MP3 jukebox
Finishes: gold, silver, green, blue, pink
AAC and MP3 playback
1,000 songs at128 kbps in AAC format
Plus points:
Very lightweight and easy to use. And it's been a style icon ever since it was first announced.
Minus points:
The old iPod battery curse is still there. Won't play WMA files.
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Time was when securing an iPod mini, the little new music player from Apple, involved a trip to the US or at last a few hours spent bidding on Ebay.
Not any more though, for Apple insists that the arrival of the iPod mini in the UK is imminent and there will be plenty of models to go around.
So much for the hype then, what of the player? Does the iPod mini, available for both Apple and PC owners, have anything to offer the hi-fi enthusiast? Well yes, and err, no.
It certainly sports an iconic design and comes in five different colours including a rather garish pink. It is clearly a pocketable size too coming in at just over half the size of the original iPod.
In terms of features the iPod mini isn't the best specified player on the planet. It is compatible with both MP3s and AAC files (the ones used by Apple's iTunes Music Store) but won't play back Windows Media (the de facto standard on PCs). Unlike rival players like the Philips HDD120 it won't let you record directly on to it via a CD player/hi-fi system, and there's no FM radio (a common add-on to some players) on board either.
On the plus side it will let you carry a calendar and games on the player and you can create your own playlists (grouping together your favourite tunes), a feature not found on all of its rivals.
The hard disk has a capacity of 4GB (gigabytes), which might not sound like a great deal, but is enough for 1,000 tunes in the AAC format, slightly less in MP3. It is probably enough for all but the most dedicated digital music enthusiasts.
Sound
As for its performance, well, like the original iPod it plays compressed audio files, so don't expect anything like CD quality. Apple doesn't publish its performance data either.
The iPod mini is at its best playing back AAC files encoded at 128kbps There's a notable lack of punch in the bass department and some unwelcome high-end hiss, though you may be able to correct some of this by upgrading the supplied headphones. Overall though the iPod mini is no worse than most of its rivals.
It is worth mentioning too some PC-related issues that could put you off buying the player in the first place. Firstly the iTunes software is great for Macs and pretty good for PCs, but still takes several minutes to convert a CD into MP3/AAC using the software, which is much slower than rivals like MusicMatch.
Windows users will also need a PC with either a USB 2.0 or a Firewire connection, so if your PC is more than a year old, you'll probably have to buy an adaptor. Although you can charge the mini through its accompanying lead or via the USB connection to the PC/Mac it doesn't come with one of those cool recharging/transfer docks that are packaged with the original iPod.
The most serious blot though is its pathetic eight-hour battery life. With most MP3 players offering at least 12 hours and Sony's MiniDisc players soldiering on for 50 hours, you'll feel a little shortchanged. If the battery does conk out, replacing it costs a rather steep £89 too.
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The jury is out on the iPod mini. While it is clearly a quality music player, the original iPod offers much greater storage and generally much better value for money. If you are swayed by the mini's size and looks though, you are buying a player that performs reasonably well, given the limitations of compressed audio, is easy to use and with four Gigabytes of storage can store more tunes than its small flash memory-based rivals. You might even find yourself overlooking its poor battery life and limited set of features.
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