“I don’t feel a few minutes in a store is enough to qualify me to write a review, per se, I will provide my first impressions, in order,’ Paul Thurrott writes for Paul Thurrott’s Internet Nexus. [I was going to the Apple Store] “to buy the iPod Mini for an upcoming comparative review, but they were out of stock. Apple fans will gleefully point out that this indicates that Apple is ‘selling out’ of the devices, but one of the employees at the store intimated that they hadn’t gotten too many to begin with, and frankly that’s a more likely scenario, given Apple’s historic inability to get hardware out the door.”
Thurrott calls the size of the iPod mini “much, much smaller in person than it appears on the Web” and writes, “It feels well-made, almost the perfect weight and balance for a device of that size.” He then calls it too expensive, “If this was $200 (or, better yet, $150), people would fall over themselves to buy them as they happened by Apple Stores around the country.” Thurrott likes the colors, the scroll wheel, and the user interface, but calls the iPod mini incomplete because you have to purchase the arm band, docking station, or remote control seperately, if you want them.
Thurrott unsurprisingly concludes, “In short, it’s pretty clear that the iPod Mini is a classic Apple product–well designed, too expensive, and ultimately bested by the choice-heavy competition from the PC world. You can get a lot of MP3 player for $250, and though it’s physically larger, the 20 GB Dell DJ is a much, much better deal for most people: It boasts five times the storage, gets over twice the battery life, includes WMA compatibility, features a larger, more readable screen, and includes a built-in microphone. Heck, save $50 and get the 15 GB version for just $200.”
Full thing here.
MacDailyNews Take: WMA compatibility? Don’t need it and that Dell Digital Junkbox won’t work with our store of choice, Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Thurrott’s really grasping now. Have you used the Dell DJ? The interface is laughable, as are the player’s controls in comparison to the iPod and iPod mini. We saw a guy a while back on the subway with a Dell DJ. About 10 of us (random riders) had iPods. We just looked at him and nodded to each other knowingly. He noticed. He looked sad.
cool. so the MDN guys come off as condescending elitist assholes to people on the subway. rock on. that’s something to brag about.
such a tool is Thurrott.
Relax, rageous. It’s hardly condescending to nod to another iPod owner. It is a cautionary tale. Buy a Dell DJ and you’re a loser. The only asshole I find in the piece is Thurrott, the King A-hole himself.
Thurrott is so funny. Why doesn’t he quit journalism and write sitcoms?
Is this fool blind? People ARE falling all over themselves to buy it. Talk about reality distortion fields.
Paul finally figured it all out. Bash Apple bring hits to our website. Face it he is just bashing Apple to compensate he’s inability to do actual journalism. I can agree not everything Apple produces isn’t a great product but houndreds of thousands of iPod mini’s are being sold off the shelf. I think the American people have spoken they love the iPod and this is just fuming the likes of good oh Paul.
One of the great foundations of being a fagboy MAC user is to be a “condescending elitist asshole.” It’s no surprise Apple iPodders follow suit. Tree-hugging, butt-pumper, bone-smuggling artists use MACs. The rest of the world does Windows and laughs at you at all times for your slow toys, lack of software, incompatibility with the world, and foolish waste of money. You’re just too stupid to be sad about your wrong choice. At least the Dell DJ guy understood he made a mistake (yes, even I admit the iPod is much, much better than anything else). Still, commie pinko, Kerry-loving, liberal, gay-marriage fags – that’s a MAC Fag for you.
And Mac folks wonder how they get the reputation of being snobs. Hmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder. Hmmmmmmmmmmm…
Where is Mac mentioned “PassionoftheKrispeyKreme?” If you want to call a random group of iPod users snobs for noddling to each other in the presence of a ‘tard Dell DJ using duped fool, so be it. Leave Mac users out of it.
I kind of agree with him. In terms of overall bang for the buck, the iPod is ultimately bested by other offerings. At Dell for example, you can get their DJ mp3 player right now for $199. In typical Apple fashion however, the iPod boasts superior aesthetics, style and elegance.
1. Mac users deserve to be smug. They figured it out in the midst of all of the marketing and FUD spewed by the Macwannabe MSs and Dells of the world. Macs are better and we know it. We pity Wintel Sufferers.
2. iPod users noticing a poor bastard with a Dell DJ and “nodding knowingly” should be a crime punishable by death. How terrible! LOL!
3. Do not buy a Dell DJ. It sucks and you will look like a fool.
This really is classic PT! He doesn’t want to admit that he was wrong about them not selling, so he pulls some (very iffy) quote out of his rectum to suggest there weren’t many available. Helloooo? PT? Anyone at home? Knock-knock! It must really suck to be him.
Then he goes on to repeat the same false price suggestions that have already been done to death and shown to be ludicrous. Guess what pauly, people have already fallen over themselves to get the mini, and if you keep up your ridiculous wishful thinking and denial, we’ll have one more written example of your complete incompetence and lack of credibility! And for your own good, you have to face up to the facts, after all, you don’t want to have to go and see those men in the white coats again, do you? So, there’s a good boy, now run along and play with the other children, you’re spending too much time in-front of that ghastly computer. It’s not surprising everyone laughs at you.
I honestly think that tool boy Thurrott actually gets more readers of his juvenile columns on this website than on his own. LOL
I congratulate MDN for adhering to the true spirit of Mac users. Like the early Mac Addict (before the corporate sellout), MDN has the “Mac Mojo.” May they always keep it. Mac is better. We know it. iPod is better. We know it. There is NO crime in writing it or saying it aloud.
Standing “O” for MDN!
diamond = carbon
coal = carbon
diamond = coal
dell = mp3 player
iPod = mp3 player
dell = iPod
diamond – elegant and small
coal – ugly and large
in term of jewel,
iPod is a diamond
dell dj is a coal
So, why do some people have problem with Apple’s pricing?
I’ve e-mailed Thurrott to ask him how Dell are doing at selling DJs amongst other things!
Strangely, he hasn’t replied to that question, but says he doesn’t engage in discussions regarding his blog.
I also asked him why he so publicly rebukes Apple for manufacturing in Asia, yet doesn’t rebuke Dell and others for offshoring support (arguably a higher value service) to India. I suggested that maybe he has a financial interest in the Wintel industry that make his principles more flexible when it suits.
His inadequate reply was that Internet Nexus never accepts Microsoft advertising, which wasn’t what I asked.
Apparently when he blamed Unix mail servers for spreading a Windows worm, that was an editing mistake that was corrected in talkback! How convenient to tell the lie in the headline, and print the retraction in comments that the majority never read. Never mind that the Web isn’t like print, and you get the opportunity to revise your ‘errors’ online if you so desire.
Thurrott does concede that the iPod is the de facto standard for hard drive players, yet that recognition doesn’t logically extend to acknowledging that AAC/Fairplay is the de facto standard for DRM-protected legal downloads for hard-drive players.
Interestingly, Thurrott claims not to ‘work’ for Penton Media – the publisher of .NET magazine, WinSupersite, and Connected Home Media (obviously all charitable beneficiaries of Paul’s unique journalistic talents) amongst others: The reason I know this is I copied my e-mail to the effective head of the Penton division responsible for all of those publications, one David Nussbaum and Paul stated that he neither knew nor cared about dnussbaum@penton.com as “I don’t work for Penton”.
All in all, great fun watching a propagandist try to squirm especially when – without a hint of irony – he claims “I do have a beef with is Apple’s constant lies about it products and people like you, who not only take them all at face value but also question when you hear something that doesn’t fall into your pretty picture of the world.”
Ron:
Get a life.
Thurrot fails to even consider the possibility that the reason why the Apple store he went to may not have gotten many iPod minis is because maybe that store does much lower volume in sales than other stores. Distribution channels more product to stores that typically have higher sales, so some stores may only get 15-30 of each color, while others will get 100 of each color (I’m mearly taking numbers off the top of my head, I don’t know what kind of numbers they’d actually use).
But I think it was predicted that Thurrot was going to slam the mini at the first chance he got.
I do have a beef with is Apple’s constant lies about it products and people like you, who not only take them all at face value but also question when you hear something that doesn’t fall into your pretty picture of the world.
Now that was a side splitter! You can almost here him trying to choke back the tears reading that!
But really, this guy is amazing. He’s written so much crap that’s been so utterly wrong in the past he must be the easiest guy to discredit on the planet! Yet he keeps going! He doesn’t even try to clean up his act. And when anyone points out what an idiot he’s been, he shows himself to be a little baby crying “no, you’re the idiot, waaahhaaaa!”
I think that as one one of the funniest contributors to MDN our Thurrot deserves the Vacuum Cleaner T-shirt.
I think Thurrott was making up that stuff about what the Apple sales guy was saying. Apple sales won’t say that. They will instill the logic by comparing them to flash based players to the customers. Not to mention the store has higher preference in quatities than any other store (shhhh).
I think his visit was fiction.
What vacuum cleaner t-shirt?
Am I missing something? Sorry if I’m being dense.
Thurrot fails to even consider the possibility that the reason why the Apple store he went to may not have gotten many iPod minis is because maybe that store does much lower volume in sales than other stores
Actually, judging by the guys desperate psychotic ramblings I’d say that the claimed response of the Apple employee is probably about as bogus as his journalistic credibility. To expect anything resembling reality to come from this guy is like expecting that the world is going to end new-years eve and that you and you’re mates are going to be rescued by a UFO commanded by hot alien sex-godesses with tongues that…
oops, sorry, got carried away there
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Macdailynews, you are boring. You are baited every time this dope says something negative about Apple. Do you think doing this each time he makes a peep is going to make a difference? Spend your time elsewhere.
James: re: vacuum cleaner tee. It’s sold by MDN to help pay for web hosting costs. Third ad from the top on the right of all pages.
http://www.cafeshops.com/macdailynews.3251125