“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.