PINK & SEXY (Apple iPod mini 4 GB)

Member Name: Purdypops

Product:	Apple iPod mini 4 GB
Date:	05/03/05 (1699 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for travelling, Great sound quality, Lots of little extras

Disadvantages: NA, NA, NA

I got a mini ipod - l got it at a bargain price - £102 (plus tax) when we were recently in Toronto. Now in the UK you can expect to pay anything from around £160 plus. Now l had not really considered buying one - but for travelling they are fab - saves carrying around your cds and when l saw the bargain price l was getting it for how could l refuse! Now l simple import all my music onto the PC and transfer over onto the ipod.

So what is a mini ipod - well made by apple and is a baby version of the ipod. The mini holds either 4GB, which is the model l, bought or you can buy a 6 GB model. The difference being the amount of songs you can download onto it. With the mini l have you can hold 1000 songs - which at an approximation of 10 songs per album that would be 100 albums! Now with the larger versions these can double, and triple or even quadruple!

The mini comes in 4 colours - pink/purple; green; blue or gold. I had no choice there was only the pink left (l actually wanted green but there were none in stock and at the bargain price l paid l could not complain!). With it there is a battery life of around 8 hours - but this is rechargeable. You can have the battery charged to around 80% of its life within an hour but it will take 4 hours to fully charge.

So what do you get? Well, in the box which in itself is quite dinky when you open up there is you ipod obviously, also a belt clip, the software for installing the required I-tunes, a battery charger; a USB 2.0 cable; a fire wire cable; earphones and the required instructions.

Now to use the ipod you must have a PC, which has:

· 500 MHz or higher processor speed
· Windows 2000 - service pack 4 or above OR Windows XP (Home or Professional)
· ITunes 4.6 - you will get this with your ipod
· A built in fire wire or fire wire card installed or a built in high power USB 2.0 or card installed

For a MAC you require:

· Built in fire wire or built in high power USB 2.0
· Mac OX X V101.1.5 or later
· ITunes 4.6 or later - again this will be provided


Its very easy to install the software - simply pop the ipod mini cd into your computer and the installation process will begin. A wizard takes you through the process and will recommend choices to make. It will register you to the apple site - asking for your product serial number (found on the back of the ipod), and personal details. It will also format your ipod for you too so it is ready to accept the tunes!

Now if you dont already have your cds or music onto your pc you can do this now through the itunes programme. Just slot cd into the reader on your computer and it will transfer over with in minutes - and as long as you are online it will read the cd and even ensure the album name, artist and song name are imported too! If not you have to begin the tedious task of manually typing in each detail yourself.

To simply transfer the music over you plug in your mini ipod and it automatically updates. The ipod will update automatically update each time you plug in - so if you add new tunes, or delete old albums this will do this each time you update. You can also pick and choose songs out of your music library - so if there perhaps a few songs on an album which your not so keen on - simply choose not to transfer them over!

Now you have your music transferred onto your dinky new toy you can play! Another cool feature is that you can also charge the mini through the pc!

The ipod mini is lightweight - not as sturdy in your hand as the actual ipod yet it is not delicate! Small but perfectly formed!


So what controls are we dealing with?

Hold Switch - to ensure if youre at the gym or on the move you dont hit controls by mistake - it locks the keypad

Ipod remote port - to use toys like the griffin I-trip - which enables you to play your ipod through a stereo fm frequency - please note this is not exactly legal in the UK!

The main LCD screen, which will light to a bluish hue when the backlight is on

The donut control panel - this is very sensitive but the most important control switch.
It is touch control - a feather light touch will select your choice from the menu. You can access the main menu, choose the next song/fast forward, choose a previous track or rewind, play or pause and in the middle the select push button.

At the very bottom of the ipod you will find the dock connector port - essential for charging or attaching to the docking station should you have one.

On top of playing music there are extras - clock, date, notepad, contacts, games, calander. These need to be uploaded to the ipod from your pc/Mac again - but again excellent features - that of the contacts for example- store names, addresses, phone numbers etc great for travelling!

Right now l am listening to Joss Stone - Mind, Body and Soul - and the sound is excellent - the levels are great not deafening like some with CD walkmans - you can hear other people speaking to you. Yet the clarity is pure and precise.

I love the fact you can simply glance at the LCD screen and straight away see which artist and song your listening - how long the song lasts and how long it has got to play.

The music is sorted when you load it onto your pc in genres and you can shuffle the music depending on the type of music you fancy listening too -so if one day your in the mood for some R&B simply choose the genre and the ipod will shuffle that style from the artists you have on the mini. Great for the gym - some uplifting pop to keep you on that treadmill!

Unlike its big brother you get a belt clip with the mini - a great added extra for clipping it on to you before you head off. Although you can buy protection skins at an extra cost also.

So, from a total ipod virgin, today l saw the light! I like my music though not enough l think to justify buying the full-blown 20BG (which holds 5000 songs) version. The ipod mini is sexy, and perfectly formed. Its great for loosing the bulk of cds and clips neatly onto your clothing. I just cant wait for my next long haul trip away to try it out on the aeroplane!

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