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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Friday, October 29, 2004

Three Challengers Take on the Mini

Mossberg:

The $249 [iPod] Mini holds just 1,000 songs, versus up to 10,000 for the regular iPod, and is relatively pricey -- just $50 less than a larger iPod that holds five times as much. But it has proved so popular, especially with women and teenagers, that Apple has had trouble keeping it on store shelves.

Actually, the reason it hasn't been on store shelves is that Apple's suppliers couldn't make the hard drives. Now that they can, the iPod Mini, like the iPod, is sitting on plenty of store shelves.

My assistant and I have been testing three of the challengers: Dell's $199 Pocket DJ and the Rio Carbon and Creative Zen Micro, which are both $249. The Rio Carbon hit shelves about a month ago, and the Dell and Creative players will be available in November.

Compared with the Mini, all three of these players offer 25% more storage capacity -- five gigabytes vs. four gigabytes, or about 1,200 songs at standard recording quality, vs. the 1,000 Apple claims for the Mini. Each player also claims to have a longer battery life than the Mini, which runs up to only eight hours -- the Rio Carbon boasts up to 20 hours. And, unlike the iPod, all work with the numerous online music stores that sell songs in Microsoft's ... file format.

In our judgment, the three players are closer in style to competing with Apple's Mini than competitors have been in the past. But all three still lag behind badly in simplicity and ease of use -- so badly, in fact, that we can't recommend them over the Apple.

Of course. Curiously, that hasn't been my experience at all (though to be fair, I haven't tested the Creative Zen Micro yet).

The contenders have mimicked aspects of the iPod's user interface -- music is organized in clear lists that can be displayed according to various categories, and the "Now playing" screens even show which album a song comes from, something the Apple Mini doesn't show.

Walta, Walta, Walta. The iPod actually mimicks the interface Creative invented, though they certainly made simplification improvements.

What I find most alarming here--this is Mossberg, after all, so you have to temper your expectations--is that he actually complains about the look and style of the Rio Carbon, which is simply the most gorgeous Mini player you can buy today. And some of his other comments are stupifying.

The play/pause button below the Pocket DJ's dial took more effort than the iPod wheel, which has buttons right on it.

That's by design, Walt, because the buttons on an iPod are too easy to press by mistake.

And so on. Whatever.

Walta, like a lot of people, confuses style with substance. In my mind, people are better served by the choice you get by picking any WMA-based player than they are being locked into Apple's one-way-street strategy. The iPods are elegant devices, but they're not the best players. All of the competition offer the choice of a wide range of online stores, subscription services, and software interfaces. All offer more storage and lower prices. Most of the competition offers dramatically better battery life. Most offer more amenities (cases and so on) with the players than does Apple. Most offer comparable, or superior, UIs when compared with the iPods. And on and on and on. But then again, I guess most of those companies aren't as tight with Walta as is Apple. And that, really, is how is opinion is formed.

[ Posted at 10:54 AM | Permalink ]