A gold brick that's worth its weight

I recently fell in love with the Ipod Minis and after a bit of research and some price scouting at eBay, I ended up getting myself a gold version of the mini from www.zzsounds.com. ($249 retail, no sales tax unless in NJ.) Although traditionally I have not been a fan of Apple products, I must say opening this item was a treat!

The mini comes in a very cool package and the box has all the basic necessities that one would need with an mp3 player. (The basic package comes with the mini, a CD to setup iTunes, a recharger, headphones, USB 2 cord, firewire and a belt clip.) Downloading songs using iTunes was a cinch and I was able to enjoy my music on the go within minutes of opening the package.

When I first put the headphones on, I was amazed at the quality of sound coming from the little ear buds. Everything is amazingly clear with zero to little distortion even at extremely loud levels. One thing I love about the ipod head/earphones is that no matter how loud you crank the tunes, the sound does not escape from your ear so everyone around you knows what you're listening to. This does help keep your privacy when you're listening to the ipod on the metro or other public transportation.

I haven't owned a walkman, discman or portable radio in the last few years so I can't really compare the ipod to other products in the market. One thing I dislike about the ear buds was that they hurt my ears after a few hours of use. Granted, because I am not used to using head/ear phones, it may just be something I have to adjust to. Otherwise the ipod mini is great.

I haven't had any major cracking noises with the songs but my ipod mini did crash on the second day that I owned it. After fully charging the unit the first night, I was a bit disappointed when I couldn't turn the ipod on the second day. I thought I had done something wrong but it turned out that the ipod had crashed and all I had to do was reset it. I did a bit of research and resetting the mini is easy; All you have to do is toggle the lock key at the top of the mini and then hold down the wheel center and menu key for 10 seconds. This has only happened twice in the two months I've used the unit.

Overall I have been very happy with my mini and I take it with me almost everywhere I go. The ipod has helped me pass the time nicely both at work and during the commute to work. I even purchased the iTrip mini to go with the ipod for the road trips that I take. Let me just say, having this 'lil thing sure beats carrying around a case full of 30 CD's. It's super convenient!

The only thing I have a problem with so far is that the headphone wires now seem a bit dirty; (off white instead of white). Also, the paint for L(eft) and R(ight) on the headphones rubbed off within the first two weeks. Otherwise, the ipod mini is easy to take care of and it doesn't seem like it scratches easy, (not that I'm trying to scratch it).

I would recommend buying songs from www.allofmp3.com instead of iTunes though. You can get complete albums for 50 cents instead of $10 since you only pay 1 cent per meg download. You can import the mp3's into iTunes just as easy as importing any other mp3s you have prior to using iTunes.

They say you carry your whole collection with you on ipods but you carry the songs you love in your ipod mini and it's true. So far, 4 gigs has been more than plenty for my needs and I carry a good number of songs as well as audio books on my mini. If you're still shopping around, I would highly recommend getting one. It's cute and it rocks!