[sno1man]

All is not well in ipod mini land for me. This will probably start a blizzard of see i told you so responses but here goes....

I have been jogging with my mini since I bought it. It was the main reason I did and was meant to replace a Rio which while it worked fine got annoying to have load every other day.

Anyway no problems for the first week. Thursday it skipped a couple of times just for the briefest of moments on an hour long jog.

It did the same thing on Friday on a thirty minute run.

Saturday it skipped and then reset itself. It was able to continue playing after I started it again.

Today about 20 minutes in to the run, first an ear splitting burst of static and then the unit locked up with the blinking diagnostic icon. Nothing could be done to unfreeze it including resetting it.

So now it's back to Apple for repair. According to them that will take about a week.

So my question is this. It seems to me that the hard drive died from running with it. I never have taken my regular ipod with me running but now I am suspicious of hard drive players for active use anyway. So am I being parnoid or is it back to the Rio for running?

 

[appar111]

This is one of the reasons I'm kind of leaning towards flash based players for active use. I've heard that the hard drive can get damaged quite badly if subjected to shock/vibrations while its reading information. I love the idea of the ipod and mini-ipod, and being able to have that many musical selections at my fingertips, but I'd rather take less songs and more durability for gym use or running/jogging. Depends on how long you'll be at the gym or running.

Which Rio do you have?

appar111

 

[TMC]

Personally I would never bring a hd-based player with me for running, which I think is just asking for trouble. I know some have had a unit that haven't broken even when going exercising with it, but generally hds just aren't made to be used in that manner on a regular basis.

 

[meistyle]

I have run hours and hours with iPods from all generations and have never ever had any problem at all. (also during hard running - not the slightest glitch)

That's all I can contribute to this thread. Of course it is an inherent property of HD-Players that they have moveable parts... So it's possible/likely that you were unlucky and got a bad model. It can happen to anyone. It's not fun but quite real unfortunately - let's hope they repair it right the first time for iPods really are a cool thing.

Must confess that I first considered a solid state player for the exact reason - but since everything works so well why bother.

 

[gratner]

I think it's common sense to use a flash based player for running.... hard drives are just too delicate to withstand the constant pounding of running.

You may get away with it for a while, but eventually that constant wear and tear is going to catch up with you.

Besides that a flash player is really sufficient for the limited amount of music necessary during a workout...

I bought my wife a Rio Cali for use in the gym.

 

[gratner]

I think it's common sense to use a flash based player for running.... they're just too delicate to withstand the constant pounding of running.

A flash player is really sufficient for the limited amount of music necessary during a workout...

I bought my wife a Rio Cali for use in the gym.

 

[Jeffreybar]

I agree...it seems like a bit of a dangerous idea to run with a platter spinning around at 4200rpm and a r/w head positioned a fraction of a milimeter over it. But wasn't Steve Jobs pushing the mini as a jogging-friendly device?

 

[sno1man]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeffreybar I agree...it seems like a bit of a dangerous idea to run with a platter spinning around at 4200rpm and a r/w head positioned a fraction of a milimeter over it. But wasn't Steve Jobs pushing the mini as a jogging-friendly device?

yes he was and since they even make an armband for it I thought that maybe this one was solid enough for this. I agree too that in general HD based DAPs MAY not be a good choice. That's why I never took my Karma or regular ipod with me. But I am hoping this one is different and it was the main reason for buying one.

I found out from Apple that they are just going to send me another one. I guess i will find out. If they aren't strong enough for this, at the rate I'm going Apple may replace a bunch of minis for me during the next year while it's under warranty.

Oh well I guess for now, back to the Rio Cali. It's fine for short runs but at 192 kb encoding rate it does not last the whole length of my weekend jogs or even less so on my three hour plus bike rides

 

[Gojira]

meistyle, did you run with your iPod in your hand or attached to your belt?

 

[Sczervok]

Well... in a regular computer HD, if you open up the case, the moment dust gets on it, you've jeopardized the entire system. A human hair will tear that baby up, even a fingerprint will send the head veering off into some random direction (as well as cover the poor thing with the mess on your finger). It's metal, but it still has the ability to bend. And with that little clearance, I'm pretty sure with excessive force, the metal doesn't have to go that far to crash the head into the disk.

General rule of thumb... never run with harddrive players.
That's what your flash player your older sibling gave to you 4 years ago is for.

 

[callanish]

I look forward to a time when we'll have players that can detach the harddrive, yet have say a gig on a memory card that becomes switchable for playing while jogging. Best of both worlds or is that too George Jetson and not plausable?

 

[Sczervok]

You can do that with the MuVo 2 with some tinkering (or so I've heard)

People on eBay buying MuVo2, taking drive out, and replacing with flash memory to rip off those who don't read fine print.

 

[cmascatello]

I run with my mini in the armband and have not had any issues. BUT, as a computer guy, I do feel like I am tempting fate each time I go out with it in this manner. I guess I like to live dangerously

 

[meistyle]

to Gojira:

very valid question - means you've been there before?!
Everytime but once I ran with the iPod in my hands - found it a bit inconvenient but could get along with it. This of course also smoothens the impact on the device to some extent. I did it so because when clipped to the waistband the iPod would just bump around too much. This bothered me because it was disturbing not because I worried about the player.

Last time I found out that it works well if I attach the iPod to at the lower back with the iPod being pressed firmly towards the back by the elastic waistband and the clip facing the world - won't works with every pant, though...

as for the sensibility of HDs - they are designed to withstand a couple thousand gs of acceleration - but only for milliseconds at a time. Meaning that the occasional bump is not as risky as some pointed out.

 

[wahoox2]

The microdrives in the mini and the muvo2 are extremely durable. Ive seen some pretty clumsy accidents with them while being used with a digcam, and they just keep on going; however, like others have said, it really still is a small hard drive, and the constant vibration from running can definitely cause problems. But since apple has such a great warranty on the mini, I would probably run with it. After a year, something new will be out to get. In fact, I have been debating canceling my Muvo2 order for the warranty reason alone. I'm not much for 3rd party extended warranties, and I don't have a Best Buy anywhere near me, so I'll be stuck with whatever warranty comes from the maufacturer.

It really wont be that much longer till we see an actual flash-memory based mps with 4+ GB capacity. Heck, stop and think about what was the biggest you could get just a couple of years ago.