[austonia]

I like the Rio Nitrus, for the most part. I like its size, shape, screen, dual controls, strong output, transfer interface (USB2), and the cheap price. However, I have many complaints as well, that make it hard to keep considering Apple's new iPod Mini, which offers a lot of new features in the mini-DAP segment. I have the luxury of not considering price in this choice.

The Nitrus has relatively cheap build quality - it has noticeable body flex and slight misalignments at the joinings. The sound quality is definately sub-par. Like its brother the Karma, it has a dark presentation that needs the EQ to make it sound right. The noise floor is poor, I can hear low-end hiss during quieter parts of a track. It also has very audible pops and clicks between tracks. The volume control buttons are very badly designed, so much so, that I can't understand how they made past R&D. They are tiny, and then stuck together, and on the wrong side of the player for one-handed operation by right-handers. all the other controls can be operated with one hand. the scroll-wheel would have been a much better volume controller. The Nitrus does not offer any on-the-fly playlisting. The Nitrus does not allow you to drill down from Artist to Album to Tracks, instead, after you select an Artist, it just starts playing all the tracks by that artist. a final sore point is the required software (RMM), which I do not particularly like. You must use RMM for loading music. It's not that bad, except that, on loading it must auto-scan your media library which is totally unncessary and slow. I have over 200gb of mp3 over mutiple drives and directories and I don't need it to re-scan unless I change something. Unlike iTunes, you cannot simply drag and drop to the player from Explorer to RMM. One other thing, for USB2, these are slow transfers, taking 3-5 seconds per song vs. 1 second per song on my iPod. The Cornice hard drive itself is not the bottleneck, since I've also used a Nomad2 1.5gb with the same drive - and it was several times faster during transfers.

The Mini, while costing nearly twice what I paid for the Nitrus, offers a lot more. A 4gb drive, a larger screen, full iPod GUI and OS (including on-the-fly playlists, contacts, calander, games, etc), iTunes interface (drag and drop from Explorer), and the famous optical scroll wheel. It should also show up as a generic drive under windows without needing drivers, but of course software is still required for adding music to the player's library. There are drawbacks, mostly the price ($250), and the still-sucky 8 hour battery life. But I generally need a mini-player for more active use (gym, mountain biking), and 8 hours is much longer than my endurance. I don't care about the colors. Silver will work.

The regular iPod (2nd gen) will remain my primary grab-n-go player. I prefer it's sound quality (top-of-class) and portability for most situations. And even though it's beat to hell (dented, scuffed, scratched)... it works flawlessly. I get about 9 hours playtime including a lot of time messing around, looking for the next track. iTunes has proven to be the easiest software interface since I can drag and drop from windows explorer. Fast too, the fastest transfers I've recorded from any player. I do miss the extensive on-the-fly playlisting features that my NJB3 offers.

I did not like the v.3 iPods due to the touchy new controls, but the new Mini seems to strike a nice balance between mechanical and optical, blending the two.

(FYI, I'm no Apple zealot - no other apple products in this house. Products are judged on thier own merits)

 

[gratner]

Personally, I think the mini-iPod is a rip-off... why go for 4gb for $250 when you can get 15gb for $300? It just makes no sense.

For the gym I think you're asking for trouble with a hard drive based player. Although people do use hard drive based portables in the gym, I think a flash based solid state player is a much better choice. 256mb players can hold approx 40 tracks of 192kb MP3s... plenty of music in a gym environment unless you plan on working out for 5 hours or more at a time.

Lastly, the iPod is hardly the best sounding portable player... the RIO Karma blows it away in the sound department. I listened to both and made my choice accordingly.

That is not to say the iPod doesn't have it's advantages, it does... the interface, build and third party add-on options are unbeatable. It's just that sound quality is THE most important factor for me and the iPod falls a little short in that category on several fronts.

 

[blessingx]

Understandable, but it's too bad positive remarks for an Apple product around these parts requires a "no Apple zealot" clarification.

Gratner, can't the Nitrus be called a "rip-off" also with the Karma so close in price? Same with the new MuVos with the Zen nearby? Is it just that the iPods share the same name? In all those cases you're paying more per MB for decreased size. And for anyone who's held the iPod mini, the size difference to the regular iPod is greater than it seems in photos.

Austonia, is the MuVo 4 GB in the running also?

 

[gratner]

This wasn't a critique of Apple solely in that regard...but just a comment because he was talking about the mini-iPod particularly.

I was simply saying it makes no sense to buy a 4gb Ipod when a 15gb iPod is only $50 more. The same would apply to the Nitrus/Karma comparison.

I think the mini-iPod makes sense at say $150... $200 tops. I think it's pretty much a consensus that the mini-iPod pricing is out of whack. I remember reading a review about when Jobs premiered it there was excitement in the room and then when he announced the price there was hushed silence.

 

[blessingx]

Cool. I agree with you about the pricing... but thought the same thing with the original iPod when estimates put its price $100 less if it used a standard 2.5" laptop drive instead of the then new Toshiba 1.8 inchers. At the time the drives retail was the same as the iPod BTW. Remember this was before the Zen, etc., when the only real marketplace competition was the much larger original NJB. Anything smaller would have been a big deal. Same pricing structure comparisons are going on now with largish microdrives, with people contemplating buying the new MuVos and extracting the drives. I would have rather the iPod mini been 2 GB and a lower price, but again I may have been wrong about the above with the iPods success.

Anyway ArsTechnica had some thoughts on the subject. Favorite line- "Is the iPod Mini cool? As a married, Caucasian male in his mid-30s who thinks he looks good with a shaved head, I feel somewhat ill-qualified to judge what is and is not hip."

 

[lindrone]

Quote:

Originally posted by blessingx Is the iPod Mini cool? As a married, Caucasian male in his mid-30s who thinks he looks good with a shaved head, I feel somewhat ill-qualified to judge what is and is not hip."

LMAO!!!!!!!

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally posted by austonia The Nitrus does not allow you to drill down from Artist to Album to Tracks, instead, after you select an Artist, it just starts playing all the tracks by that artist.

This is the only thing I don't like about my Nitrus. It stops me from putting a lot of various music on there I'm not aware of.

I can deal with the sound quality, build quality, strange volume control, slower transfer rates

I drag and drop with the Windows plugin thinga-a-ma-jiggie.

I guess I'm not really picky.

 

[bangraman]

Have you seen the Mini iPod? There is EVERY reason to consider it over the 15Gb iPod. I've heard the "only $50 more" arguments but if you are making this argument, I am afraid you are a true geek, sandals and all. Size/style/"feeling in use" counts in items like this where you are partically paying for the styling/desirability aspects of the product and the capacity is not debilitating. It's enough for you to throw on generally what you feel like listening to for the day.


While I am hardly a style icon, I do have to have an awareness of it for professional reasons. And nothing touches the Mini iPod.

 

[lindrone]

Quote:

Originally posted by bangraman While I am hardly a style icon, I do have to have an awareness of it for professional reasons. And nothing touches the Mini iPod.

That's two things we agreed on today... has hell frozen over?

J/K...

If I had some extra cash lying around, I would no doubt be throwing it at the iPod Mini.. just for that reason.

 

[konstantinos]

Quote:

Originally posted by austonia The volume control buttons are very badly designed, so much so, that I can't understand how they made past R&D. They are tiny, and then stuck together, and on the wrong side of the player for one-handed operation by right-handers. all the other controls can be operated with one hand. the scroll-wheel would have been a much better volume controller.

Maybe the scroll-wheel-as-volume-controller feature will be added in the next firmware revision, which, as I've read in one of your posts, is major and coming soon.

Quote:

Originally posted by austonia A final sore point is the required software (RMM), which I do not particularly like. You must use RMM for loading music. It's not that bad, except that, on loading it must auto-scan your media library which is totally unncessary and slow. I have over 200gb of mp3 over mutiple drives and directories and I don't need it to re-scan unless I change something. Unlike iTunes, you cannot simply drag and drop to the player from Explorer to RMM.

As lan already said, there's a Powertoy for Windows XP that allows you to drag & drop files in your Nitrus from Explorer.

 

[chicubs]

Are you still considering the 4gb Rio Nitrus? I really dont like the mini ipod, which I think you know mainly cause its very ugly and its feature set really isnt very impressive. Games and a calendar mean a lot to you?..but itd be a good purchase to. I wish I had your luxary of price, though.

 

[gratner]

Quote:

Originally posted by bangraman I've heard the "only $50 more" arguments but if you are making this argument, I am afraid you are a true geek, sandals and all. Size/style/"feeling in use" counts in items like this where you are partically paying for the styling/desirability aspects of the product and the capacity is not debilitating.

Sorry, but I think Apple blundered on this one. It's not price competitive for what it offers. Sorry.

I'll take substance over style any day. This ain't a beauty contest.

And I don't get the "geek" comment but it takes one to know one.

It's funny how touchy the Apple people are... it's like a friggen cult.

 

[Skeeve]

Quote:

Originally posted by gratner This wasn't a critique of Apple solely in that regard...but just a comment because he was talking about the mini-iPod particularly. I was simply saying it makes no sense to buy a 4gb Ipod when a 15gb iPod is only $50 more. The same would apply to the Nitrus/Karma comparison. I think the mini-iPod makes sense at say $150... $200 tops. I think it's pretty much a consensus that the mini-iPod pricing is out of whack. I remember reading a review about when Jobs premiered it there was excitement in the room and then when he announced the price there was hushed silence.

I think most people who are complaining about the price are looking at these latest players from a slightly wrong perspective, they are purely comparing them with larger players and ignoring how they compare to flash-based players.

Their pricing puts them at a similar price to the upper end for flash players and are closer in size and weight to them, you lose the benefits of solidstate for a good increase in capacity without the increase in size of moving up to 20+gb hd players.

Ignoring cdbased players you now have a full range going from flash players to mini hd players and then fullsize hd players, you tradeoff increased size and weight for capacity until you reach the optimal size for you or end up with one (or more) of each.

 

[Skeeve]

Quote:

Originally posted by bangraman While I am hardly a style icon, I do have to have an awareness of it for professional reasons. And nothing touches the Mini iPod.

So when did the ipod become ugly then?

 

[sno1man]

and there seem to be as many people who absolutely hate Apple and take every opportunity to bash them.

But anyway.......

I have been debating buying a Mini. I did get a chance to use one overnight at MacWorld including going jogging with it. As many have said but some refuse to beleive, it is really a lot smaller when you hold it in your hand. The specs and pictures dont do it justice. The same thing applies when you compare the ipod and the Zen. On paper the difference looks small but actually holding the two in your hands you feel the difference.

Apple seems to be marketing the mini more like a high end flash player and in that context it looks like a bargain. But and this is a big but, that to me would imply the ruggedness and never skip of a flash player. It' didn't skip when I jogged with it but that was one day for thirty minutes. But time will tell.

I received the original ipod 5gb as a gift and had a nomad 6gb at the time. I almost immediately stopped using the nomad because the overall design was so much closer to what I wanted (note I did not say better)and gladly bought the 10gb when it came out. (gave the 5gb to the GF)

I have a Rio Cali that I jog and bike with but when I go on long rides the capacity is not enough. The mini would be worth the price if it can truly hold up to athletic use. I guess time will tell.

If I do buy one it will definitely be with a service plan

It just amazes me that people can so confidently judge what they have not yet seen