[riker1384]

How do they compare? I was thinking of trading in my Nano for a 6GB. I like the Mini form better.

 

[Canon]

I don't have any experience with the sound quality between the two so i'm not going to comment on that but think of the fact that you Nano is solid state... no moving pats....

Your about to buy a mini which contains a 6GB hard drives. Unfortunately hard dives WILL fail and almost definetely before the Flash craps out on your Nano. Also don't forget to consider that the used Mini has a much older (in reletive terms) battery than your Nano so your going to have to fork out more $ to get that replaced a few months to a year down the road.

I don't think it's a good trade for the extra 2GBs. I'd say if your looking for more space in the small form factor wait till the summer when the higher capacity Nanos come out. They will be have new 8GB and 10GB capacities according to this article.
http://www.t3.co.uk/news/247/enterta...no_gets_bigger

 

[Todd R]

The Nano sounds better, I just compared them a couple months ago.

 

[DRSpeed85]

It always felt that the Minis sounded horrible over the whole time period it was on production. Alot of my friends had them and I never liked them. I bought a nano for my sister last winter and it sounds pretty much like full sized ones. Pity the battery life sucks as usual from Apple.

 

[bangraman]

The Nano sounds better if you're using low-impedance phones (and unless you're a rabid head-fier I guess you wouldn't be using anything but low-impedance phones). Still has the 'old' iPod EQ though... distorts very noticeably in the bass if you kick in the bass boost. UI response is the same as 4G, so better than the 5G. Get it with the Invisibleshield, and don't use it until you have the IS on.

 

[DRSpeed85]

When I got my sister's nano I told to be near paranoid about scratching. Apparently, she kept the vinyl that comes on the ipod out of the box and that was pretty much her screen protector for 3 months!! I believe she is using Sennheiser MX500s on them and they sound really quite good.

I use "rock" on the eq. It somehow gives a little bit of clarity to the sound and there is a hump on the mids which I like actually. Bass boost is alright if u want only bass because it sacrifices everything else.

 

[bangraman]

The Invisibleshield is quite good. It gives you the confidence to throw around the iPod again. The added advantage is that it's just a bit sticky on smooth surfaces, so there's a resistance to unintentional headphone jerks on a desk for example.


I did have some problems putting it on though because I misaligned it. When I had to peel it off again and redo it, I was left with sort of 'stress marks' on the shield.

But when I'm actually using it I don't see the marks so to me it's no big deal. It might bother someone who cares about things looking perfect though. Just means you've got to be very careful when applying the skin.

(The image is just a joke along the lines of the Zen Vision 'firmware' which caused a frenzy among the gullible kiddies on DAPreview

)

 

[riker1384]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canon Also don't forget to consider that the used Mini has a much older (in reletive terms) battery than your Nano so your going to have to fork out more $ to get that replaced a few months to a year down the road. I don't think it's a good trade for the extra 2GBs. [/url]

I was going to buy a refurbished unit, not used, and in my case it's 4 extra gigs. The Mini just feels more solid and the screen is bigger. I like the metal case also.

 

[Uncle Erik]

If you poke around some other sites, you'll see that the Mini has not-so-great output circuitry and the bass is considerably weaker than other iPod models.

The flash-based iPods (Shuffle, Nano) are the best sounding of the lot. I have a Shuffle, and it is noticeably better than the 5G iPod. Too bad it only holds 1GB.

As for other factors, flash gives better battery life, is faster and will never crash.

You might want to hold off a couple months, though. Rumor is that Apple will roll out 8GB and 10GB Nano models pretty soon. If they stay at the same price point, they'll be a fantastic deal.

 

[Foshizzle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik As for other factors, flash gives better battery life, is faster and will never crash.

Well actually...the 2nd gen mini has a battery life of 18h compared to the nanos 14...

 

[MEIZU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Todd R The Nano sounds better, I just compared them a couple months ago.

I don't think the nano sounds better,
becouse mini is Dual core DAPs .
haha, I guess if they're going to get copyright lawsuits, they might as well get everybody involved....

altho with this player not incorporating a touch screen interface, or only having up to 4GB, I doubt that apple would be worried about this.

I'm starting to see more upcoming DAP's supporting Ogg....

 

[devwild]

I replaced my mini with a nano, and I feel the nano sounds better with the koss clip-ons. It also has a nicer screen, and is more comfortable in my pocket.

The downside of course is that the nano scratches easilly, whereas the mini was a tank compared to any other ipod released (even the shuffle, not that you care much about a shuffle getting scratched

).

 

[traut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Todd R The Nano sounds better, I just compared them a couple months ago.

Which Nano? How much GB, and flat display or the newer ones with a nonflat surface?

I've seen some test results (chip.de) with 0.51 % harmonic distortion for the 4GB model! The 1GB had 0.037% only.
others: iRiver H10 5GB: 0.058%; H10 6GB: 0.051%, U10: 0.082%, Creative Labs Zen Micro: 0.09%.

That's why I was surprised by the poor nano 4GB performance. But maybe this was a single, faulty device?

SNR-measurements for German devices (maybe with a crippled French headphone limitation) where an average value of around 88 db, while some where up to 93 dB (and Samsung YP-T8 Z: 96.5 dB, Sony at the low end with 75 dB).

 

[mjg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canon Unfortunately hard dives WILL fail and almost definetely before the Flash craps out on your Nano. Also don't forget to consider that the used Mini has a much older (in reletive terms) battery than your Nano so your going to have to fork out more $ to get that replaced a few months to a year down the road.

I highly doubt that. Hard drives can last up to 4-5 years... or arbitrarily long. Flash won't be replacing magnetic disks in computers for long term storage since it's only capable of so many writes. Chances are the flash drive would die b4 the harddisk imo (unless he's especially abusive to the hard disk physicallY), and given he won't probablly be using it for more then 2 years max until he gets tired of it, the argument is pretty moot. Also, battery life will be much better in the hard disk player.

Yet, I wouldn't get a mini, I would get a nano from the choice. I picked up a mini last week it's great. It's a good alternative to my 60 gig photo. The nano does sound a bit better then the photo, it also seems to have faster I/O in general.

 

[Canon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjg I highly doubt that. Hard drives can last up to 4-5 years... or arbitrarily long. Flash won't be replacing magnetic disks in computers for long term storage since it's only capable of so many writes. Chances are the flash drive would die b4 the harddisk imo (unless he's especially abusive to the hard disk physicallY), and given he won't probablly be using it for more then 2 years max until he gets tired of it, the argument is pretty moot. Also, battery life will be much better in the hard disk player. Yet, I wouldn't get a mini, I would get a nano from the choice. I picked up a mini last week it's great. It's a good alternative to my 60 gig photo. The nano does sound a bit better then the photo, it also seems to have faster I/O in general.

I won't dissagree with that statement. It's very true. My point of view on the matter is that an MP3 player is going through limited write cycles in comparison to a computer hard drive... So honestly the chance of mechanical failure is a lot greater than solid state failure in the application of a portable MP3 player since it is being moved around (I would assume at least).

I suppose that was a dumb statement since ALL ELECTRONICS WILL fail haha. I agree, most people will be bored of their dap after say 2 or 3 years anyhow so it's pobably neither here nor there.

I'd still say keep the Nano.