Digital Trends

Apple iPod Mini 4GB July 26th, 2004 | by Larry Chen

iPod mini, iPod 40GB, and Sony Ericsson T616

There aren't a lot of buttons or switches on the iPod mini. Below the bright display is an innovative new scroll control with four push buttons embedded inside. Unlike the third generation iPods, the iPod mini's Click Wheel can not only be used to scroll through the menus with great accuracy, but it also doubles as the “menu”, “rewind”, “forward”, and “play/pause” buttons when you press down on the four sides of the wheel. It looks just like any standard iPod wheel with some simple labels, yet it performs the most complicated function of helping you browse through hundreds of songs with ease. We found the new Click Wheel on the iPod mini to be easier to use than the Touch Wheel with 4 separate buttons on third generation iPods. The display is smaller than those on 3G iPods, but it has a better contrast ratio and is sharper. The backlight lights up the display evenly and is about twice as bright as those on 3G iPods.

On top of the mini is the hold switch, used to prevent accidental triggering of the other controls, and the headphone jack that is compatible with the iPod wire control. On the bottom is the dock port compatible with other iPod Dock port products. Unfortunately, Dock stations designed for third generation iPods have a different shape and do not perfectly fit the iPod mini. Nonetheless, if you have one of those, you can still use it.

The iPod mini plays both MP3 and AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) format audio files. Developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony, and Nokia, the AAC audio format features a better compression rate than MP3 and is used for songs downloaded from Apple's iTunes Music Store, which currently holds 70% of the legal music download market share. The audio chip inside iPod mini also originally supported the WMA format developed by Microsoft but WMA support is disabled in the firmware. The sound quality of the iPod mini is as good as that of other iPods, which is among the best in all digital audio players. The included white ear buds produce above average sound quality, but they do not feel very comfortable if left in the ear for too long. When connected to a stereo system or better earphones, the iPod lives up to its full potential, producing rich, high quality sound.