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View Full Version : C|NET: "Hitachi to boost production of iPod disk drive"


Kent Pribbernow
05-17-2004, 01:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5213718.html?tag=nefd.top' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5213718.html?tag=nefd.top</a><br /><br /></div>"The six-week waiting list to get a popular iPod Mini digital music player from Apple Computer is likely to get shorter by the end of the year. Hitachi's hard disk drive unit said Sunday that it will spend about $200 million to double the disk drive output of its Thailand factory, including the 1-inch, 4GB disk drives that are found in the iPod Mini."<br /><br />Some good news if you're having trouble getting your hands on an iPod Mini. What I really wish for is Apple, or rather Hitachi, to bump up the storage capacity from 4GB to around 10GB. Then I can toss my current iPod on eBay and switch to a mini. :D<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/ipodmini.jpg" />

Mojo Jojo
05-17-2004, 01:31 PM
This is good news! While really good for Apple to get more product to market I am excited for other markets as well.

With up coming Multimedia handhelds that include video and PDAs that serve as multifunction devices, storage is in great demand but the prices are really too high. If Hitachi can bring out more drives and push the price point down I can see one of the last hurdles for mobile media falling to the way side and becoming a more mainstream product!

When people were buying mini iPods and Creatives product just to get a 4 gig drive for $200-$250 bucks it is hard not to see the writing on the wall.

chrisspera
05-18-2004, 07:57 PM
I think the Mini is a waste of time and money.

You can spend $250US on a 4GB mini or spend an extra $50 and get a 15GB iPOD. Hmmmm... Let me think about that one for a minute...

This is the no-brainer of the century. 11GB less space and the slightly smaller form factor are NOT worth $250 bucks. I just can't see spending that much for so little

I desparately want an iPOD; but have a problem with the proprietary song format. My entire digitial music library is in WMA format, and I really don't want to rerip everything... I did buy a 2GB Hitachi CF Type 2 Card for my 2215, but am quickly finding that it just isn't big enough... I've been thinking about a WMA player, but don't want to spend the $$ on one when I just bought the Type 2 card not 2 months ago; and I need to save the money for a hardware purchase for a pocketnow review...

Mojo Jojo
05-18-2004, 08:56 PM
(scratches head for a moment)

Okay... but really.... Hitachi is going to put out more 4 gigs drives. Honest. :)

I got some time so I will divert abit off topic and entertain the 4 gig versus the 15 gig iPod discussion as the thread seems to be stuck in neutral and I don't think many will mind.

Me and my wife own three iPods. The original from a couple years ago, a 15 gig, and a mini iPod. All going strong and in use (granted one is more a portable harddrive now but... thats another topic)

Now I am not going to tell you your opinion is wrong because you are the only one who can make that call. I can however tell you why I came to the decision I did and some misconceptions some people have that where changed after seeing a mini iPod.

My reasons for buying a mini iPod are these;

I don't have a large music collection so 4 gig is just fine.
If I had 15 gigs (or 20,30,40) what would I do with them? It would just be empty space I never use. Like carrying eight tires in a car. You use 4 and one as a spare in emergencies, the rest? Sure you can come up with a scenerio where 8 tires could be useful... but then again I can get hit by a bus and it doesn't matter.

Size matters
This is one of the biggest misconceptions. People see the ads and read the dimensions but somehow they only think it is 'slightly' smaller. This is not true. I can stick the third generation iPod in a jacket pocket, but shirt or pants pocket (that is corporate acceptable)? Nope. With the iPod mini I can with ease. So portable music is only portable if you can bring it with you. Best I can do with out pictures is to compare a real world object you may have hanging around.

Find a AA battery and lay it down on a desk. The width of the iPod laying down is just about the same as the longest length of the AA. The height from the desk up is shorter then the AA battery. (I'll just get pictures later tonight, it will be easier.)

So.... for me the iPod mini works.

Back to you... did you know that inside the mini iPod is a 4 gig drive that fits in a type two CF slot? That is where I was going. Some people are buying the mini iPod to rip it apart just for the drive!

Current Newegg prices for a 2 gig compact flash is $301.00. So buying the mini iPod not only gets you a player by twice the storage for less!

Please Note: Read about drivers etc before trying to preform this. It has been a great success in digital cameras but may have some difficulty in PDA type devices (but there has been some success as well)

I'll wrap this up with some numbers and a thought. As of February Apple took 100,000 PRE-ORDERS and has sold many more since then. So while the $250 might not be good for you, it appears that others think differently. As for not wanting a proprietary song format, but your songs are all in WMA... I'll pass on that one. :D

I would strongly recommned the 15 gig if that fits your needs. It is a great player. Good luck in what ever your choice is!

Phoenix
05-19-2004, 05:44 PM
I bought my girlfriend and I a couple of Ipod Mini's not that long ago. Of course, we're two of the many having to wait until June to receive it.

I never thought I'd buy a Mini, because of the value issue and so forth, but I changed my mind for a couple of reasons...

First, we both owned the 3G 15GB models, but I just recently sold both of them. They were great, but owning one was like parking a single car in a huge empty warehouse. We don't need a warehouse, we just need a garage. We don't own enough music to fill up 15GB, so all that extra room was just wasted space. I found it amusing to think of how many people went out and bought the 40GB models only for music and just to be able to brag, while knowing that 99% of those people would never have the money to buy enough music to fill up even half of it.

Secondly, after actually holding a Mini and seeing how nice looking they are in person, it just sold both of us on the idea of owning one. They're so small, offer great color, won't scratch up like the chrome-backed Ipods, and we both like the dial/click wheel better.

You definitely don't get the value for your buck with the Minis that you do with the 3G's if you're just looking at mere hard drive space. But value becomes a bit more relative with other considerations in mind.

Do I think that the Minis are worth $250 overall? Not quite, initially speaking. But again, this changes some in light of other considerations. And besides, we both wanted one, and $250 is what you have to pay if you want one - that's just all there is to it. Besides, what we sold the other Ipods for paid for the Minis.

All we care about in terms of how much music we can take with us at any given moment, is that we can carry enough of it to last several weeks at a time. 4GB will let us do just that. It'll let us tote around our favorite songs from about 200 albums, give or take a few (considering that we don't like all ten songs from every album but more like between four to six songs from each album on the average). But regardless of how you calculate it, if you listened to ten new songs a day, everyday, it would take close to 3-1/2 months to listen to them all, and realistically, much longer than that. That's a hundred songs from ten different genres, for example. I'd say that's enough variety at any given moment.

And hey, let's not forget something that's obvious: the Minis look fantastic.

The bottom line is that we'll have great looking digital players that we really love to look at and operate, that will carry more than enough music around with us based on our desires, and that will be tremendously compact and easy to carry.

Maybe that is worth $250. I mean, although like anyone else I'd like to see a lower price, but keeping in mind the things I mentioned above, perhaps the Minis aren't overpriced afterall. Perhaps the 15GB Ipods are underpriced.

Just another perspective.