> That's pretty cool, didn't know those products existed. It's funny, I guess the
> stores around here don't carry those.
>
> > Now, if you want to talk about $200 ≤ x < $300, then there's lots of players
> > in the 20+ GB range, most of which are north of $250. True, they don't come in
> > five fruity colors and feature TEH APPAL on the back, and you'll have to suffer
> > with five to ten times the space of the iPod mini, but whattaya gonna do?
>
> The iPod itself isn't a great thing, supposedly the processor on it is too
> underpowered to support many audio formats anyway.

Shit, it's too underpowered to effect a song change in less than 2.0 seconds about a quarter of the time. Supposedly, the Minis and 4th gens have a more powerful processor, but I'm still a little skeptical.

> Might as well get something cheaper if you can, the iPod Mini especially doesn't
> have many features compared to the other products. I just didn't see anything
> else in any flyers like what you posted.

Well, Apple has like 90% or someshit of the MP3 player market tied up. That might have a little something to do with it ("It's not iPod ∴ it must suck").

> Still, with a hard disk player VS a flash player (though the Mini contains a
> Mini HD but I didn't think that would be so succeptible), and the fact that he
> wants to jog, wouldn't jogging + hard disk = bad sectors, with the hard disk
> read/write head constantly being jostled?

The drives they use are portable type drives, so they're designed for a more abusive environment, but yeah, they'll probably collect bad sectors over time if they're used in strenuous activity. Doesn't stop people from using them. I've seen several cases that feature armbands, which is probably a better place to put a HD player than on your hip (less jostling). Still, the flash players are better, like you said. An expandable one is even better, since I've noticed flash card prices dropping like a rock over the past few months.