Digital Home Thoughts: Mossberg Loves the Mini - No Surprise There...

"Compared with the Mini, all three of these players offer 25% more storage capacity -- five gigabytes vs. four gigabytes, or about 1,200 songs at standard recording quality, vs. the 1,000 Apple claims for the Mini. Each player also claims to have a longer battery life than the Mini, which runs up to only eight hours -- the Rio Carbon boasts up to 20 hours. And, unlike the iPod, all work with the numerous online music stores that sell songs in Microsoft's copy-protected file format (none work with the songs Apple sells online). But these companies all have offered supposed iPod killers in the past with similar advantages, only to see them fail to achieve big sales. Especially in the Mini category, where simplicity and fashion seem paramount, the question we posed was: Are the new challengers as simple to use and as stylish as the Mini?"

Mossberg is a one-track guy: he loves his Treo, he loves his Mac, he loves his iPod. What do they have in common? They're not made by Microsoft nor do they use Microsoft file formats. There are no surprises in this review: because he loves the user interface (scroll wheel) on the iPod, and because it's patented and no other company can ever duplicate it, nothing will ever beat the iPod in Walt's eyes. Why does he even bother writing these "reviews"? I'm also dumbfounded that he was unable to get most of the non-iPod devices to work with the Windows PCs. How hard can it possibly be?