Apple iPod mini (6GB; second generation)

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The iPod mini was the iconic player that defined the micro drive portable audio market and, with its stellar success, subsequently spawned a host of competing devices with the tagline iPod mini killer somewhere in their marketing prospectus. Will the second coming of the mini be as good as the first and, more importantly, beat off other players that have been playing catch-up? Lets find out.

Editors' note:

As the second generation of the iPod mini is pretty much a faithful rendition of the original barring some featured updates, we will be mainly highlighting the differences. For a review of the first iPod mini, read here.

What's New With Design?
Like the iPod mini we had previously reviewed, we received yet another pink unit from Apple. The difference this time was that the new edition of the mini came in a perkier shade and this is reflected on all four colors of the new iPod (silver, blue, green and pink) with the previous gold being dropped from the color lineup.

	Just the four of us... left

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Besides cosmetic updates like the highlighted color-matching playback icons on the Click Wheel, the mini retains much of the original aesthetics such as the anodized aluminum wraparound casing.

What's New In Features?
With the rise of capacities in micro drive players, it is inevitable the iPod mini will get its own upgrade. At 6GB, it now shares the micro drive storage throne with the newly overhauled Zen Micro.

Other improvements include multiple on-the-go playlists which was previously available through only firmware upgrades, though Apple has still made no provisions for users to rename the new playlist from the player itself; you will need iTunes to fulfill that function.

Although there is a significant price drop, with the 6GB and 4GB versions retailing at S$438 (US$311.17) and S$348 (US$247.23), respectively (the original mini cost S$458 (US$325.38) when it was first released), closer inspection reveals that the power adapter (S$54) and a FireWire cable (S$34.32 (US$24.38)) have been omitted from the packaged accessories list, though the earphones, belt-clip and USB cable are still intact. However, even after doing our sums, the price of a second-generation 4GB iPod mini is still cheaper than the opening price of the first mini.

We feel the omission of the adapter is going to be a turn-off for most users as it is a basic accessory for many of the mini's competitors. Trickle charging via a USB port does not strike us as a particularly speedy option as compared with direct charging through an adapter.

What's New In Performance?
One of the most glaring weaknesses in the iPod mini has been its lackluster battery life with the battery rating in our first review of the mini reaching 9 hours and 6 minutes. With the refreshed iPod, playback managed to top an astonishing (for an iPod) 24 hours and 47 minutes, more than twice our previous rating and almost 7 hours more than Apple's own claim.

Via USB 2.0, the iPod mini clocked in 8MB per second in large file transfers while our assortment of music files were downloaded from the computer at 6MB per second. When we tried the same assortment of files through iTunes, it zipped through at an even faster clip of 6.85MB per second.

Sonic performance on the mini proved just as good as is the previous incarnation, with the same stellar trebles and mids that had wooed us. Bass, on the other hand was adequate for most purposes.