Jul 08
iPod Mini in Europe (Belgium)
2004 at 05.11 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Everyday several Belgian people come from Google because they are searching for a release date for the iPod Mini in Belgium. Giving the amount of interest it’s safe to say that it will be a success. Now I can help those people by telling them that the release date for Europe, so Belgium also is July 24th.
If you want one fast you should pre-order it now because stock will be limited. Even in the US there’s still a 4 weeks gap between ordering and delivery.
Now the interesting part, price will be around 280 Euro VAT included. As you know iPod mini comes in a choice of a silver, gold, pink, blue or green 4GB model and includes a belt clip. All iPod minis include earbud headphones, an Apple iPod mini power adapter, a 1.2m 30-pin to FireWire cable, a 1.2m 30-pin to USB 2.0 cable and a CD with iTunes 4.6 for Mac and Windows computers. I’m seriously considering buying one. I’m doubting between the Pink, I’m girl after all :-) and the green and silver one.
14served
1
I have the big-bubba iPod (40 gb white), and I can say without any hesitation that it has changed my intrest in music 100%. Between the iTunes and my iPod I listen to music all the time now.
I have all my French lessons downloaded to my iPod so I listen to those in the morning on the way to work, then at work I listen to iTunes all day and on the way home I alternate between music and more French.
I can also tell that as soon as Apple gets on the ball regarding their music store I will buy lots of music there.
Right now I am an avid music pirate. Aarrg! Although I buy more music than I used to (since getting my iPod) I still download a huge amount of music.
The iPod is just nice, easy to use, small and sexy, sounds good, and iTunes is smashingly fantastic. I bought mine back in November and all I can say is order early.
2
I think the iPod mini is really too expensive compared to a normal iPod.
For example: for a normal 40GB iPod, you pay around 14 euro per GB.
For the new iPod mini you would have to pay 70 euro per GB!
It’s a bit less expensive in the US though, where it’s sold for 249 $ (between 200 and 220 euro)
But still…
3
Last time I checked, the guy at my local Apple store (Ghent) told me that the mini won’t be available in Belgium until early september! He also told me that Belgium will probably be one of the last European countries where Apple will release the mini :( He sounded not too optimistic about it and I gues he’s longing as much as I do to get his hands on that shiny gadget :)
My ‘old’ 10GB iPod is already sold, but my buyer and I agreed that I could use it until the new IPod mini finally arrives.. luckily!
I’m not sure yet about the color. I think I’ll go for the blue or the gray one… maybe pink, but that’s probably too ‘gay’. Don’t like the gold one!
4
Got mine a couple of weeks ago (ebay, cause I live in Belgium) and I’m really happy about it.
I don’t need a 20-40gb G3 because my music almost changes daily (or at least weekly).
Otherwise I would just have 15-35gb there where I would never listen to.
It’s just a a way of using your Ipod :) And for me 4gb is enough.
5
Like Heath in the post above, I too have bought myself an iPod 40gig and it defenitly did change the way I listen to music. No more cds!
I usually listen to music from the iPod which is connected to my Mac, or I have it connected to my Pioneer surroundsound Hometheater system - which is very nice since I great different playlists for different moods I’m in.
And with 40gig I can also backup and use the iPod as a portable drive! ...is this starting to sounding like a sales pitch? ;-)
6
Go for green!
7
You can order it already in Belgium.
The price is 269 Euro, you can check it out here: http://www.apple.com/benl/ipodmini/
oh, and I want one too :)
8
@Fabien: It all depends on what your needs are and I say I’m with Jetzer on this one. 4GB is more then enough space to store my music. Ipod Mini is also a lot smaller then the iPod so for me that’s also a plus point. About the price in the US you have to compare it fair so without VAT and if you do that it’s about the same price here in Belgium. It’s not Apple’s fault that we have 21% VAT here.
@Heath and Marcel: You both sound very convincing :-)
@Koen: Yes I know that you can pre-order it now, that’s what I wrote in my article BUT it won’t be here before July 24th even this date is not exactly 100% bullet proof. It all depends on how big the shipments will be to Belgium. My guess is there will be a lot of pre-orders.
9
Veerle,
A couple other thoughts, if price isn’t an issue, you can always have extra room and be fine, but if you run out of room (because you might start an affair, called music addiction, like other podders, especially when the music store becomes available) you will have to buy a new unit.
It is true that you might not think that you will listen to all of your music, but the nice thing with the pod is that the one time that you want to have a romantic evening and you to play that Marvin Gaye song that you haven’t listened to in 5 years, you’ve go it. Another example, maybe you’ll be sitting in the car and a song pops in your head and wham-o sit back and reminisce.
Finally, I find that many albums from my collection of 200+ CDs weren’t listened to because I only had room for 12 CD’s in my CD case. Now I find that I dig up some of my favorites and enjoy a wider range of music.
Heath
(Does apple have a HQ in Belgium, maybe I should work for them!)
10
@Heath I get you’re point ;-) To be honest my collection is just big enough to get it all on my iPod Mini… but I’m sure that will change once the iTunes Music Store is available :-D What you don’t know is that my boyfriend and me both want an iPod and since I really prefer the Mini, he could maybe buy a next generation iPod later on. This way we have both iPods (lucky me :-P ) and we can switch if we want.
Does apple have a HQ in Belgium, maybe I should work for them!
Yes they do, as a matter it is in Brussels ;-) Once gave a demo there for Apple dealers about the PowerMac 8600 Web Authoring Edition, that came bundled with lots of software. Boy I just realized that was ages ago! :-)
11
If price is indeed not an issue, it’s easy to say “more is better”. :)
And listening to older albums: I have a pc at home with all my albums on (a 200gb hd is half the price of a mini so a lot cheaper to store them there) and since I change almost daily I can put those oldies on my Ipod whenever I want. :)
Like I said, it all depends on how you use your Ipod.
12
I agree with Jetzer. I own a 10 GB iPod since february 2003 and, it might sound funny, but it’s rarely even half filled. My music collection (at ome) is currently about 95 GB (15.500 songs). By using iTunes’ smart playlists, there’s something else on my iPod every day. Why put more than 1.000 songs on my iPod when I use it only 2 hours a day (on the train to my work and back)? It’s a portable music player after all and I don’t feel the need to carry my whole music colletion with me everywhere I go.
Like I said in my previous post, I have pre-ordered an iPod mini and I made an arrangement to sell my ‘old’ iPod. I’m glad that I can finally use Apple’s latest firmwire upgrades with the mini, like the ‘on the go’ playlist. That wasn’t possible on my ‘2nd generation’ iPod. And it looks a lot sleeker too of course… the only downside is that I can’t use my iPod as an external harddrive anymore now… :(
13
@Jezter and Roel : exactly :-) This is how I would use mine too.... if I had one of course. All those stories here make me anxious to get one asap! :-D
@Roel : 15.000 songs! My God what a list! What a choice! How many days of music is that!? I feel a bit silly with my 1.700 songs :-S
14
Well, iTunes says it’s 44,6 days :) I started converting my own music collection back in 1997 and it kept growing over the years.
But honestly, not all music in my collection was originally bought by me… I hardly ever don’t download music, but I borrow lots of cds :) And iTunes makes it’s just too easy to copy someone else’s music: insert a disc, wait for 5 minutes, the cd ejects and you’re done! In that time iTunes has ripped the music, converted it to AAC, looked up the right tags on the internet and added it all to its library… it really doesn’t feel like you’re doing something wrong.