Best Place For Ipod Mini?

[daveco23]

Anyone got any suggestions on best place to buy and Ipod Mini?
Thanks,

 

[ClubMan]

The US if somebody is travelling there!

 

[Unregistered]

Zen Micro is a better proposition than a iPod Mini. €199 according to the bargains section on boards.ie

 

[extopia]

iPod/iTunes is far superior to the zen. worth the extra few bob. Prices for apple products vary little from dealer to dealer so it's usually not worth shopping around. Far cheaper in the US though because of the cheap currency and the fact that there's no VAT over there!

 

[MonsieurBond]

iPod/iTunes is far superior to the Zen. worth the extra few bob.

What Hi Fi has last month awarded the iPod the top slot again in their MP3 player shootout, based on sound quality, features, ease of use, quality, PC/Mac software, etc.

They also say that AAC compression is better than MP3 as MP3 is now 10 years old. AAC sounds better (i.e. less compressed) than MP3 at equivalent bitrates, i.e. 128kbps AAC sounds better than 128kbps MP3 and so on for higher bitrates. (They recommend 192kbps bit rate incidentally.)

 

[Unregistered]

itunes/ipod superior?????

Which iPod vs which Zen, when published and doubt it sincerely when Zen Micro is only €199.
To sound better an AAC track would have to be more compressed/less lossy. AAC may be superior but the AAC you get is tied to a proprietary DRM technology which takes all the good out of it.