When the limited supply of palm-sized mintpass mintpad devices were made globally available last week, I wasted little time in securing one of my own. And within just 48 hours of placing my order, the 3.2-ounce unit and some lovely accessories made their way from Korea to my front door in Hawaii.
The box only arrived a few hours ago, so I haven't had time to do anything but take the round of photos you'll find below.
I'll give the tiny mintpad my full review treatment in the coming weeks, as well as write up a few other bit about it here and there, so what follows are just a series of unboxing pictures with some commentary based on my immediate impressions.
Mintpad
Mintpass is a spin-off of iriver, so the packaging is very iriver-like: minimalist, clean, and nicely put together.
Included in the box are the mintpad, standard battery (est. 30 hours for audio, 5 hours for video), stylus, USB cable, and quick start guide. Additional accessories are available separately (see below).
The player itself is built well and makes a positive first impression when held in the hand. It's made of a high quality plastic that feels sturdy and durable while remaining lightweight. The design is a little chunky, the bezel in particular, but it's still cute and stylish.
Considering all that it has to offer (multimedia, internet, camera, memos/drawings, microSD expansion, built-in speaker), the compact size is really impressive, not to mention highly pocketable.
Two immediate advantages of the mintpad over other devices are its removable battery and microSD expansion slot.
The card slot is inconveniently located in the battery compartment. The retail box indicates that cards up to 16GB are supported, though, so you could just pop one of those in there (the mintpad itself has 4GB of flash storage) and forget about it. More internal storage would be a welcomed improvement in the next-gen mintpad, but the current 4GB isn't a dealbreaker when paired with microSD cards.
Mintpad Accessories
The mintpad is only mintpass' first product, so the selection of official accessories that are already available for it is pretty impressive.
LCD protector film
I don't know yet whether the device's 2.86-inch touchscreen is better served with a screen protector, but the official one made by Pure Plate looks good. The thickness and clarity remind me of the ClearTouch Crystal protectors (my favorite).
Silicone carrying case
The silicone skins are available in four colors: pink, white, black, and light green.
The mintpad slips into and out of the case with ease, and there are cut-outs for all of the hardware elements (ports, camera, speaker, stylus slot, etc.). I usually prefer to keep my gadgets naked, but the silicone is so soft and smooth that it's hard not to want to pet it all the time.
Cradle
Not surprisingly, my favorite accessory for the mintpad is its matching cradle. One minor thing I like is that it comes with the same proprietary USB cable included with the device. A lot of other cradles/docks require that you use the cable/AC adapter that came with the unit, so it's nice to have an extra one.
The cradle features a line-out jack and 20-pin connector port on the back.
And that's it for now. Stay tuned for my full review and a handful of additional feature articles in the next few weeks.
If you're interested in picking up a mintpad for yourself, there may still be some left from the original limited supply. The English firmware is also still expected to be fully complete by June 30th (right now, the web browser menus aren't translated and the file manager and ad-hoc chatting features aren't ready; everything else is translated and done) and will be available to existing users through a funware update.
Full specifications of the mintpass mintpad in the database.
and not to bad a price either.
i just may have to get myself one if i can gather the funds…
what kind multimedia player it is, if it has no hardware buttons to navigate it in the pocket ? Shame on them
‘but the silicone is so soft and smooth that it’s hard not to want to pet it all the time’
Why did I think of something completely different when I read that?
If only it ran something better than WinCE. But I love the simple and clean design, minimalism at its finest. Maybe make it a little bigger, put a better ARM CPU in it, and put something like Android on it (or Mer, etc.).
Wow! This thing looks amazing! can’t wait for the review Jen!!!
Mmmmm…looks minty fresh…at least some vendors are showing some innovation out there instead of the same old form factor re-treads.
I might be wrong, but isn’t that a standard mini USB cable? Like the kind used in the Blackberry and the Peek?
OMG – it’s so much better than I expected. And the fact it takes up to 16gb microSD cards, plus gets pretty decent battery life for audio (5hrs for video is acceptable). I’ve eaten my words, and I hope the SQ is as good as I expect. I’ll hold off on the ketchup for now,………
It sure does look like a standard mini-USB. I have a couple as the device I use to hook up analog phonesets to skype use exactly that. They are pretty cheap.
No, it’s different. Here are some comparison pics (miniUSB on top):
http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o418/pocketables/DSC00001.jpg
http://i342.photobucket.com/albums/o418/pocketables/DSC00002.jpg
Your mind, John. It needs purification.
Proprietary cables are pretty annoying, I’m hoping that we can find a more common product that uses this same cable.
Jenn, is this a common cable for iRiver products, or other PMP style devices? I’m sorta new to this consumer category, I deal mostly in laptops.
No, I can’t think of any other device that uses this cable (maybe the UMID? I don’t have one to double-check, but I recall that it was 20-pin). DAPs/PMPs generally tend to use proprietary cables (e.g., Apple, Sony, SanDisk, Cowon, Samsung), though they’re usually compatible with other devices within the same company’s line. This is mintpass’ first product, so it’s likely that this cable will be used in future devices. Iriver sometimes uses standard miniUSB (as does Creative), but some of their stuff uses a 24-pin connector too.
Jenn do you know if this is the same cable used on the Cowon S9? If it is then it’s also used on the Spinn and perhaps the P7 (haven’t got my hands on one yet to play with)
Great suggestion, Phil. I never thought to even try the Cowon S9 cable. And guess what: it fits! The P7′s cable doesn’t fit (I think it’s a 24-pin connector), but it’s good to know the Cowon’s does. The S9 is my first and only Cowon player, so I didn’t recognize the port on the mintpad. Thanks!
So this is where the old iriver has gone!
It really looks great, I was pretty hopeful for MintPass, something tells me that they are the team of people who made the Clix and Clix 2.
Anyway, that cable there looks exactly the same as the iriver SPINN’s and the Cowon S9′s, which is a micro-B cable I think.
I just ordered a MintPad a few days ago, but I would love to have one of those silicone cases and screen protectors for it. Which site did you purchase your accessories from?
I got everything directly from mintpass in Korea. Where did you order yours from?
I ordered my unit from a merchant on Amazon.com, called JetAudio.
where can i buy new usb cable for my mintpad???