Mintpass Mintpad now on sale, as cute as ever
By Darren Murph 
posted Sep 17th 2009 7:06PM
posted Sep 17th 2009 7:06PM
Ah, finally. Mintpass has been teasing us with its delightfully adorable Mintpad for nearly a year now, and after sending a few out to a smattering of media outlets, it fell into a holding pattern for the rest of the summer. Now, at long last, the touchscreen-based PMP is on sale over in the UK, paving the way for consumers 'round the globe to call themselves an owner. Final specifications include a 2.9-inch LCD, 4GB of internal storage, a microSD expansion slot, WiFi, 1.3 megapixel camera, support for a gaggle of file formats and a battery good for 30 hours of audio or 5 hours of video. Too bad that £139 asking price becomes $229 here in the US.[Via PMP Today]
Cute. Pocketables has a decent review on it. No sure why, but I want one.
But what does this have to do with Mint?
I got one of the early ones a couple months ago (beta English firmware, and $40 shipping from Korea). It is JUST as cute when you open the box, and it's very light. Their customer service is ace as well - If you have money to blow and a need for a compact do-it-all device, I can't say a single negative thing about it.
I'm seriously considering getting one of these... not sure why, exactly, but it looks really neat, and I want a new media player anyway...
$229 ain't all THAT bad as a niche/luxury item (if that's what it is).
It's very small.
I like it. It reminds me of children. *takes off mask* IT'S PEDOBEAR!
Now the question is: Do I buy this adorable thing as opposed to a sleek Zune HD? Hard to say...
Seems inferior IMO. Smaller screen, worse battery life, LCD, and only has 4 gbs of storage.
It has a micro sd slot for expansion.
OR get the COWON D2 or D2+ - which looks exactly the same, although it doesn't have Wi-Fi or camera, but is about $150, battery lasts 50 hrs and supports a bunch of formats.
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/d2/
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/d2plus/
I love my D2+ but the mintpass has even more features that I will never use. Not only will I continue to disregard the FM radio, video, podcast, calculator, voice recorder and the ability to read text files, now I can avoid not using the internet and camera.
Seriously the lesson that I learned when buying a device is to know which features you need and will use not which ones would be cool to have or which device has the most features. The only thing I really use on the Cowon D2+ are the music player and... nope that is it. I use the other features just because they are there and I'm bored or want to show others that my device has a dictionary.
Would be neat if it acted as a windows sideshow device
It's 170$ at amazon. I never bought anything from amazon but that is 60$ savings if you were buying this thing.
I had one of these. Trust me. It's not worth your time or money.
Okay, anonymous internet guy. I'll trust you and not get one. What else should I do?
John Swanson
www.bikephysics.com
If there's one thing I do always it would trusting complete strangers on internet making unsubstantiated claims followed by 'trust me', it seems to me that just cannot fail.
Also take advice from anyone with spam in his "signature".
It runs Win CE. (Don't downrank me, im only the messenger.)
Is there something fundamentally wrong with Windows CE?
"Is there something fundamentally wrong with Windows CE?"
yes
"Windows "
Alright, so basically you're saying it conflicts with your fanboyism. Great.
I'm saying it conflicts with the amount of freedom provided by other available units.
If you need to rationalise your pmp purchase you will never buy one of these, but you'll be missing out because they're a lot of fun. Also the mint people are design geniuses.
Check out the designs in their 'select' concepts
http://www.mintpass.com/select/select_detail.asp?Page=1&SrchItem=subject;content&SrchString=phone&SrchType=1&idx=15
Engadget, will you please learn how the price is changed when it is sold in the US, you do not do a simple exchange. How many times do we have to tell you this?
We had/have the opportunity to carry this here in the US but I just don't think we'd sell that many...
Jeremy Shafton
The Gadgeteers
It was being sold for $169 when I bought mine a few months ago. Will probably sell for that when it's released in the US (is on Amazon for that price). I got one directly from Mintpass a few months back sent from Korea to the US. If you like writing hand written memos, this is the device for you. Overall, I liked the design of the Mintpad, but the device was pretty underwhelming in a lot of aspects and I ended up selling mine (couldn't really justify the purchase in the end). I will keep an eye on it's progress and might buy one again some day if they improve a few things, they were doing software updates on a regular basis.
I just emailed them per instructions on their site and purchased one today to the USA.
Thank you for your interest in our product.
The prices are:
- mintpad: $169.99
- Leather case (B): $21.00
- Shipping: $21.00
- Total: $211.99 USD