[TETENAL]

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/53621

Aldi is selling a 20 GB PortalPlayer hard disk mp3 player for €199 (the 20 GB iPod costs €329). PortalPlayer is the same manufacturer as Apple's iPod. heise.de found the Aldi player to be technically superior to the Apple iPod with slight disadvantages in design and usability.

[effgee]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/53621
Aldi is selling a 20 GB PortalPlayer hard disk mp3 player ...

Nothing against Aldi - for certain items, they're the bomb. But an mp3 player that (fresh out of the box) has a "crooked" display and a USB port cover that nearly falls off when connected to a computer for the first time - imho - is not worth 200 bucks, regardless of its "superior" specs.

In the end this is the same as all the car "discussions" around here - sure you can get a car with a 200hp engine for under 25 grand - does that mean I'd actually go out and buy one?

Ack. Never.

It's about the experience - not just the engine ... otherwise I'd have one of them "Windows-thingies" as my primary computer. Four GHZ, dude.

[waxcrash]

When I read the headline, I thought it was about Aldi - the discount grocery chain where you have to pay a quarter to use the grocery cart.

[effgee]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
When I read the headline, I thought it was about Aldi - the discount grocery chain where you have to pay a quarter to use the grocery cart.

... it is that Aldi.



- Aldi northern Germany (they're selling the mp3 player)
- Aldi southern Germany

Considering the fact that they're a privately owned company (two brothers), they're quite huge.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
When I read the headline, I thought it was about Aldi - the discount grocery chain where you have to pay a quarter to use the grocery cart.

This thread is about that.

Originally posted by effgee:
It's about the experience - not just the engine ...

You probably missed the fact that inside is the exact same technology as in the iPod. So you are paying > €100 for the "experience". That's more than a lot of people are willing to pay for something non-tangible.

[effgee]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
You probably missed the fact that inside is the exact same technology as in the iPod. So you are paying > €100 for the "experience". That's more than a lot of people are willing to pay for something non-tangible.

Nope. Saw it. There's certain items where I will always be extremely mindful of cost and then there's items ("luxury goods", if you will) where I don't care how much they cost because I want them to work and look good.

I'm not saying everybody must think the same way I do - it's just not my thing to buy an "almost-like-the-iPod" mp3 player. Which is the reason why I don't have an mp3 player at all - I don't need one badly enough (no commute worth mentioning here) to justify the cost for an iPod and I'm not about to buy a "almost-like-the-iPod" model, either.





For those interested, here's some interesting info about Aldi (the two brothers are a wacky bunch) ...

• "... Aldi is Europe's stealth Wal-Mart. Like the Arkansas-based giant, Aldi boasts awesome margins, huge market clout, and seemingly unstoppable growth -- including an estimated sales increase of 8% a year since 1998. It relentlessly focuses on efficiency, matching or even beating Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) in its ability to strip out costs. Yet privately owned Aldi is also very old-school German, financing expansion with cash to avoid debt, shunning publicity, and moving quietly into new markets before the competition catches on. That has allowed the onetime local grocer in Essen to become one of the world's biggest retailers, with $37 billion in sales, a fraction of Wal-Mart's $245 billion but enough to give Aldi a 3.5% market share in Europe, vs. 6.8% for market leader Carrefour, according to Brussels-based market watcher M+M Planet Retail. Even mighty Wal-Mart has struggled against Aldi in Germany. Wal-Mart has other problems there, such as a lack of sites for its jumbo-size stores. But a big obstacle is that Aldi and other discounters already had a lock on budget food shoppers. "Aldi was doing the same thing as Wal-Mart before Wal-Mart got here," says Frank Pietersen, a retail analyst for KPMG in Cologne.
  
  The discount chain already is having a Wal-Mart-type effect on the German economy. The main association of German retailers issued a report on Mar. 8 blaming Aldi and other "hard discounters" for running 35,000 small shops out of business last year. On the same day, Bavarian dairy farmers picketed Aldi stores, which they blame for a ruinous 15% plunge in milk prices since 2001. Aldi must take care not to let such criticism tarnish its reputation among German consumers.
  
  What's next? Aldi now shows signs of stepping up the pace of its expansion on Wal-Mart's turf. Aldi opened its first U.S. store in Iowa in 1976 and has sales of $4.8 billion in North America, according to M+M. And Trader Joe's Co., a specialty grocer owned by a family trust that Aldi co-founder Theo Albrecht created for his sons, has become the hottest thing in U.S. retailing by extending the Aldi concept to upscale products like wine and cashew butter.
  
  Aldi aims to open 40 stores a year until 2010, bringing the U.S. total to 1,000. Aldi is even buying up sites from retailers trampled by Wal-Mart. "It is an uncharacteristic weakness of Wal-Mart that it has not recognized how formidable a foe Aldi is," warns Burt P. Flickinger III of New York City-based Strategic Resource Group, a retailing and consumer goods consultant. He expects Aldi to have as much as 2% of the U.S. grocery market by the end of the decade, up from 0.65% now. Says Wal-Mart spokesman Bill Wertz: "We certainly recognize Aldi as being a tough competitor."
  
  Will Aldi take over the world? It's clear it is on the march, advertising on the Web for workers and store locations in places such as Ireland and Australia. "One of the principles of Aldi is not to rush into things, but first to build a solid foundation. Once they have that, they move more quickly," says Dieter Brandes, a former Aldi executive who has published a book, The 11 Secrets of Aldi Success.
  
  Aldi -- actually two associated retailing groups controlled by Karl Albrecht and brother Theo, both in their 80s -- is Europe's biggest "hard discounter," the term for a retailer that pushes prices even lower than traditional discounters. Hard discounters have doubled their share of the European grocery market in the past decade, to 9.5%, according to ACNielsen. "They're coming, and they're going to change the retailing landscape for good," says Volker Koch, Frankfurt-based analyst for M+M.
  
  Aldi follows a simple but devastating strategy. A typical Aldi has only about 700 products, compared with more than 20,000 at a traditional grocer such as Royal Ahold's (AHO ) Albert Heijn and as many as 150,000 at a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Established brand names like Nestlé or Nivea or Persil are irrelevant at Aldi. Almost everything on display is an Aldi-exclusive label such as Frisco Dent toothpaste (61 cents for a family-size tube) or Rio D'Oro orange juice (74 cents a liter) in Europe. The Aldi lineup even seems to be winning over U.S. shoppers. "They're not the brands I'm used to, but they're good. Nestlé has nothing on this," says retired schoolteacher Silvia Randall, holding up a package of LaMissa hot cocoa mix at an Aldi in Smyrna, Ga.
  
  Because it sells so few products, Aldi can exert strong control over quality and price. The limited selection simplifies shipping and handling. A survey by consultants McKinsey & Co. found shoppers perceived little difference in quality, assortment, or service at Aldi, vs. traditional retailers, but they rated Aldi better on price. "We have a lot of respect for Aldi quality," says Wolfgang Gutberlet, CEO of Fulda, Germany-based tegut, which operates about 300 food stores in western Germany.
  
  Obsessed with Frugality
  The fanatic attention to costs pays off. Aldi's operating margin in some regions of Germany is as high as 9.3%, according to McKinsey. "Aldi has taken the retail formula down to the most basic elements," says Neil Z. Stern, senior partner at Chicago retail consultant McMillan/Doolittle LLP, who believes Aldi is more efficient than Wal-Mart. One knowledgeable estimate puts pretax profits at $1.5 billion.
  
  Aldi's formula is as much the result of necessity as brilliance. When Karl and Theo Albrecht returned from Allied POW camps after World War II, residents of bombed-out Essen wanted only the products they needed from one day to the next, for the best price. So the brothers restricted their assortment to a few hundred items and carefully monitored quality. "Our business was managed solely on the basis of the lowest price," Karl Albrecht said during a rare public appearance in 1975. The Albrechts have avoided the spotlight since 1971, when Theo was kidnapped for 17 days. He was released in return for a $4 million ransom -- after bargaining to get the price down, according to press reports.
  
  Frugality remains an obsession. Theo Albrecht turned off lights when he entered a room if he thought daylight sufficed, according to Brandes. Theo still goes to work daily, while Karl has turned over day-to-day management to professionals. Brandes says little is likely to change when the Albrechts are gone: Ownership has been transferred to trusts to avoid disputes among heirs.
  
  Will Aldi prove as successful a German export as BMWs? In Europe, retailers are certainly feeling the heat. The Netherlands' Albert Heijn cut prices on 2,000 products last year to try to thwart the hard discounters. ACNielsen even sells a risk assessment profile to help other retailers figure out when an Aldi product threatens sales. Foreign grocers have had lots of time to prepare for Aldi. In Britain, Aldi has just 1% of the grocery market 14 years after opening its first store. Tesco PLC has defended share with its own low-priced brands. Hard discounter Lidl, a unit of Neckarsulm-based Lidl & Schwarz Group, leads Aldi in France and Britain and is moving into Eastern Europe, where Aldi is so far absent. "I think they'll be challenged to extend their footprint any farther," says Richard Hull, who heads the retail team at London consultants Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Group.
  
  Aldi's all-cash approach to expansion means risk is low. Analysts say Aldi could find a niche in U.S. markets that can't support a "big box" store such as Costco Wholesale Corp. And most U.S. retailers don't seem to recognize the threat. "[Aldi] is kind of bottom-feeding, and nobody notices it," says Tom A. Muccio, a former Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) executive. Funny, that's the same mistake that German competitors made a few decades ago. ..."

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by effgee:
I'm not saying everybody must think the same way I do - it's just not my thing to buy an "almost-like-the-iPod" mp3 player. Which is the reason why I don't have an mp3 player at all - I don't need one badly enough (no commute worth mentioning here) to justify the cost for an iPod and I'm not about to buy a "almost-like-the-iPod" model, either.

That's exactly the reason why I don't have an mp3 player either.

However now that Aldi offers an mp3 player with the same innards as the iPod, it's interesting to see how much you pay for the brand and experience.

[Mr Heliums]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
That's exactly the reason why I don't have an mp3 player either.

However now that Aldi offers an mp3 player with the same innards as the iPod, it's interesting to see how much you pay for the brand and experience.

I don't understand: if it has the "exact same" innards as the iPod, yet has apparent "disadvantages" in usability and design, how can it be "technologically superior"?

It looks ghastly too, by the way.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by Mr Heliums:
I don't understand: if it has the "exact same" innards as the iPod, yet has apparent "disadvantages" in usability and design, how can it be "technologically superior"?

It can have another design with the same innards. That's what they meant. You can see a picture of it in the article. It's not as pretty as an iPod.

It is technically superior because it has a SD/MMC-Slot, can sync with digital cameras without a third party product via USB, and can record from an internal microphone.

[D'Espice]

Yeah I read about that MP3 player on heise today... funny thing. Basically iPod + additional features + the usual crap you get for free(!!!) when purchasing Aldi hardware. And design is purely a matter of taste. I bet there are people out there considering the iPod butt-ugly - so what? Big deal, let'em get their MP3 players from Aldi.

Here's another funny thing about Aldi hardware though. It's usually not only cheap and crappy but cheap, crappy AND snafu as well. Of course not all the hardware Aldi sells is crappy but I'd say that most of it is. Friend of mine bought their first MP3 Player, 256MB Flash memory, SMC-slot. Broke after three months. Took Medion (the company that built the MP3 player for Aldi) four months to repair the player. Broke again after another three months. This time he had it back after roughly two months. Eventually it broke again, after another six months. So now he wants his money back.
I myself never bought any Aldi hardware because when it comes to NoName (aka crappy) hardware, I know it won't work. Like that digital camera another friend got, Traveller 4300 something. According to Aldi, 4MP and great. According to recent experience (bought it 1 1/2 years ago) more than crappy, decent photos only possible in bright daylight.

So yeah... funny thing, Aldi and hardware. In terms of groceries, I'd definitely recommend it but in terms of non-groceries, get the hell outta there.

[Peter]

i like it.

[olePigeon]

"That has allowed the onetime local grocer in Essen"

*chuckle*

[badidea]

The DivX DVD Player they sold this year was one of the best you could buy! I know several guys who bought one and none of them ever had a problem with it!

[fhoubi]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
heise.de found the Aldi player to be technically superior to the Apple iPod with slight disadvantages in design and usability.

Oh really?

- "Schade nur, dass das Handbuch verschweigt, wie man diese Funktion nutzt"

- "Beim Gehäuse muss man indes Abstriche machen"

- "Bei unserem Testgerät war zudem das Display ein wenig schief eingebaut"

- "Zudem fiel uns die USB-Schutzlasche schon beim ersten Anschließen an den PC entgegen"

- "Schade auch, dass sämtliche Menüs in Englisch gehalten sind -- bei einem Gerät, das bei Aldi verkauft wird, hätte man eine deutsche Menüführung erwarten dürfen."

- " Bei ersten Tests von heise online wurde das für den korrekten Abgleich nötig MusicMatch-Plug-in indes nicht automatisch mitinstalliert, sondern musste manuel nachinstalliert werden."

-"Unglücklicherweise spricht das Handbuch des MD95200 hier irreführend von einem Treiber statt von einem Plug-in"

- "Der Player spielte problemlos unser MP3-Testset ab,allerdings keine unserer gekauften, DRM-geschützten Dateien"

- "in puncto Design und Menüführung muss der Kunde mit Einschränkungen leben."

Link here Need a translation? -> Crap: you'll get what you paid for.

[ajprice]

I have nothing against Aldi tech hardware at all. My brother and several friends have Aldi £699 PC's, and my dad is getting one tomorrow - 3.4Ghz P4 HT, DVD R, TV tuner, wireless network, bluetooth, 250Gb, basically, for the money, its the works. They aren't crappy either, inside the parts are all good quality brand names. Haven't heard a bad word about them. They've sold MP3 flash drive USB stick thingies before, for about £50 or so, had an SD slot for extra memory on it and was generally very nice for the money.

In all this I emphasise 'for the money', if you want to pay loads for a PC, get an Alienware.

[effgee]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
"That has allowed the onetime local grocer in Essen" *chuckle*

Originally posted by olePigeon:
... if you want to pay loads for a PC, get a Mac.

fixed™


**runsforcover**

[angelmb]

Originally posted by effgee:
... it is that Aldi.

Incredible, it is the same ALDI placed on the little town at the NW of Spain I used to live something like tewnty years ago! Time flies.

[hagheid]

No Firewire?

[DeathToWindows]

Originally posted by hagheid:
No Firewire?

ya, they're just dumb f00ls

[hagheid]

Originally posted by DeathToWindows:
ya, they're just dumb f00ls

Aldipod

Even the knickers are lower @ Aldi

[effgee]

Originally posted by hagheid:
Even the knickers are lower @ Aldi

Ugh - anal floss from Aldi. That's just not right.

[Dr. Wahnsinn]

Originally posted effgee:
Ugh - anal floss from Aldi.

Please keep your hygiene habits to yourself. Calling it anal floss reminds me of Jenny Jones calling it butt floss, and I'd just as well not have to think of her.

I thought Aldi's PC hardware was crap too until my sweetie's brother-in-law bought a Medion laptop. I couldn't believe he spent any money on that thing and I expected it to fail within a year. Well, it's been over two years and he's had no problems other that with Windows.

If this Mp3 player from Aldi flops, look for them on sale at Plus.

[TETENAL]

Plus is now selling a 5 GB mp3 player that is similar to the iPod mini for €179. Apple's iPod mini is €259.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
You probably missed the fact that inside is the exact same technology as in the iPod. So you are paying > €100 for the "experience". That's more than a lot of people are willing to pay for something non-tangible.

That's more than a lot of people EXPECT to be willing to pay for something that they THINK is non-tangible.

Having something that feels cheap and is so atrocious to use that there is no fun in using it is an experience that more and more people are learning to avoid - and realizing that there *is* a very tangible difference for the premium paid for the iPod.

Heck, even Stiftung Warentest (a German version of Consumer Reports) came to that conclusion when they reviewed the Aldi player - and they're definitely not known for placing value on anything not measurable by technical instruments.

Edit: The Stiftung Warentest article. It really is devastating. Headline is "MP3-Player von Aldi im Schnelltest - Schwache iPod-Kopie". Interface is absolute crap, with risk for data loss. Interaction with the computer a complete mystery due to lack of documentation. Useless microphone (Header: "Mikrofon taugt nichts"). Useless scoll-wheel-like interface ("Das Rad rollt nicht") and barely usable buttons round off their impression of this toy.

'nuff said.

-s*

[TETENAL]

I don't have a very high opinion of Stiftung Warentest. They have often proven to be pretty clueless – especially with regards to computers (like giving iBooks low ratings because they don't run Windows).

I'm not saying the AldiP mp3 player is good, but their complaint that the click wheel doesn't rotate is another example of their incompetence. The Apple iPod's click wheel doesn't rotate either and that's by design.

[Thilo Ettelt]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I don't have a very high opinion of Stiftung Warentest. They have often proven to be pretty clueless – especially with regards to computers (like giving iBooks low ratings because they don't run Windows).

I agree.

Didn't Apple patent the scroll wheel? I wonder how these companies dare to copy it?


- Thilo