Features
If you get carried away at a dance event and need to relax to your own melt, you'll be pleased to find that the Stix is easy to use in almost any mental state. A mere four buttons on the side of the player control all functions, including stop/play, record and volume. You skip between tracks using a small jog wheel, though there doesn't seem to be any easy way to fast-forward and rewind through songs -- it's all or nothing. If there's a part you missed, you'll be forced to listen to the whole track again, and if there's a bit you hate, then you'll have to put up with it.
Recordings can be made via the built-in microphone and quality is decent enough for extremely casual listening and voice recordings. Don't expect to take this to a concert and capture a passable impression of what was happening, as there is plenty of lost definition. We would treat the recording feature as a bonus, though it may suit students who want to record a lecture or classroom discussion. School? What time do clubbers have for that? Plenty, if they want to afford the next Ministry CD.
Frenzied dancers will need to select the Hold function on the player, which stops all other controls from operating. Don't forget to disable this when you're ready to use the player's transport controls again though or you'll spend ten minutes trying to work out why everything's stopped working.
Performance
The sound quality on the Stix surprised us. Given The Ministry's far from formidable history in the MP3 player market, we expected less than the player delivered. Admittedly, it shines with dance music, but is not quite so capable when it comes to more subtle genres. Jack Johnson's Breakdown was enjoyable, though lacked much of the finer detail present on players like the iPod Shuffle and the Creative Zen Nano Plus. However, the overwhelming reason to buy this player will be its affiliation with the Ministry of Sound, and all that the club symbolises to the dance culture. Given that this could have merely been an elaborate advertisement for the brand, the Stix's sound is all the more remarkable.
Make no mistake, the Stix does not have the build quality or the accessory market of the Shuffle, but it does have the ability to record, an FM radio and the benefit of a conventional replaceable battery. The Stix gives just enough to make it a convincing purchase for dedicated Ministry fans, but despite a decent sound and a generous number of pre-installed songs, we're not convinced it has the durability of its competitors. A change to the design of the battery cover would improve the Stix hugely, so hopefully the next revision will address this weak point. None the less, the Stix is fun and won't look out of place strapped to any clubber's belt loop.
Edited by Michael Parsons
Additional editing by Nick Hide
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