Ipod vs Zen
polycounter lvl 18
Tax time is here and I am thinking that I will use my return to finally purchase a portable mp3 player - namely an Ipod. However, I have looked a bit at the Creative Labs Zen as well. I know plenty of people who own and love thier Ipods but I don't know of anyone who owns a Zen. Anybody here own one or just have an opinion they care to contribute on the matter?
Replies
I also am thinking that I want the Ipod Mini or the Zen Micro because the compact size will be good for the gym.
I also intend to use it as a "flash drive" for bringing work home. Anyone know if the Zen is firewire? I can't find anything on that.
With a good set of headphones the sound quality on the zen is well above the Ipod and it gets at least double the battery life
Yes you can use it as an external harddrive
Unfortunatly the Zen's dont have firewire anymore the original Nomad zens did but they dropped it
They fucking own.
You get more storage space for your money ($299 20gb iPod, vs $292 60gb Creative Zen)
You get a longer battery life.
When the battery does eventually die, you can click the cover off and replace it yourself.
You don't have to use iTunes.
The software you use is optional, windows picks it up as an external harddrive and ou can drag and drop your MP3s into it like that.
The software you use is, however, really good. I've got 10 gbs of music and the Zen makes it easy to manage on the move.
The only thing it doesn't have that the iPod does is inbuilt little mini-games, but really what's the point?
I regard the iPod as a fashion accessory rather than a serious MP3 player
:P
Apple... pfft never.
I mean who are you gunna trust to play your music
A company that builds computers that only have a 5% market share and is only being kept a float by the Ipod
Or the leading manufaturer and innovator of sound cards and computer audio technology
I'm no raving Mac-fan, but i use them enough, and i know enough to know you're full of shit.
And can we just drop it right there?
No pc Vs. mac in a thread about Mp3-players? for once? yes? kthxbye.
Oh, i would also buy the zen. The Ipods love of DRM, and apple's constant "fixing" of third-party software (ie. making sure it doesn't work with the ipod) makes me fucking sick.
'nuff said.
as for me, I have an iriver. wish I'd saved my money at the time so I could ponder the issue seriously now with AZ.
Actually, I got a PDA last year and I'm pretty happy with what it can do.. provided you have a requirement for portable email, browser, word, excel, notes, winamp + a handful of cd's worth of mp3s (limited by CF card size), a dictionary, downloaded novels, gps, etc. for roughly the same price. (gps add-on obviously not included in that price though.)
I didnt mean it as an anti mac statement
I just meant what adam there said trust a company that does audio
The Ipods love of DRM
[/ QUOTE ]
I still don't see how what this is about. I have had no problem getting any type of music onto my iPod. Is there something I'm missing? I'm using iTunes as well.
The only real issue I'm having is trying to get it to recognize all my audiobooks as audiobooks, and not music mp3's.
And adam: he's not excactly right when he claims a company is only being kept afloat by the ipod, but i agree with going for a company who does audio. He just phrased it a bit retarded, that's all.
Could someone elaborate on the drm stuff? i've heard some nasty shit about it, but i can't confirm any of it myself... or remember most of it, for that matter.
Tone: I actually saw a few people recommend the iriver in some of the articles I read. You're not happy with yours?
Another question regarding the Zen: One of the articles I read said that you have to partition the HD for the amount of space you want to allocate to being an external HD. What's that all about?
The software I got with it allows you to choose either to manage MP3 files, or data files much like a CD burning program would. Both allow you to just drag and drop files from one window into another and it just transfers it.
-R
I hate os9 with a fucking BURNING passion. osx is pretty good though, but still: holy shit, i could probably randomly click everything without breaking anything, and that's NOT meant as a compliment.
edit:
"The Creative Nomad Zen Xtra MP3 Jukebox is actually an amazing MP3 player, if you can forgive its relatively large size (when compared to the iPod) and clunky user interface (again, when compared to the iPod)"
What's this about, then? In the pictures it seems to be the exact same size as the ipod. Either that, or that persons hand is very large.
If someone could answer Gauss, that'd be really cool, because while i hadn't heard that directory thing, if it's true i'll be majorly bummed out.
http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20041005/index.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20041007/index.html
You can't arrange them by directory per se, they all go into a root folder.
But the software that comes with it allows you to selectivly view only certain artists/albums/genres/playlists, etc from a handy menu on the left side of the screen. If you want I'll take some screenshots of it and send it to you if you want?
I mean I'm the same way in that all my MP3s are catagorised in folders, but I don't notice at all that I can't do that on the Zen.
Their MuVo Micro's have been deemed mostly unusable over at Nomadness.net, due to bad playback, constant shutting down and such. Several threads over at Creative's own forums have been either locked or deleted because of complaints about malfunctioning firmware.
Currently, my own Micro N200 has to have it's firmware rewritten every 2-3 days, otherwise I'll have a constantly shutting down player while at work.
So as long as Apple doesn't kill off this software with another 'update', the ipod doesn't seem so bad.
But if i would have to choose, i'd go for something that with a little bit of freedom.