ipod or zen?

B

Babble

CAG Veteran
who likes ipods and who likes zens
personaly i have an ipod and i love it but tell me what u think
 
I have a zen micro and I love it. I've had to RMA it twice already...apparently, it doesn't like to be dropped on concrete. Usually it's fine (for some reason, I have a habit of dropping my MP3 player...also a great way to ruin headphones) but a couple of times the system stopped working altogether after taking one too many beatings.

Then again, that is completely Vietgurl's fault. How do iPods hold up to abuse? I don't own one because it's too trendy.
 
I had to rma my zen, and after getting it back it stopped working a few months later and now im out of warranty :( Never dropped the thing either
 
I have a Nomad Zen Xtra. It is ugly and bulky but I would not buy an iPod instead.

First iPods have that nice DRM thing that prevents you from moving songs onto another computer or getting them from another computer. They may have fixed this, I don't know. iPods cost more for the same amount of space. Other MP3 players tend to have more functions, such as radio and playback of more formats not to mention voice recording and such. You also cannot or could not use an iPod as a file storage device. Atleast not without buying third party software.

And now that the new Zens, the Vision:Ms and the Vision:W have been prettied up and slimmed down I have even less reason to buy an iPod.

Edit: iPod or Zen?! What about other companies! I own one Zen but I own 2 Rios, even though they are out of buisness I sill love those Rios I have.
 
I have a 30gb video ipod, and I have no problems with it...except for battery life...only last me a good 6 hours or so if i don't use the click wheel much. If i do, only last me about 3-4 hours.
 
[quote name='dtarasev']

First iPods have that nice DRM thing that prevents you from moving songs onto another computer or getting them from another computer. They may have fixed this, I don't know. iPods cost more for the same amount of space. Other MP3 players tend to have more functions, such as radio and playback of more formats not to mention voice recording and such. You also cannot or could not use an iPod as a file storage device. Atleast not without buying third party software.
[/QUOTE]

hmmmm . . . You can use an ipod as a storage device. In fact, that was one of the biggest draws of the ipod when it first came out. That means you can also move music from one computer to another. You can't move protected songs, bought from itunes, without a password.

I agree with the functions. I wish it came with a radio.
 
Creative Zen Touch, 40g for me. Haven't ever had a single problem with it. Had a Zen Xtra 20g before this, and best buy happened to have a sale going on where the Touch 40g was the same price to replace my Zen, so I used my protection plan to do a little trade up. The xtra had only given me one problem, ever, and that was when it got stuck on and no buttons were responsive, and I had to actually pop out the battery to get it to stop.
 
I have a 30gb ipod and it's nice. I like the interface and it's Mac-prettyness, but I probably wouldn't have bought the thing if I didn't get it cheap by doing a referral site. They're just too damn expensive.
 
[quote name='Consummate Canuck']I love my iPod shuffle. I bought it to use while working out and think it is one of the best investments I've made.[/QUOTE]


Yup, it makes my hour long jogs feel like 15 minutes.
 
got a 30 gig ipod and love it. No problems at all with it and the battery lasts a long time.

some people don't realize that battery power also depends on the mp3 quality. 128 kbps will last more than 6 hours and podcasts at 92 kbps will last a very long time.


Protip: you can get a 30 gig ipod for about $269 at the apple website if you're a student or if you're dishonest ;)
 
[quote name='Apossum']

Protip: you can get a 30 gig ipod for about $269 at the apple website if you're a student or if you're dishonest ;)[/QUOTE]

And if you don't mind refurbished products, you can get a 30gb ipod w/video for $199. That's a hellofadeal!
 
Zen Vision M trumps the Ipod video but if you don't need video capability, I think Ipod is superior in all previous generations. I owned a Creative Nomad Zen NX at one point and now I own a Ipod photo.

I also tricked out the ipod photo with ipod linux so I actually CAN watch videos on it as well as play first person shooters! Crazy yeah and hell of a tricky install but it's worth figuring out.
 
I've got a 5G 60GB, and like it. No, you can't pull songs directly off the ipod to a PC; that's a bone Apple threw the RiAA so they couldn't be accused of enabling mass transfer of mp3s. If you buy something from the itunes music store, it is DRMed; but buying stuff from itunes music store is not necessary to use the ipod, and an ipod is not necessary to buy stuff from itunes music store.
I use and like itunes, I think it's a good library management tool, and I love smart playlists. You can actually pull the songs off, but they're named in Apple's wacky format "xtra.mp3" or something. Of course, you can download free software to put on your ipod to translate that, so it could still be done.

The higher the bit rate, the larger the file, and the more the device [any device] will have to access the HD, and the harder the processor will have to work to process the song; so, the less the battery will last.

Cost: When I researched, the 60GB ipod was the cheapest per-gig; the creative video was the most expensive. You could obviously save money buying a previous generation, or refurbed, of course.

I am currently storing 1.5 GB of work backup on my ipod, having spent three seconds turning on an option in itunes, and about sixty seconds transferring over USb 2.0. So you certainly can use it as a usb drive, very easily.

I will fully admit that certain other players have some additional features. However, none of them matter to me. FM radio? I haven't listened to FM radio in years, and don't plan to start now. Besides, I just bought an mp3 player/voice recorder with a built in FM tuner for 15 bucks [bought for the voice recorder], and I've got at least three little FM radios I got for free that i could use if I really needed FM. I'll admit that's a feature to some people, but I will also admit I can't understand why.
Formats - yes, other players can play additional formats. Again, depends on the consumer. I have 12000 mp3s. I'm not going to convert them all to ogg or aac or whatever, and I don't buy anything but CDs or Mp3.

The Zen Vision looked 'toylike' to me, and didn't feel too great in my hand when I tested it at the store.
Luckily, of course, there's lots of competition out there; the only bad thing is Apple's Microsoft-ian tactics in selling aac on itms and not letting anyone else have the codecs.
 
I have a mini iPod that I bought a year ago and I love it! Been wanting to upgrade to a video though but I guess I'll wait on that.
 
Creative Zen Vision:M is what i have. I researched it alot before I got it and decided it was better than ipod video. I love it so far. No problems with it so far.
 
I wish I had a Zen Vision: M, but alas.
What I do have is the 20gb Zen Sleek Photo.
It works wonderfully and it has survived several falls without a hitch (I have a bad habit of putting it on my lap and forgetting its there and dropping it when i get up =/)
 
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