Ipod or Creative Zen. Whit's Better?

[Cam-E]

Thinking of getting a better mp3 player. Opinions?

[Fallenblackrose]

I prefer the zen.

[Cam-E]

Any particular reason?

[Largest of Gregs]

2001 just called. They want their thread back!

[Cam-E]

Ha ha ha.






















Ok, so i've only just stopped listening to my CD player all the time. I'm also making the transition from the lute to the electric guitar, it's a big step.

[tw199y]

I hae my zen and i like its bounceed a couple of times hasent failed me yet( touch wood). In th end its down tro personal preference.

Cound is god on th ezen but i spent a little bit more money and got the accesory pack as i wanted a charger and av cable as i wa sgoing on holiday, and as sucj got a new pair of great earphones.

[djtoast]

I've got three iPods of various generations; love em all. iTunes is just so slick (except for a couple of silly mistakes with the windows version); the objections I hear people make are almost always ridiculous, and it's just so much more elegant than any other way of organising music. And the players themselves have attracted criticism over things like battery life but that's not been a problem in my experience. Apple products in general are just "nice"; if that matters to you, give an iPod a whirl.

[Woolies]

iPods are design over usability as far as I'm concerned.

Windows has bred me to expect drag n drop folders to move my files about, iPod fails (forced to go through iTunes sync and convert all files on transfer). Common sense means I expect a usb device to be usable from both laptop and PC, iPod fails (it syncs to one or the other, can't get music from both). This means that the expectation of sharing music also fails due to the extra third-party jumping through hoops software you need to use to get stuff off an iPod.

The lack of usable interoperability between the iPod, PC and laptop means it's never been used.

The only thing iPods ever really had was design and the iTunes store having more music than anywhere else but with iTunes & iPods still so heavily tied into DRM at a time where Amazon and even Play.com now offer non-DRM MP3 downloads at cheaper prices I can't see iPods as anything but a poor choice from a practical viewpoint no matter how cool they look or how ingrained they are in the public media consciousness of being the only mp3 player choice.


Never having used a Zen it may well have just as serious drawbacks though

[GoddamnElectric]

I'm shortly going to be retiring my 6GB iriver H10 for a new player. What is actually up with the latest gen of ipods and nanos looking like shit? There was nothing wrong with the nano's design, in fact I really liked it. Now it looks like a tetris block
I might actually chuck my money behind an Archos and go whole-hog with portable media for the daily train commute.

[Fallenblackrose]

Ive never had any problems with my zen, its a zen tough i have. I like just being able to plug mine into any machine and shove music on it, and its easy enough to organise music/make playlists with creative mediasource.

[djtoast]

Windows has bred me to expect drag n drop folders to move my files about, iPod fails (forced to go through iTunes sync and convert all files on transfer). Common sense means I expect a usb device to be usable from both laptop and PC, iPod fails (it syncs to one or the other, can't get music from both). This means that the expectation of sharing music also fails due to the extra third-party jumping through hoops software you need to use to get stuff off an iPod.

The lack of usable interoperability between the iPod, PC and laptop means it's never been used.

The only thing iPods ever really had was design and the iTunes store having more music than anywhere else but with iTunes & iPods still so heavily tied into DRM at a time where Amazon and even Play.com now offer non-DRM MP3 downloads at cheaper prices I can't see iPods as anything but a poor choice from a practical viewpoint no matter how cool they look or how ingrained they are in the public media consciousness of being the only mp3 player choice.

All valid points; a refreshing change from the "they're pish" which is usually the limit of detractors' arguments. Not sure all the criticisms are 100% accurate though, although i concede there might be some fussing about to get around your objections. It is certainly true that iTunes works much better if you use it as they expect, rather than how you want (but to be fair to the wee gizmo, you're a bit more technically minded than the average user so may want to do more than most with it; for you to be satisfied might mean making it harder for my dad to use for example).


Anyhow, you absolutely can put music on an iPod from more than computer.

You should have no problem moving files and folders about (rather than "syncing") by using an iPod as an external disk if you enable disk use.

This also means you can use the iPod to get music from one computer to another even without 3rd party ipod-rip type software; drag and drop from within iTunes to a folder on the "disk" portion of the iPod (it'll treat them as files), then drag 'em to the other computer (importing 'em into iTunes if you want, at which point it'll treat them like music again. You can't play them from the iPod that way but once they're moved they can be deleted and put on the iPod through iTunes. Yes it's a bit silly but I can see why they've made it hard to get music off an iPod - stoopid record companies negotiate on idiotic principles, sigh.

I agree that DRM is a pain (obviously you can get around it by burning and re-ripping, but no, you shouldn't have to). iTunes is increasingly selling non-DRM music and Jobs has been vocal on the subject; it's not apple's "fault", though obviously that's not much help to the consumer. But if most of your music comes from CDs or indeed limewire, that becomes less of an issue


I spend really a lot of time actively managing a pretty big iTunes library and I do strongly believe that it's streets ahead of anything else I've looked at (namely winamp, mediamonkey and wmp). iTunes does rely in putting your trust in it to organise stuff. But with both "Keep iTunes music folder organised" and "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" checked you end up with a very successful way of taking full advantage of all MP3s tags have to offer, and since you have fewer buttons and less screen space on the actual MP3 player that can make a huge difference to finding music when you're out and about.

[Fremlin]

I would go for a Zen everytime!

[Snurf]

Got to say, I had a Zen and now i've got an ipod and they're both great. But I prefer the ipod over the zen. At the time I bought the Zen it was cheaper for what you got, but now I find the Ipod's cheaper and doesn't stall with my incessant flicking through songs like my Zen used to do.

[Potatojunkie]

I would go for a Zen everytime!

Everything Zen? I don't think so.

[Shannow]

All valid points; a refreshing change from the "they're pish" which is usually the limit of detractors' arguments. Not sure all the criticisms are 100% accurate though, although i concede there might be some fussing about to get around your objections. It is certainly true that iTunes works much better if you use it as they expect, rather than how you want (but to be fair to the wee gizmo, you're a bit more technically minded than the average user so may want to do more than most with it; for you to be satisfied might mean making it harder for my dad to use for example).


Anyhow, you absolutely can put music on an iPod from more than computer.

You should have no problem moving files and folders about (rather than "syncing") by using an iPod as an external disk if you enable disk use.

This also means you can use the iPod to get music from one computer to another even without 3rd party ipod-rip type software; drag and drop from within iTunes to a folder on the "disk" portion of the iPod (it'll treat them as files), then drag 'em to the other computer (importing 'em into iTunes if you want, at which point it'll treat them like music again. You can't play them from the iPod that way but once they're moved they can be deleted and put on the iPod through iTunes. Yes it's a bit silly but I can see why they've made it hard to get music off an iPod - stoopid record companies negotiate on idiotic principles, sigh.

I agree that DRM is a pain (obviously you can get around it by burning and re-ripping, but no, you shouldn't have to). iTunes is increasingly selling non-DRM music and Jobs has been vocal on the subject; it's not apple's "fault", though obviously that's not much help to the consumer. But if most of your music comes from CDs or indeed limewire, that becomes less of an issue


I spend really a lot of time actively managing a pretty big iTunes library and I do strongly believe that it's streets ahead of anything else I've looked at (namely winamp, mediamonkey and wmp). iTunes does rely in putting your trust in it to organise stuff. But with both "Keep iTunes music folder organised" and "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" checked you end up with a very successful way of taking full advantage of all MP3s tags have to offer, and since you have fewer buttons and less screen space on the actual MP3 player that can make a huge difference to finding music when you're out and about.

Winamp 5 allows you to drag and drop onto an ipod without, mercifully, ever having to use itunes at all, a discovery that made filling up a friends iPod a much less stressful experience, as iTunes on windows is a real resource hog, and file transfer nubingly slow.