Need MP3 player advice - Zune vs IPOD

Jeff Strouse · From: Jacksonville, Florida, USA

I'm finally ready to purchase an MP3 player, but I'm torn between the IPOD and Zune (both 80 GB players).

I've read reviews of each, both seem to be overall equally good players. It just seems to boil down to features.

Zune: I like the bigger screen, and reviews say it has a better touch pad with faster scrolling. It has some extras I won't use, except it might be handy to have an FM radio. However, it cannot record live radio, so that's a big minus. How often would I even want to listen to the radio, when the reason I want the MP3 player in the first place is to listen to my musc?

Ipod: Has an equalizer feature...I would think this would be very important...atleast to control bass and treble. I have a lot of recordings from LP and cassette, and sometimes the music is either too bass heavy, or not enough.

All my friends say go IPOD (but they don't have Zunes to compare). After several days of thinking, I've almost decided on the IPOD. But Darn it, if only it had large screen, like the Zune. I'm sure the next generation of IPODs will have a larger screen, but the longer I wait, the more I'm not enjoying having my entire music collection at my fingertips, wherever I go.

Overall, I think I need to go IPOD, because of the equalizer. But that screen will get tiring on the eyes over time.

I'm not sure which service is better (Itunes or Zune), or the reliability of the units. The battery appears to be not replaceable. How long will the IPOD usually last before you have to buy a new one?

Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Thanks for any help!

Smile

Marc Jenkins · From: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Jeff,

I'm from an iPod household myself. We've got 3 between 2 of us... You can replace the battery, as well. It's a little tricky, but I've done it successfully. As well, I find the interfacing with itunes to be totally seamless. So does my 60 year old dad, which is proof of it's usability!

Michael Haselman · From: St. Paul

Ipods are OK unless you like WMA files, which you can't use, and I use my Creative Zen for my audio books, downloadable from Netlibrary, which you also cannot use on Ipod.
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Greg Cutshaw · From: Corry, PA, USA

I've had the 80GB Zune for about 6 weeks now. It directly accepts .wma files and I mostly use the .wma format. The large screen is awesome for videos and I have been able to download and convert all my favorite YouTube steel guitar videos to something that plays well on the Zune. Mine has about 2700 songs and about 16 GB used.

The software is not without bugs but I've been able to get mine working fine. Your mileage may vary. I do have to use a tag editor for some of the music I ripped myself in order to get it to show up properly in the library.

All of the music sounds great. Since the 80GB zune includes the $40 premium headphones, if you get them properly into your ears almost all ambient noise is sealed out and the bass is plenty loud but extremely tight. I have not missed having an equalizer at all although I can certainly understand you wanting one (it should have one! the 30GB Zune did). All of my types of music sound good enough without the EQ and you can hear every nuance in the music, even at low volumes as the earphone reproduction is very faithful and extremely fast to respond to transients.

IPODs now offer a conversion routine for .wma files. So far, there is no Zune support for audio books. I don't use the Zune Fm radio much, but it displays the station, artist and song titles for each song.

If you read the forums you will find a LOT of people both praising and bashing the Zune and the IPOD.

Greg

Carl Williams · From: Oklahoma

Jeff,
I vote for IPOD...I'm fast approaching 1,000 songs and still adding as I go from my collection to downloading from ITUNES...I can't speak to the others out there on the market. I take my IPOD and plug it in to my Bose Speakers next to my Steel and jam away with the tracks I've loaded...Now, if you anticipate needing alot of memory, I'd go to the 8 Gig as far as songs. I have approx 4 Gig and about 1,000 songs will be my max...Good luck with your choice...Carl

Michael Haselman · From: St. Paul

Yes, I believe it depends on the applications. If it's music only, Ipod may be the way to go. Also, if you like Itunes, Ipod is the only way to go. I'm hooked on audio books for the day job commute, jogging, etc. Netlibrary is wonderful. Free, and just like the library, you have 3 weeks, then you have to renew. Great selection. I also use it for music, but books are my main use right now.
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Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

The best overall experience in practical everyday use for music is hands down the iPod. Nobody has been able to touch Apple yet in that department. Zune is trying, but the overall ease of use and quality of experience is pretty much dominated by the iPod these days.

Brad

Edward Efira · From: California, USA

get yourself an ipod touch, it's an iphone without the phone and the slickiest portable player ever designed.
I have one and it has a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge screen, all the utilities you would dream of including wi-fi and it comes now with 32GB of memory.

Ed
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Jeff Strouse · From: Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Thanks for all the tips. But last night, a friend at work told me to get the Zen M 60gb by Creative Labs...great sound, in-line & voice recording, custom EQ, simple interface, sound normalization, and best of all, you can import directly from Windows Media Library (don't need to filter everthing through Itunes). But, it looks as if the Zen M has been discontinued. Sad

So I guess it's back to deciding between Zune 80gb or Ipod 80gb....

Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

The Vision M is a good unit except they used a touch pad for navigation. It locks up all the time (at least on mine) and you had to reset it (often) and it was hard to control. Mine finally got to where I couldn't reset it. While under parts warranty, but not labor, I just bought a regular Creative Zen. Small, 16GB with SD memory card expansion and REAL BUTTONS. If I sent the M in for repair, I just didn't have the confidence that it wouldn't break down again. I'm sure they discontinued the Vision M because of the touch pad problems. I have since stumbled across a procedure where you push the reset when powering on, and can do repairs to the system. I just reformatted the drive, and it rebuilt the operating sytem and works like new. Now I have 2.

Check out the post in music by Greg Cutshaw where we discussed the Zune. I bought one and couldn't get it to work (and have heard others with the same complaint). Greg has some great advice on the Zune. People who get it to work have a great player. Of course, Bill Gates has a curse on me and everything I have from Microsoft gives me problems. I am sure he has a voodoo doll of me that he sticks pins into every night when he goes to bed.
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John McClung · From: Olympia WA, USA

Jeff, another strong vote for the iPod...and get a Mac while you're at it!

I have a 30GB iPod Video. It's mostly music, but more and more podcasts, I learn lots of stuff just listening while driving or walking. I'm craving the newest huge iPod Classic at 160GB...I like having as much music as I can with me, and being a player, I've got tons of CD's. Most of the music on the iPod is from my CD collection.

To Michael Haselman: you CAN get audiobooks from iTunes now, but I don't believe they're free. You can get a gazillion free podcasts, though. I wonder if anyone does a good steel guitar podcast?

The iTunes store online is such an amazing resource, and syncing down to your iPod is so easy and intuitive.

Highly recommended!
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Jeff Strouse · From: Jacksonville, Florida, USA

I think I'm going with IPOD, but I hope the Itunes program doesn't hog all my system resources (as I've heard it can).

Oh...I don't have a high speed USB port...would that be a problem?

My computer is from 2000 (Pent 3, 733 mghz) but I've expanded the RAM to the max, and it still works fine for what I need to do with it. However,I don't have a high speed (2.0) USB port...I know that will cause everything to transfer slower, but will it still work properly with the lower speed? My USB ports are connected to the Motherboard.

Don't they make keyboards with a high speed USB port on it? I wonder if that would solve the problem, and allow me to transfer at 2.0 speed..

Thanks again!

Smile

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I have a Zen Vision M 30GB now for 2 years and it's been great. Glad I didn't buy the iPod. Didn't want to deal with iTunes.
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Jeremy McCoy · From: Washington, USA

One thing no one has mentioned is the $'s involved in iPod add-ons. This is an Apple boondoggle, as far as i'm concerned. I haven't done much looking at them since I acquired my 30 gig (non-touch screen), but mine required an add-on FM receiver and add-on voice recorder. Both of which (as I recall) were included with a Zune.

If I were out buying again, i'd make sure that everything I needed was in what I was buying.

Jeff Strouse · From: Jacksonville, Florida, USA

I sure do like what I read about the Zen Vision M (60 gig)....it's built more for an audiophile. But, Creative quit making it, so no support. Mad

The market seems to be dominated with small capacity devices. And the few large devices have too many bells and whistles that I don't need (video, wireless synching, etc), and not all of the features that should be in an audio player.

Craig Stenseth · From: Naperville, Illinois, USA

Alan Kirk · From: Scotia, CA, USA

Zen Vision M. My experience with Apple stuff is: when it breaks, you throw it away.

Down with Apple's proprietary B.S.!
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Greg Cutshaw · From: Corry, PA, USA

Another consideration for USB ports is that some offer higher current for charging your USB device. The USB ports on the front of my HP computer are much lower current than the ones on the back. I believe the front ones are based off of a remote hub which is spec'd at a lot less current than the ones on the motherboard.

Greg

Bill Myers · From: Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, USA

One other thing with the IPOD...I have bought more music because of the ITunes store. I have found more music that I would never have found anywhere else. If you search on Emmons or Franklin or others it will suprise you the songs you find. It's also nice to buy the songs/cd's and download them instantly. One piece of advice though....if you are going to put much music on your pc via ITunes or any other player...get yourself another hard drive (I suggest a 200 gig or better sata drive) and when you install ITunes point your music library folder to it. Your PC will be much faster when you listen to music while you work on other things and it avoids filling up your main system drive with alot of music (I currently have about 25 gig of music on the machine).

Steve Norman · From: Seattle Washington, USA

You can hack an ipod to run linux, then you can use it on converted mp3, wav also I beleive, and og files thwarting the capitalist ipod soul sucking corporate vampires and their proprietary filth.
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Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Read a Creative Zen passage or two.

I think mine is only 2 gigs, but cost, trouble, and reliability wise, It's Miles ahead of the nightmares I looked at and tried.

The only thing that sucks worse than Sony it Apple.

The Creative Zen does need a USB, but it's got all the features I can see needing. You can come out of it into anything, including an amp.

I can't remember, but it was under a hundred bucks.

Ipod of course requires XP.

Most every thing does though..

Both Apple and Sony things in my exp are very jealous when it comes to being able to interface and intercourse if you will with other products.

Also. Stay away from SanDisk players they freeze and suck.
JM2

EJLhttp://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=203020883

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

I still have my iPod video, and my son has an iPod Touch - but a few months ago I got an Archos 605 Wifi, and it blows away any mp3 player I've ever tried. MUCH better sound, even with cheap 'phones; built-in speaker for casual listening; huge touch screen and great video capabilities; wifi function with a surprisingly strong antenna built-in. the only downsides are you pay extra for the Opera browser and mp4 viewer and it has no stylus holder (I hardly ever use one except when using the browser anyway), but even then it's worth every cent.

I got the basic 30GB model, but they make them with much larger storage capacity, another advantage over the iPod Touch. It's taking a look at. Most Office Depot stores have the 30GB model; there's also a smaller-capacity flash memory model, but I wanted enough storage to hold some music videos and a few things for work...it's cool pulling it out of a pocket, flipping out the kickstand and setting it on a client's desk, and playing a short video for them. With sound.
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