So you know ...i have an ipod, have used for a few days at regionals a dell mp3 player...not sure what the name was. I found the interface to blow, but i was partial to my ipod. I've also used a few of the creative for listening purposes at regionals. On a team of 16 players, we had 1 dell, 4 ipods, one mini ipod, and a creative..sorry i don't know the exact type.The rest had old school cd players....lol Of them all the ipods imo were the easiest to use and best design. maybe doesn't mean much to you, but i prefer idiot proof user ability. I also know how easy the ipod syncs to the computer...yes you can do playlists on the ipod. Regardless of all the reviews you find...the ipod is still the standard. I'd just suggest going and looking at them yourself. My link to the stereophile was more to discount people saying they can't or don't sound good, that's just plain not true. Every user has a choice of importing better sound, compression is a factor ...bottomline. I don't need to sell you an ipod....sell yourself. Anyone who reads reviews, but doesn't test drive the thing is a fool. I read consumer report all the time for things i buy, but i still go and touch and feel and look for myself. That's my final deciding factor in any purchase. Make a list of 3 or 4, then test drive them...you'll make a better choice for yourself.
This is incorrect. The Zen touch does have a playlist feature, and apparently a very simply, yet intuitive one at that.
Well I just got my Zen Touch 20GB in the mail today at about 3. By approximately 6 I had begun loading my songs and had already set playlists. It's not the greatest software ever, but very intuitive and I was able to work with it and get the music where it needed to go in a fairly short time. The sound quality is good, noticeably better than the (4th Generation) iPod I am testing against for my music (U2, Weezer, Counting Crows, The Who and Beatles so far) but not knock-your-socks-off better. The touch strip is no trouble at all to use. Based on reviews I anticipated it would be pretty sensitive so first thing I did was to set the sensitivity to low and it has been fine. A couple overshoots of songs but I'm mostly able to get where I want very quickly. The interface is very nice in my opinion. I haven't spent a lot of time with the iPod interface, but I can say that the Zen interface is very easy to use. I haven't yet tried to create a playlist just by using the player (I uploaded about 9 from my computer) so I can't really comment on that yet. For $215 (including tax and shipping) I can't imagine that there's a better option out there for me. This player stands alone as a quality one without being compared to any others, though I feel so far that it holds its own with the iPod. At almost a hundred dollars cheaper and with twice the battery life I am very pleased with my choice.
After considerably more research than I had originally intended I came to the realization that the next 'generations' of the top three players (iPod, iRiver Hs, and Creative) will be substantially better than what is currently available now that there is significant competition (i.e. I'm going to wait till summer to pick one up). Not to mention that the MP3 player is THE gift this year (the iRiver H120 was/is sold out almost everywhere). The Creative Zen Touch is available mostly online, but is back ordered at most 'brick and morter' (I hate that term) stores. The iPod is available everywhere, but I'm really not all that impressed with them after considering price, accessories, and software.
And don't forget the Oakley Thump. Yes the sunglasses company has come up with a MP3 player that's selling extremely well.
I've justed used the Creative MuVo2 4.0 GB. It may not have the same features as the Ipod Mini...but it's really nice. Very small and not heavy at all. The controls aren't as bad as some say they are. The upload of songs is really, really fast with the USB 2.0 cable. The sound equality is great. So far..no complaints.
So I had an old Creative Jukebox 3 or something. I only used it in the car with a cassette adapter so its not like I was pushing the boundries of performance with it. The GF borrows my car and somebody steals it (edit:the player, not the car). What they're going to do with it without the charger or anything like that, who knows...but anyway. I say don't worry about it, its a 3 year old fossil. She won't have any of it and figures out it was a $300 player (probably worth about $100 today) and goes shopping. Today I got a Creatize Zen Micro and man is it great. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with comparing it to the clunky old one I had before, but this one will be used in more places than just my car. Never had an Ipod, so I won't go ranting about what's better, just saying the Micro is a pretty sweet.
Yeah, but if you really like that song, it's nice to have access to it whenever you do want to hear it which is why I like my 40 gig ipod. It's a little over half full and it will take a long time before I hear any song 5 times on random play, much less 10.
Plus, you can disable songs you are tired of hearing without deleting it from your iPod. Or even better, you can easily set up a smart playlist so if you hear one song more than, say, 10 times, it's removed from the playlist. And you can keep a separate playlist of songs you don't mind hearing over and over again. Smart playlists are so, so useful yet under-utilized.
I don't use it enough either. "Last played" and play count are useful for setting up smart playlists if you have a huge library and don't feel like stumbling onto the same song again and again.
creative is the bose of computer and digital sound creative+ bose headphones would sound like a 2000 dollar 5.1 system andi m serious i had a creative64mb when the first came out and it sounded like a million bucks
Then you woke up to a coka can and a string. JK Anyways...creative is more like the sanyo of audio...yeah that or audiovox. NEXT
Well i sure wouldn't compare it to bose or any other med to high end real stereo component, so no Apple isn't the best sounding. Metro, his comparison is just plain out there. If someone made the same comment about any mp3 player they would be a bit off base. Although i believe all of the mp3 players would sound pretty good at 320 over 128 that most people save them at. Not to rain on your parade, but i don't consider bose high end anyways. To me they are medium at best. I guess it's the fact i own real equipment not average stuff like bose.
santa brought me a 5gb dell pocket dj. i wanted a smaller unit since i will use it at the gym and jogging. i have used an ipod and the only thing better on the ipod is the thumb wheel. i don't use the included musicmatch software to rip cd's, because it's slow (unless you buy the $20 upgrade). it works great and i have no complaints.
the creative zens are the nicest small unit out there they are really something gonna kick ipod minis to death
Yeah ummmmm yeah...oh wait top sellers on amazon.com ipods and ipod mini's. Millions sold...cha ching!!! Zen...use the zen Luke..wait that's the force..anyways
I'm on the verge of getting a mp3 player that will be used for jogging, since I'm getting ready for a marathon. It like both the iPod mini(disk-based) and the Creative MuVo(flash-based), but have a few more questions. #1) How well does the iPod mini hold up to running? Has anyone dropped their's while jogging in the rain? Would the iPod mini survive that? Would the hard-drive break eventually if it was used exclusively for jogging? #2) I've got to convert old cassette tapes into mp3 format, and need an in-line recording capability. Has anyone tried them on these players? How well does it work?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but if you were converting to MP3, I would do the conversion on my computer first. Are there programs that convert straight to a player?