apple ipod vs. creative zen

Thanks fara. And I'm talking to the audiophile.

And as a side note, the Cowon is huuge.

 

Ahem... I have a Cowon iAudio X5. It's purely for music. It has video playback, but just a gimmick on it. Not big. Not huge. It's the same width and height as a 4th gen ipod. The thickest place (the screen part) is a bit thicker, with the bottom part being thinner. Durable as hell (it's scratch proof^^).

 

x) Sorry, thought you meant the monster one that Han was referring to on page 9, that could "fit in your pocket, depending on the pocket".

 

So why did you tell itunes to oraganize your music? I thought during install, it had a pretty clear option to tell it not to do so (on the XP side).
But I like the way it auto organizes mine. Just took a while to get used to it vs. Winamp and WMP. Of course, having a mac, iTunes runs better than it did on my windows machine

I'm not really sure how it's a monopoly. There is other software that can sync with ipods (don't know the names off the top of my head, but I know people who do that under linux).

If only other mp3 players could sync up with itunes... sigh. I don't buy much off itunes (only when I'm impulsive) but the DRM is easy enough to remove... but gah, come on! Let me buy a slick sansa and sync that!

 

The way itunes organizes ([artist folder]\[album folder]\[songs]) is quite excellent. That means that when I browse my music on my cowon (which only supports folder mode - annoying, I know), I can easily find what I want.

Oh, and I've sat on it for nearly 2,5 years (I keep it in my back pocket), and it's still as good as new.

 

I actually find that the way iTunes organizes my music was a lot better than WMP. Realize that before my Macbook, I had been using WMP for several years.

WMP would always freeze on me and glitch. iTunes hasn't had any of the problems that I have encountered with WMP.

Though, this may be a personal experience, I find that iTunes runs a lot better on my Mac, than WMP on my Windows computer.

 

heh.. yeah, WMP wasn't the best. But it ended up being better than Winamp during it's later iterations. that just never seemed to work right after I think version 2 (or maybe 3).

fabarati, are you able to sync the cowon to itunes? or do you just copy your folders over?

And I'm surprised no one has developed a app that fools itunes to thinking that your player is an ipod, and thus allowing syncing.

 

I just copy my folders over. I tried itunesagent but it was sloooooow. And is it's seen as a external HDD, the other tool doesn't work, the one that's faster.

 

You can sync your iPod with WinAmp Although not the iPod touch yet...

 

wow you guys that are complaining about iTunes being messed up and screwing up your music library have definately not tried the new zune software. it is soooooo terrible! you cant even edit the parts of the song or w/e (like genre, artist, album, etc.) without it not transferring over to the zune the way you want it. seriously, i think MS really screwed up their zune software from the way it was before.

 

I organize music my own way, that's why I didn't like the Itunes, I tried it before I bought my MP3 player (see how does it work), I didn't have much experience with Itunes back then. I actually was leaning toward Ipod. I did some research and went with the Zen.

Ok, I take back my words about Apple's monopolies, but you can't do anything with the Ipod without the software, which I don't like it (as related to the way I organize my music)
Frankly I like the look of the Ipod, but that's not the highest priority, I lean toward things that have more functions. I would have gone with Ipod if the Zen didn't have FM tuner and voice recording.

 

yeah, but iTunes doesn't force you to organize music it's way. It asks you if you want it to handle the organization. If you don't, it won't touch your files.

Other software can sync with the iPod. It can EASILY be hacked so you can drag and drop your mp3's. Granted, you do have to hack that...
Yeah, FM is useless to me, but I could see it being important to some people. Same with voice recordings. I have a cell phone that can do that, as well as set alarms for me and what not. If I had an mp3 player with FM, I would hope it could record the broadcast! That would be pretty slick. Could be kinda cool, but I NEVER listen to the radio myself.

 

Since it would harder to get the Ipod work my way, I'm better off just get other. And I'm not so much familiar with Apple and their hard/software (though I'm familiar with hacking ) I only know a little about Mac OS.
And yes the Zen can record radio.

 

Ok, a few points that I'm going to make here from a few pages back.
Who ever stated that the Cowon's use 2.5" hard drives in the their players obviously knows nothing. Cowons use a 1.8" single platter drive in their hard drive players(except maybe the X5, it might use a double platter drive).

trueintentions: if your intentions were true and you wanted battery life then you'd realize that there are other players that blow ipods out of the water in this area. Cowon Iaudio7 pulls 60 hours on one charge, and the D2(touch screen) pulls 52 audio and 10 video. These are based on manufactures tests, but they don't fall to short of those in real life situations.

trueintentions: you should also realize that they're smaller Cowon's such as the U2, I7, D2. I can EASILY fit all of those in the same pocket as my phone.

fabarati: The Cowon D2 uses ID3 tagging if that helps any(instead of file folder).

Ok, a little personal preference: itunes? Yeah, I tried it, and just about crushed my brand new 2k computer simply because of that one program. I couldn't wait to get it off of my computer. And as far as looks go, those Cowons are pretty fancy looking if you ask me(A2, D2, X5 and such) I think the new Creative Zen looks pretty fancy too.

 

^^yeah, I have an X5. It doesn't support id tag browsing. It has a 20GB 1,8" drive, the same as in the 4th Gen ipod.

Cowons might use 2,5" in their larger mp3-players (those with 100+ GB storage), as there was no 100+ 1,8" drive untll, like, August this year..

 

For me, my battery life on my iPod has, by far, passed the testing numbers. In the first half a year, my iPod would last up to 40-50 hours. I'm not kidding. I would bring it to a weeklong camp, and play it for almost an entire night, each night, and play it every day as well. The battery would be down to almost nothing by the end of the week, but it still had enough juice to play my music until the end of the bus ride. Maybe I take extra care of my battery, I don't know, but my experience is that it has been great.

I realize there are smaller Cowon's, but I was referring to the one that Han had posted.


Also, do realize that all users on this thread, zune, creative zen, and iPod users, has come to a consent that it's really preference and what you want to use the mp3 player for, how you use it, and where and when you use it. It comes down to the person in the end. I never was trying to say that the "iPod is the best mp3 player", simply because it is not. This entire time, I have been trying to have others open their minds a little more to the iPod, and to help everyone else realize it's all up to preference. I find that this is even true when comparing Apple computers and Windows computers. It's really up to preference in the end.

 

I forgot to mention, don't make puns out of my username... -.-'

 

As of now the largest capacity that Cowon releases is 60GB. And as far as I can remember thats all the larger they've ever released. You can mod them to get larger capacities though, I've modded my A2 to have 100GB.