iPod vs. Zen review

[austonia]

I allready have a Nomad Zen. I was able to get a good deal on an iPod through dell so when this arrives I will do a head-to-head comparison.

They both have built-in batteries and near-same playtime.

Putting aside the things that may be subjective (UI preference, sound quality, volume).

The Zen offers superior price-to-performance, a remote that has LCD readout & FM radio, some EAX DSP options, on-the-fly playlists, and upgradability (to 60gb).

iPod offers smaller size, larger screen, longer warrentee, larger controls, apple compatability, contacts+calender, optical scrollwheel.

i will update in a week.

 

[austonia]

mini-update.

I recieved the iPod from Dell today. I am very impressed, but I knew I would be from the demo unit I've played with at Microcenter.

I should point out that I have a little obsession with Digital audio players, and Zen and iPod are the top of the class. I've had several flash-memory based players but they were too annoying to have to change out the songs all the time. I still have a Samsung Uproar PCS phone with built in 64mb MP3 player.

The iPod is new to me so pardon my excitement. First of all, damn, it's small and light. It looks like a toy next to the Zen. It feels about 70% of the weight of the Zen, which makes a big difference in the "sag" factor of my jacket pocket where I put these players.

The Zen feels sturdier and more damage-resistant, but I expected that too. The weight difference may account in part to the Zen's housing. I will point out that my Zen has been in constant use for 3 months with no cosmetic dings at all. I have heard the iPod is easily scratched, and it looks more fragile. I am ordering an iSee case for it before it leaves the house. The Zen is fine to bang around in a pocket with no case but I am unsure about the iPod from the looks of it.

Both players sound great and provide more than adequate volume to my Sony D66 eggos. These headphones are so damn good (a surprise from Sony), I havn't even touched my others since I got it.

Transfer speed : I think the iPod wins. I havn't moved files to Zen in awhile but the iPod was blazingly fast.

Easy of interface : iPod shows up as a logical drive. damn, that's nice. Zen does not. I did not bother using the included MuliMedia Jukebox because, it sucks ass, just like RealVideo/Juke/ products. Straight to ephpod. Works great, clean interface. That was easy! Creative's software does work (~functional~) but it's ugly and "cumbersome". blech. at least, once you get an iPod or Zen loaded, you don't have to muck with the sotware much afterwords.

screen : obviously, iPod wins this one. Zen's screen is tiny. This is a bigger drawback for the Zen than it's size. The Zen's screen is just the very minimum size needed for it to be a contender. It is high resolution. And almost impossible to navigate while driving.

both players have non user-replacable batteries. BOOO! For $400 a pop these toys have a finite shelf life. Hopefully the companies will bow to public pressure or a 3rd party vendor will chime in offering replacements. This is a serious consideration for people that expect these to last 3-5 years or more.

remotes : The iPod remote is smaller and more rugged (metal) but offers only the basics. The Zen is cheapy plastic and goofy-shaped, but it is easy to use and has a hi-res LCD readout for ID3 tag information, has FM remote, and Voice recording built in. Really, all i like it for is the LCD showing the song title, and it's easy to control the Zen using the 4-way pad. The clips on both these remotes are crappy and offer very little gripping power.

ok, enough for now, more later.

 

[Johno]

I was reading up on high tech gadgets this evening and was indirectly lead to this thread on ipodhacks.com, concerning battery life for the ipod. No biggie, most of you probably are aware, I just thought I'de mention it..

http://www.ipodhacks.com/article.php?sid=163

 

[austonia]

you'd think that with 4 million iPods in circulation and a number of others like Zen that some battery company somewhere would see this as a huge oppurtunity. All these players with built-in batteries will have degradation over time and no one is going to toss a $300 gadget when the battery stops working. This may be a good business oppurtunity, i'll look into it if no one else will.

 

[austonia]

OK here it izzzzzzzzzzzzzz

picture time :

http://www.austinv.com/pics/ipod+zen/index1.html

20gb Zen: 75.9 x 112.6 x 24.5mm, 9.5 oz (269.8g)
10gb iPod: 60.9 x 101.6 x 18.2mm, 6.5 oz (184.6g)

 

[Peddler]

That is one hell of an intense collection of pics dude!

 

[JonCovenant]

So all the iPod bashing you did was based on what?

 

[Johno]

Pics are so deceiving concerning size. It never ceases to amaze how tiny these devices when ordering through the mail.

In the future it probably wouldn't be bad idea to place something like a bic lighter or any ordinary familiar item beside the device to give people a better idea of overall size..

That Zen sure looks purdy wrapped in silver and a bit bulky in comparison. Asthetically, the Ipod reminds me of some type of nurse's health monitor gizmo..

awesome pics,

 

[PariPassu]

I am trying to figure out whether I want to get the Zen or the 10GB iPod. I have done a lot of reading on this site and am aware of a few of the issues. In terms of my preference, I don't feel like spending $500 for the 20GB iPod and I am leaning towards the Zen for the added capacity. I have played around with the Zen at CompUSA and it's definitely small enough for me. Not really too concerned about the styling, etc.

My main concern re: the Zen is with the ID3 tags. In reading some reviews on the Zen, it seems like the player relies solely on the ID3 tags to identify and sort your files. Does this mean that you cannot simply name the file what you want to name it and organize/group related files into folders? I don't know a whole lot about MP3 players, but I envisioned being able to create a directory / subdirectory type structure where I could simply copy that structure to the Zen and rely on file names (not ID3 tags) to find the tracks I want.

A lot of the files I download/copy are live DJ sets which don't have proper ID3 tags. I am worried that I will have to go through all of my MP3's and make sure the ID3 tags are correct and descriptive or I'm never going to be able to find anything on the Zen. Is this correct? Does the iPod have similar problems. If anyone could briefly explain to me how both producs handle the sorting of files once copied to the unit, that would be helpful.

It seems like both the Zen and the iPod have the same battery issues in terms of not being able to remove/change the battery - which is kind of mind boggling to me. Is there a potential solution for either unit? I would be more inclined to have to rely on Apple than Creative for customer support when my battery dies. Any thoughts?

Which software do people recommend with Win XP and the Zen? Sounds like the included software is pretty lousy.

I apologize if a lot of this is covered in other posts, but the ease of naming / organizing files on the player is important to me and I want to make sure I fully understand this before purchasing either product.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Eric

 

[austonia]

both players have non-replaceable batteries. there is no solution at this time so know that they have finite shelf life before you spend.

Zen can be used with NotMad software ($25) instead of the Creative bloatware. I didn't want to spend the extra money and as ugly as creative's software is, it works, and you don't have to use it much once your loaded up.

Bother players build a database based on ID3 tags. You will need to get a good ID3 tagger and spend some time cleaning up your files. My favorite is MP3 Tag Studio. The player can't read your mind so this is a fact of life.

The ipod is significantly easier to use, but simplistic in comparison to zen. I own both, so i would say the one deciding factor really is size. The iPod is 30% smaller. When you see the Zen, you think hell that's small/light enough, but put in your pocket and walk around and see if your opinion is the same. I prefer the iPod on most days because I don't have to dick with the playlist, but some people like that feature on Zen. 10gb is quite alot of music, and you can always swap out with newer tracks on your hard drive. There is no file management on iPod, so you can't delete songs or see much file information - again, it's built to play music and just that. The sound on both is fantastic.

here's is a direct head-to-head comparison I am working on

http://www.austinv.com/ipodzen.htm

 

[helento1]

Quote:

Originally posted by PariPassu My main concern re: the Zen is with the ID3 tags. In reading some reviews on the Zen, it seems like the player relies solely on the ID3 tags to identify and sort your files. Does this mean that you cannot simply name the file what you want to name it and organize/group related files into folders?

That is not a problem. You can find many tools from net that can automatically put the name of the file in ID3 tag. I have tried tagrename named program. But there are many more.

 

[PariPassu]

austonia,

thanks for the response and the great site. you say that iPod is easier to use but simplistic compared to the Zen. are there any features that the iPod is lacking that the Zen provides that you wish you had (I guess you touched on the fact that you can create playlists on the zen but not on the iPod)?

keep in mind, I am not a very heavy user. much of the music that i will put on this thing will be 90+ minute mp3's that I want to let play through. so i am not even going to be using playlists as much as the typical person.

the iPod lets you select individual tracks to play on the fly, right? in other words, you are not limited to selecting playlists to play? it sounds like the iPod doesn't let you compile a playlist in the actual unit - you have to do it with the software and transfer it - is this correct?

just so I understand, when you transfer files to the device, there is no directory tree structure? everything is just stored in the same place and you simply search the database by name or artist, etc?

Is the scratching really that bad on the iPod? I guess I would keep it in the case most of the time, but it sounds like it's impossible to keep the thing ding-free.

Thanks for your help.

 

[aeberbach]

The MP3 tag situation is a definite problem. If you download any music files you're going to find when you put them on your player that sometimes people like to call the same band different things. When you browse by artist you'll find albums by:
R.E.M.
R.E.M
REM
R-E-M
a real pain. Sometimes you even end up with songs from the same album with this problem. Even if you only encode your own CDs the entries from CDDB or freedb will make them come out differently.

The way I get around it is to manage all my MP3s in a hierarchical directory structure, with artist->album->track levels. I use TagScanner to batch retag all my files based on the directory structure once I have moved them all into the right place. That way all the songs are called what I want and I have all the albums and tracks in right place when I browse. This method would solve PariPassu's problem with live stuff that comes without tags.

If there's a better way or better software than TagScanner share it.

 

[stan23]

One of the beauty in which the way the ipod works is how you organize your music...

Basically.. When you transfer your music, you can do it by directiory with no tags involoved. You can just use whatever the file name of the .mp3.

On that directory that you transfer, the software I used (ephod) will automatically generate a playlist for that directory.. So basically you can just organize your mp3s by making a folder for each genre, artist, etc. Upload them each as directorys, and the ipod will just seem them as each individual playlists.

you can also of course, browse by 'all songs' which will list all the songs stored into the ipod.

Their file organization blows away the creative lab's process, which IMO is very cumbersome (I had a NJB1 with latest firmware before)

I found that the ipod is so userfriendly and so upfront, that one can learn to use it in about 5 minutes by just playing around with the menu. The OS is just that great. Everything is simple and quick to the point.

You can't tell me you can do that with the Zen...

When comparing both devices, one can look at specs alone (20GB vs. 40GB, prices, etc..) but the real beauty is in the usability of the device, which you will no doubt appreciate more than the amount of songs it holds..

Quite simply, their is no comparison. I looked at the zen heavily before buying the ipod, but I found the OS to be completely lacking.. It is not something I want to use everyday..

Another side bonus that is rarely mentioned... Under XP, you can just plug in the ipod, and it will pop up in windows explorer as a drive letter.. No software is needed to use it as a HD. You can also browse the ipods contents, and you will see all your mp3s there! File name intact! However, you cannot just drag and drop mp3 files and have them show up on the ipod. You will need dedictated transfering software to do that. (it has to write to the ipods table of contents.

When you have the ipod plugged into a 6-port firewire card, it will also charge the unit.

I have found the transfers to be blazingly fast as well.. I get around 7MB / SEC under ephod.




Quote:

Originally posted by PariPassu austonia, thanks for the response and the great site. you say that iPod is easier to use but simplistic compared to the Zen. are there any features that the iPod is lacking that the Zen provides that you wish you had (I guess you touched on the fact that you can create playlists on the zen but not on the iPod)? keep in mind, I am not a very heavy user. much of the music that i will put on this thing will be 90+ minute mp3's that I want to let play through. so i am not even going to be using playlists as much as the typical person. the iPod lets you select individual tracks to play on the fly, right? in other words, you are not limited to selecting playlists to play? it sounds like the iPod doesn't let you compile a playlist in the actual unit - you have to do it with the software and transfer it - is this correct? just so I understand, when you transfer files to the device, there is no directory tree structure? everything is just stored in the same place and you simply search the database by name or artist, etc? Is the scratching really that bad on the iPod? I guess I would keep it in the case most of the time, but it sounds like it's impossible to keep the thing ding-free. Thanks for your help.

 

[PariPassu]

So stan...in your example where you transfer an entire directory and the iPod stores the directory as a playlist, the ID3 tags are still transferred for each song and are what you will see when you browse "all songs", right?

I guess my question is - does the iPod store songs and playlists separately (i.e. each song within a playlist is saved to the master song database) or does it treat an entire playlist as a "song"?

Thanks,
Eric