Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Need some advice about MP3 players

I don't have any advice for you other than to avoid the Zune like the plague. Especially the brown one.

Reasons to stay far away from the Zune:

You can only transfer tunes using the Zune app. And it stinks horribly.

It doesn't interface with Microsoft's own Windows Media Player.

You can't even play tunes downloaded with MS's PlaysforSure DRM crappage, uh, packaging. You have to replace all previously bought tunes.

MS is almost guaranteed to bow to the RIAAs wish and allow tiered pricing so they can twist your arm to pay more for new "hot" tracks. As if there is much the member companies put out nowadays that is worth buying in the first place.

It's chunky.

The much-touted "wi-fi" feature doesn't allow wireless sync to your desktop or wireless downloads. It only allows you to share music with other Zune (l)users and the shared file can only be played or viewed 3 times before it turns into a permanent promotion to buy the file.

So run, don't walk, run away screaming from the Zune as if it is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse themselves.

We've got a Creative MuVo (Lisa uses it while power walking) it's pretty intuitive, the software is a downside as far as I'm concerned, but you can always use your own ripping/encoding software. It's a nice little thing, size of a jump drive, fits snugly into the armband holder. It's small (512K) but we've had it for quite a while.

Bought my youngest sister-in-law a Sandisk one for Christmas. I was pretty impressed with it from playing with it in the store. Except the buds don't fit my tiny little ear'oles but that's par for the course.

Bren R.

Out of the 3 you listed, iPod hands down. Bear in mind that the Zune is a repackage of the Gigabeat w/ a different GUI.

OK, I'll preface by saying I'm an Apple fanboy. BUT, I do have experience w/ various MP3's. In historical order: Rio PMPOne, Creative PMP300, Creative Muvo 128MB, iPod 4G 20GB, iPod Nano 4GB.

My coworker picked up a Zune the other day because it has a competing Wifi solution in there, Key Stream IIRC.

Pros:
- I actually like the brown.
- Bigger screen than iPod 5.5G

Cons:
- Man, for a 2nd gen (it's a rebrand of the Toshiba Gigabeat), it really feels (physically) unfinished. Almost like it's a prototype. The matte finish is nice as it probably doesn't pick up finger prints too easily but it's not doesn't feel right.
- Doesn't support Vista, admitted by MS already. DOH!
- Only supports WMV. ANY video has to be converted to WMV and then DRM'ed. Said it took him an hour per video that he pulled from his PSP MPEG4 library. Stupid.
- Doesn't support plays4sure.
- Screen doesn't appear as bright as even a 5G iPod video.
- Screen aspect ratio cannot be changed when watching vids. Heck, even the PSP does that.
- Navigation is weird. They couldn't use the iPod hierarchical method because the patent belongs to Creative so it has an odd directory structure.
- There's no scroll wheel. You have to click the Navigation wheel to move around. Not very intuitive. Once again, I think this is a patent issue.

So bad, I didn't even bother listening to it. Though, my buddy claims that the audio might be slightly better than the iPod.

Someone mentioned the Creative and Sandisk ones those seem to get good reviews. As far as sound quality, it depends a lot on the compression you use. For my own MP3 rips, I use 320Kbps but the AAC ones I buy from iTunes are fine. It does help to upgrade the headphones, the stock ones are only OK. I've upgraded to Ultimate Ears Superfi.5EB which are awesome, IMHO.

When connecting an iPod or any MP3 player to a home or car stereo, the headphone jack would be the lowest quality. You can eliminate a conversion stage by connecting to the dock port. Sounds much better.

I've had the 30Gig video iPod for about a month now and I love it. The last "portable music device" I owned was a cassette walkman - 17 years ago! You would not beleive the difference in audio quality!! What is everyone complaining about!?!?! No hiss. No drop outs. Nothing!

Anyhow, back from the 80's, I really like the interface, but I can't warm to iTunes. Actually, it borders on hate. Maybe it's that I'm getting older, and it's harder to figure things out. I mean, what's with this whole "sync" noncense? What happened to the little red "record" button? I miss my record button! And when I press "Eject iPod", nothing happens! Used to be when a fella pressed eject, something would pop out!

Oh, I'm tired. I need to lay down......

Thanks for the advice. Honestly the Zune wasn't my top choise out of the 3 but I wanted to hear what ya'll thought about it.

I really am debating between the iPod and the Toshiba Gigabeat (though it's related to the Zune it looks like it's actually a whole lot better). I like the fact that the Tosh is compatible with plays for sure (though I don't purchase music, I usually rip my own cds and I hate DRM'd mp3s). As far as I can tell I prefer the Tosh's UI over the iPod's and I couldn't care less for iTunes and I actually don't like the whole default Apple OS X look, so that player would have to really be the best for me to choose it (the only thing I like about it is the click wheel and it's not enough of a good feature for me to choose it over this).

Anyways if I do go with the Tosh I'll give my impressions on it.

Thanks for the help!

I've got to clarify something here; there's been a lot of FUD about it. iTunes does NOT apply DRM to music you rip yourself. The DRM is only present in music purchased from the iTunes Store, and it's actually less restrictive than the Plays4Sure DRM. iTunes can rip as MP3, AAC (non-DRMed, and an actual standard used by other manufacturers), or Apple Lossless. Hell, it'll even do the CD standard.

I figured that iTunes wouldn't DRM mp3s ripped from my own cds, but I didn't know it was more lenient than play for sure. Where can I find out the DRM restrictions for iTunes and play for sure? I'd like to compare them.
That's something I will keep in mind though I don't anticipate buying songs online anytime soon. I like to buy cds and then rip them if necessary.

Your post did remind me of something I totally forgot to mention: The ability to listen to the radio with the mp3 player. This is something that I would definitely want since I do like the ability to listen to local stations (mostly for news, weather). Though that wouldn't be the most essential reason to choose one player over another, I don't like the fact that the iPod would require an optional add-on to be able to listen to FM radio (while the Toshiba player comes with a FM tuner).