Opinions - Creative Zen or ipod Touch

[schweigs]

My current Creative Zen Xtra has teeth that are four years long so I'm thinking of changing to one of Creative Zen or ipod Touch.

Does anybody own or have any opinions on using either of the above 2 players?

I absolutely need an player that can import .m3u files. I assume that I can do that with both.

I find that the software that comes supplied is normally gash, although I haven't used mediasource or itunes for years. Are they any good? Is there decent 3rd party software for managing either player? Is there a winamp plugin that'll do the trick?

Also, although I'm not sure how much I'd use it, their video capabilities intrigue me. I'm sure video would look much better on the ipod due to the lovely big widescreen but does anyone have any experience on getting video on to either player? Does it need to be converted into a particular standard or will they play any xvid that you chuck at them?

cheers
paul

[Peet]

There's at least one winamp plugin that supports the ipod touch (ml_ipod), but I think it's pretty buggy still.

I'd get the ipod, just for the fact that it isn't made out of plastic.

[HippyDave]

The Creatives are hardy little beasts, and a cinch to load up and use... but personally I'd go for the Touch. It's just so damn sexy...

[GeeZa]

Not a big fan of Creative stuff myself, but I'm sure Zen users might be able to offer some words of advice.

The iPod Touch however, is the best thing Apple have done in yonks. It therefore makes it the best thing *anyone* has done in yonks. Now the original iPod interface was perfect. You scrolled elegently through lists of artists/albums with no fluff and no delay and it got you into your music pronto. Well, the Touch interface is actually better. Why? Because flicking the screen to scroll through lists (and it reacts to your finger speed) is actually less taxing than doing circular motions on a scroll wheel. Not only that, but because you have larger screen estate, more info is available to you simply by touching the screen. You can get from the home screen to deep into your music library in seconds.

The CoverFlow interface is eye-candy but is functionally superb. Simply touch the album cover to see the track-listing, touch the track to play it, (touch the first track to play the whole record). In portrait mode with the album art in full view, you can see a quick track listing, see time remaining, repeat or shuffle, in a single touch, or cycle back to your whole library in a couple of taps. It is the best interface to playing music I have ever seen, the only downside is you have little control of the thing when it's in your pocket. But for navigation of songs, it's killer.

*Then* of course you get video playback, which is dreamy. Again, touch controls are overlaid in a subtle manner and it's widescreen. It only accepts MP4 (or some variant thereof) so you'll have to convert any existing videos you have. I did that in one big batch over a few nights. I usually have about three DVDs on the go at one time and they usually take up about 2Gb of space each. So 6Gb for me is video, the rest is music with the odd bit of space reserved for wallpapers (mostly different pictures of Black Sabbath).

And that's not all, because Mobile Safari utterly crushes everything else. No Flash, but nobody really cares. It works beautifully and is fast and responsive. YouTube vids are brilliant. Jailbreak the thing and you get a proper Mail client, Google Maps, various widgets, some games (I use GNU Chess), IRC, and even the ability to scrobble your tunes to Last.fm. Amazing shit. When the SDK is released we're going to see some serious apps on this thing.

The on-line iTunes store works, and battery life is absolutely fine aided by decent power management. If I were you I'd go out and buy one immediately. Only word of caution is if you don't like iTunes and have lots of music and movies in incompatible formats, then you might be in for some arse ache. Also I think it's a bit confused by m3u files, generally you just copy the files into iTunes and it manages its own xml database. Otherwise, it's the best pocket media device ever but you might have issues with the software regime that comes with it.

[disciple]

Now the original iPod interface was perfect.

Eww no, the spinny wheel thing a right pain in the gym due to the lack of tactile feedback. Also having to flip between using the single control for different functions. Give me a tactile old fashioned dedicated hardware based "wheel" volume control any day.

[Jimaroid]

I'm off to San Francisco in the morning and I've got my Touch loaded up with Mighty Boosh series 3, most of House Season 1, a few other films and Count Arthur Strong's radio series. 28.8 hours of video and countless hours of audio. My eTickets are in Mail.app if I need them, all my contacts for meeting people ready to go, Google Maps to find my hotel... I could go on.


I could not survive travelling without it. I've loved it from day one and it's still like using the future. Nothing comes close, everyone else is still losing.

[GeeZa]

Now the original iPod interface was perfect.

Eww no, the spinny wheel thing a right pain in the gym due to the lack of tactile feedback.

Everything's a pain in a gym though isn't it?

Never thought the wheel was a big problem tbh, the click-wheel that came with the Mini was better though probably because of the tactile thing so I see your point. I remember other mp3 players at the time (some of which I owned) which basically made you navigate "folders" by pressing up or down. You soon wanted to smash the thing into little pieces and then force the plastic shards into your own eyeballs.

[Cloudane]

As a it's my duty to say iPod Touch. Well I started with one of those and then ended up with an iPhone. Gorgeous devices

The only time I would suggest anything else is if you're the sort who hates Apple's restrictive "do everything through iTunes" style.

I'm not actually sure on .m3u's. On brief research (http://web.synkaudiostudios.com/blog/20 ... tunes.html), it seems that you'd basically be "converting" them to iTunes own proprietary database format.

I'll be popping mine (16GB) on eBay soon cos of the iPhone, though if you find that a Touch is suitable for what you need give me a shout if you want a well looked after second hand one. (sorry if that sounds spammy but I'd rather give first refusal to someone I 'know' first!)

[schweigs]

... but personally I'd go for the Touch. It's just so damn sexy...

I could not survive travelling without it. I've loved it from day one and it's still like using the future. Nothing comes close, everyone else is still losing.

The iPod Touch however, is the best thing Apple have done in yonks. It therefore makes it the best thing *anyone* has done in yonks.

I'm hearing a lot touch love

And I agree it is an amazing device. This may sound ridiculous but it may have too much functionality for an mp3 player. It does so much that I'd always want to have it with me - esp Safari for instant internet around the house. At the moment the only device that I always have with me is my phone so I'll end up carrying 2 devices.

If only the iphone was/had:

32GB
3G
a better camera (my phone is the only camera I have)
not quite so *staggeringly* expensive

It only accepts MP4 (or some variant thereof) so you'll have to convert any existing videos you have.

Does this mean that xvid will need to be converted? It is an mpeg4 codec isn't it?

Any Creative Zen owners out there? I'm interested to know what the software for managing them is like. Are there any decent 3rd party apps?

[Drew Badly]

I am in exactly the same situation as you. My creative Zen has served me well but I had a play on a touch today and just being able to fart around on utube over wifi sold it for me. Yummy screen and soooo slim.

How much do you want for yours cloudane?


The other thing thats made me wobble on another creative is the amazing amount of speakers & docks you can get for ipod. Zilch for anything creative.

[THEDARKPRIESTCYRIC]

I was a big Creative fan until the iPhone which I have been lusting after since it was announced an finally acquired one a week ago today and it has lived up to my lofty expectations and in some ways even surpassed them (EDGE isn't so bad if your just browsing forums and such and the camera while lacking flash takes good photos). Get an iPod touch, no other device is in the same league as it.

[Yak]

You really can't beat the Touch. It's an awesome iPod and does so much other stuff superbly too. It's one bit of tech that never fails to elicit a good response from people who see it for the first time, too. Too often the following scenario has taken place down the pub:

<talking about sheep>

me: Oh, I have some lovely pics of them here. *fishes out touch*

*opens photo page, scrolls through Photo Library page*

them:

me: Er, yeah, that's every pic I've taken since last September. Ah, here we are...

*switches to fullscreen view, rotates iPod, image rotates to fill the screen*

them:

*scrolls around, flips through a few photos, does the whole Minority Report bit to zoom in on a particularly cute lamb's face*

them:

*exits photo app* ah, yeah, and I have some cute video of them too...

*goes to videos, runs "Shearing 2007" or "Inserting Carrots Into Animals"

them:

By this stage they are asking me what the fuck IS that thing, and I'm explaining it's an iPod, but I'm in the pub and there's wifi so I mention how it also does the net, and I go to Safari and open some website and show them how it works...

them:

And finally I reiterate that it really is an iPod, and I show them the scrolly list of tunes, and it's eviodent how a bit pf physics in a UI can impress people. Then I turn it sideways again and show the coverflow and how to flip the albums over and such.

The best bit is that they think it's made of pure future but I can also point out it isn't even that expensive given all it does.

I don't know a lot about the Zen but it'd have to be pretty godly to beat out the Touch. Being a pauper I've been unable to buy much of anything since I got my Touch; good thing then that it's that good that it satisfies one's gadget lust for many months just by dint of pure awesomeness.

[disciple]

Now the original iPod interface was perfect.

Eww no, the spinny wheel thing a right pain in the gym due to the lack of tactile feedback.

Everything's a pain in a gym though isn't it?

Never thought the wheel was a big problem tbh, the click-wheel that came with the Mini was better though probably because of the tactile thing so I see your point. I remember other mp3 players at the time (some of which I owned) which basically made you navigate "folders" by pressing up or down. You soon wanted to smash the thing into little pieces and then force the plastic shards into your own eyeballs.

This has no bearing on touch vs Zen, I am just really picking up on your "iPod has the perfect interface" comment.

Picture yourself on a running machine with an iPod Nano strapped to your arm, you need to change volume or go forward a track or fast forward a bit, there is no feedback. The number of times it's not done what I wanted or I've turned the volume all the way down and had to fuck around with the thing trying to locate the circle and figure out what mode I'm in while trying turn the volume back up while simultaneously trying not to break my pace/rhythm!

As I say the above would be a complete non-issue with an old fashioned spinny volume wheel. The only issue being of course that it doesn't seem as cool.

The Nano was bought for use in the gym and outdoor exercise. I never used it sat on the bus or anything like that. It's great if you can see the screen, shit if you can't. Given that Apple gave focus towards marketing it for gym use my experience is that for my purposes the user interface was poor.

[Cloudane]

You can get dock-controlled headphones that have remotes built into them IIRC, that said I prefer my Shuffle for gym and driving.

How much do you want for yours cloudane?

Thinking 'bout £155 to one of you lot (plus postage. Prices seem to very a lot but hang around £170-180ish on eBay). Boxed, no dead pixies and well looked after it's been kept in a Dell PDA case hehe (Basically no scratches, there are *very* slight scuff marks on the back but they get those if you so much as look at the buggers)

[Sledge]

One of my colleagues has gone through two Touch's already, both developing the same fault (unresponsive Home button), both within a few weeks -- if you're thinking of buying one I would seriously give it a couple of weeks and keep checking around the spod forums to make sure this isn't a general problem. Personally I find the interface laughable -- you now have to actually look at the thing whereas before you could just finger it in your pocket (matron), and the display device doubling up as the interface equals unavoidable smears exactly where you don't want them. Demonstrably at least two steps backwards then (three if you count the storage space).