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Another Rare MP3-Player Thread
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Hello.
I've been buying a new MP3 player for around 3 months now but haven't got round to it (my iPod is gash). I'm thinking, '3 months is quite a long time, I wonder if anything newer and better has come out since I vowed to buy a Zen'.
Anyroad, I thought it was all good and well and simple going to get a Zen, but on a little-but-not-enough research there's about 50 (10) different fucking models.
This is what I'm arsed about:
Long, long battery life
No shitty transfer software bundle, such as iTunes
20GB capacity - I don't want to have to go lower, but if I must for whatever reason...
Obviously I don't want my bollocks pulled taut over the price
I'd be delighted if someone more clued on the subject could tell me the ideal Zen for me, or a better alternative. Cheers.
I've started getting into Nick Drake too, what's everyone think about him?
I've been buying a new MP3 player for around 3 months now but haven't got round to it (my iPod is gash). I'm thinking, '3 months is quite a long time, I wonder if anything newer and better has come out since I vowed to buy a Zen'.
Anyroad, I thought it was all good and well and simple going to get a Zen, but on a little-but-not-enough research there's about 50 (10) different fucking models.
This is what I'm arsed about:
Long, long battery life
No shitty transfer software bundle, such as iTunes
20GB capacity - I don't want to have to go lower, but if I must for whatever reason...
Obviously I don't want my bollocks pulled taut over the price
I'd be delighted if someone more clued on the subject could tell me the ideal Zen for me, or a better alternative. Cheers.
I've started getting into Nick Drake too, what's everyone think about him?
0
Comments
Excellent taste, my good sir.
It does have great battery life. I get at least 15-16 hrs out of it, even with skipping about between tracks and playlists, and using higher bit rates than 128, and the odd wma file (the quoted up to 24 hrs battery life is in ideal conditions - ie without skipping about, just playing, and 128kbps MP3's, as higher rates and wma files use more processing and battery power).
It does come in several versions. The 20GB version can be bought from places like ebuyer for about £135. There are bigger versions - but the 40GB version is about £200+ I think there is a 60GB version. They've bought out a new Zen that's the physical size of the 5-6GB Zen Micro, but has 20GB, so that's worth a look.
Unfortunately it does have its own software, and there's no alternative (some enthusiasts have made alternatives to iTunes for the iPod). You can install basic drivers and drag and drop files to it though. However, it only dumps everything into one root directory, not folders, so each file must have a unique file name, and the ID tags must be unique too - so you don't double up on tracks. You can store data on it too, but only using Creative's own software (that would've miffed me, but I bought mine at a bargain price of £122 in VAT). Despite these limitations, I do find Creative's software fine to use to copy files over, and create/edit playlists.
I had it out of the box, files loaded, playlists created, and using it easily within ten minutes. It's quite intuitive.
Some people have said they don't think much of the supplied earphones. I think they're good, but then I'm not an anally retentive audiophille, and for listening to on the move they're great. I would like to replace them with some KOSS Sparkplugs though, for a whoomph in bass and cutting out background noise.
Overall, I'm very happy with it. It has the best quality/price/features of most MP3 players of the 20GB capacity I looked at. Reccomended.
Mr_Wobble, have you not tried using Windows Media Player to transfer files? This is what I use and find it much easier than using the supplied software.
Nice reply. Cheers.
So now the only thing left on my mind is how bad is the Creative software compared against iTunes?
I ordered mine on Monday for around £150 after a bit of a toss up between it and the Zen Creative 20gb.
It arrives tomorrow - I'll let you know what I think
Notmad
now unless you have something against carrying a few cdrs about (and so are clearly mental) then it's great. i owned a philips hdd120 for maybe a week before i nearly jumped all over it for having such a piss poor battery life and weak software, so i decided that i couldn't be arsed. get something that's proven, will let me listen to more than 4 albums in a row and does away with proprietary software.
works for me, but then it's not a hdd therefore isn't currently 'cool', which suits me down to the ground.
Creative Zen is the way to go.
It's my baby and I lurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrves it.