I'm not a fan of polls, but I need some outside opinion from the forum... My boyfriend is about to purchase a new MP3 device. We have both had Zune 30GB players until now. Personally, I love my Zune. I know it's the ugly duckling of the MP3 world, but I've never had problem #1 with it and I love the screen size and that its OS lives very comfy within my PC. It does have its faults, though. When we go to Best Buy to look for anything MP3 related, we are bombarded by the iUniverse. Everything has been iPodified and there very few third party devices which are Zune friendly. Third party devices for iPod are everywhere. I'm waiting for iDishwasher, iClothesdrier, and iChainsaw to fill out my X-Mas list. What's your take?? Edit~ After showing my boyfriend that I have put up a poll in his behalf, he has asked me to also include the fact that his use of an MP3 player is work related. He is an aerobics instructor, thus the size of screen is not so much a a factor as the quality of music output, durability, and battery life.
I personally can't stand the zune. The itunes store has a much better selection of music, and while the Zune has a subscription plan where you can get unlimited downloads for a monthly fee of $15, you can't burn the songs on to CD's, and once you stop paying the $15, the songs are gone. Ipod.
Why do you even want a Zune or Ipod? A regular MP3 player works just as fine. I have a Samsung MP3 player, it fits better and its small. The problem with Zune and Ipod is they compress your music, so you don't get a good of sound. They are encoded at a very low encoding and it may sound good when you place it in your ears, but outside your ears it wouldn't sound very good. Your best bet is to encode your own music and place it in a regular MP3 player. It works just as better, but doesn't compress your music as much.
iPod. I like Microsoft. The Zune is a nice piece of tech, but the iPod has established the network and the support it needs to dominate the MP3 player market right now, and it just has more usability than the Zune. The program it uses is excellent (though I have noticed it's a little slow) and the iTune's store is very easy to use and helpful in finding what you want. There's a good support network and plenty of people out there who know how the thing works. Plus you never have to pay for anything if you don't want to. The service is free unless you actually buy a song/movie/episode/game/podcast. I will however say in the Zune's favor, videos are much nicer on it than on an iPod. @Leaka. Compressing your own music, though not to complicated, for those not familiar with file formats can be confusing. Unless Wrey is really good with computer's I'd never suggest it. It's just so darn annoying to do it yourself when you can get a program to do it for you that comes with lots of nice features. Besides, I've never noticed a sound problem with my music. It sounds the same off iTunes as it does off my CD Player/radio.
Hmmm. On the one hand, I've never even seen a Zune in the flesh. On the other hand, there is no decent alternative to itunes for the ipod. It's a conundrum. I agree with Leaka, though. I had a samsung mp3 player that was easily the best I've had. Unfortunately, I wanted something that would play videos, and had an unnecessarily huge amount of storage- so ipod was pretty much the only option.
You can find regular MP3 players that have a large amount of storage. I have a Samsong that gives me a lot of storage. But the Samsong doesn't play videos.
Ha, I googled "ipod vs. zune" and found an interesting contest between the two. http://reviews.cnet.com/zune-vs-ipod/?tag=mid_container;pf_left_nav
On something of a sidenote: am I the only one who thinks that touch screen is the work of the devil? Technology that only works 50% of the time is not progress...
IPOD!!!!!!!! Ipods are really cool. I have never seen a zune before. oh well, i would want a ipod over anything else, except for laptop
Hmmm... But still, clickwheel. And then the fact that itunes is to music programs as Auschwitz was to human rights.
Nothing from Apple...can't stand that company because of it's corporate culture of snobbery. I'll buy any product except anything offered by Apple.
I wouldn't get either. My recommendation is a Sansa Fuze. You can get a 4 gig or an 8 gig. The 8 gig is only $120. It has a screen, so you can put video or pictures on it as well. And the best thing is that you don't need a program for it. Just plug it in, open the folder, and drag your music into it. If you don't need video or pictures, then, really, any Sansa product is good. Just for the record, I hate iPod. I hate iTunes. I don't want them anywhere near me.
I'm no longer bound by itunes while in Linux ! I voted Ipod, just because I hate all the DRM the Zune has, even though I don't buy music.
Does iTunes have an option to rip a CD at a specific bitrate? As far as I know, it only burns songs at 128kbps = terrible sound. Using a program like LAME makes a huge difference as you can designate your specific bitrate and get a crisper sound. And LAME is user-friendly, but not as easily accesible as iTunes. In terms of choosing between an iPod and Zune (I've never even heard of that), then go with iPod. Even though Apple is a money-hungry, over-priced fanboi-ist company, it does have extremely good benefits. Example: iTunes.
I wouldn't know the result. i haven't bought an actual physical CD in years. I buy all my music via iTunes XD. I usually only bough a CD for one song, and would find two or three more I'd like on it which really wasn't worth the $15-$18 I'd pay for a full CD with as many as a dozen songs' I'd never listen too. I love being able to pick and choose which music I want
Good point. I only buy albums when I really want to support a band. Individual songs on iTunes cost $1.70 here, which sucks.
Compress your own. Zune man. Definitely. In terms of the three criteria you mentioned, sound quality, battery and durability, Zune > iPod, especially in durability. Breaking my ipod was a simple matter of dropping it on the floor once. Never worked again. Bugger. I dropped my Zune and feared the same fate, but it didn't even stop playing. Sound quality is definitely better through the Zune in head phones, but if your playing externally through say a PA or something the sound quality is more reliant on what your playing it through rather than the player. In terms of battery life the two players break about even; if you want mammoth battery life I advise iRiver. Get a Zune. EDIT: No, but WMP does, and WMP is compatible with Zune. With that said, WMP only goes to 192 kbps which is only marginally better. As stated, get some other program to do the job of bitrate. Or when you download the music download it already done for you.
Thats a good point. I also use a sony MP4 player which stores up to 16GBs which in itself is way too much space because I've only filled about 3GBs worth of space. And thats a lot of music. I paid about £120 for it and I've had it about 9 months now. Its well made looks good and does exactly the same as an Ippod and Zune. You can get cheaper MP3 players which do the same thing. At the end of the day its hidden in a pocket the only part visible are the small headphones so really I never understood the fuss. If it plays lots of music its a job done.
Personally, I can't really make a judgement as I haven't ever used a Zune. I've loved my Ipods (I've got both a 2nd gen shuffle and a 2nd gen nano, both of which have worked great) and Itunes is great. If your just looking for music and your boyfriend doesn't need a screen, than the newer shuffles might be a good idea. They've got 1GB and 2GB versions, both for under $100. Mines gotten dropped and been in my pocket when I was soaked to the bone in a rainstorm and survived. I've (accidentally) left it on for multiple days and its still had battery power left in it.
OMG I just remembered the funniest MP3 player story. Ok so my friend had this little Samsung MP3 player, it was really cheap with like 128 MB of space. So he had it go through the wash, it was dropped, crushed by a car that drove over it, frozen in the snow, washed again, dropped again, and final thrown against a wall. The best part is that even with it's face broken and a dysfunctional screen, it still worked! We eventually did everything we could think of to break it but nothing worked XD.
Reminds me of the old nokia mobile phones. They were indestructable. Well, almost. A friend of mine was boasting that his older phone model was indestructable, and threw it at the wall to demonstrate. It still worked, there was just a huge crack down the screen, so bad you couldn't read any of the text on it
