Yes i know the answer to this, but im trying to talk my friend out of buying a 20gig ipod, and getting an empeg. he wants the ipod for his new truck, and hook it up thru aux. can someone list me things to convicne him the empeg is a better way to go.

Well a few that come to mind are :

HD space. From what I know about the IPOD you cannot upgrade the 20gig HD at all and it sure doesn't have room
for 2 drives.

Next would have to be options and the display. Empeg is made to operate in the car and its alot more safe.

The empeg is an empeg. There is nothing to compare to it. The only thing the IPOD has over the empeg is size and mobility. Something the empeg wasn't designed around.

Ohh.. and ethernet support. I do believe that is a plus.

ya ive told him all that, personally i woudl rather have firewire over ethernet, but thats just me.

yeah more comps have ethernet though.

im trying to talk my friend out of buying a 20gig ipod

Why? The iPod is a great product.

The Pearl is going to fly circles around it, but for now, it's great.

Edit: Oh, I see that he wants it as a car stereo. Well, for some people, it's still the right choice. If showing him the cool features of the empeg still doesn't convince him, then let him get the iPod. Some people just can't be convinced.

Yep. Tony is right. Some people can never be convinced.

What does the IPOD have over the Nomad Zen though? Atleast the HD's can be upgraded on the zen's.

Can you play empacman on an IPod at a red light?

ya, thats the problem hes in AZ, and im in Cali here. I guess i can show him the mk1 video. even thou its old, its still effective.

Battery life?

The iPod battery life isn't great and sticking it in a car is going to be no good on really long journeys unless it can be charged by the cars electrics somehow

can be charged by the cars electrics

I got a cigarette lighter to firewire cable from the Apple Store in Cupertino when I was last in the US. That works for keeping the iPod going.

in az? If he's in phoenix i'd be willing to give him a 10minute tour.

I don't think the empeg is "better" than the iPod. To me its like asking why a tamborine is better than a telescope.

I love the empeg. It's incredible. I've said before that I think it is the finest example of design beauty in hardware/software integration that I have seen (the iPod is good too, but not as good). But, I can't put the empeg in my pocket and walk around the lakes with it. Nor is it really the right choice for motorcycling. Or long airplane rides. You get the idea.

For those applications, I think it is really hard to beat the iPod/etymotics ER-4 combination.

I don't have an iPod but I got my girlfriend one for christmas last year. She is not a computer junkie like me, but she loves her iPod. I helped her out by ripping her CD collection so that she can manage the iPod contents. I've played around with it a bit and here are my observations:

- The headphones suck for comfort, but the unit has good sound quality.

- The battery life isn't too bad, considering.

- It is a beautiful design and can be operated with one hand.

- Portability is cool.

- The user interface, while simple and elegant in its own way, is not as powerful as the empeg. Or, maybe I just can't figure it out. I can't figure out, for instance, how to make up a playlist ad hoc by "append/insert/enqueue" like I can with the empeg. I do this pretty often, actually. Maybe I want to hear Dire Straits shuffled with J.J. Cale, for example. I can't figure out how to do that on the iPod. I can't even figure out how to switch from shuffle to unshuffled easily. Sure, you can play albums (or prebuilt playlists) quite easily, but it isn't really that good for true random-access music playing. Maybe I haven't spent enough time with it.

Other things I miss when using the iPod UI:
- ad hoc playlists (mentioned above)
- only random suffle modes (no least frequently)
- no enqueue/insert/append that I can figure out
- no tweak order functionality (this is the coolest thing about the empeg software, and unique to it AFAIK).
- smaller capacity (actually, the least of the issues, IMHO).
- The windows software sucks ass. (yes, I know about ephpod and that's what my GF is using).

I would like to have an iPod but I see it as supplemental to the empeg. If I could only have one I would have the empeg. I keep waiting for something better from our empeg visionaries...

Jim

I've owned an iPod once, but I've sold it after only owning it for one week. Bottom line for me was that the iPod's UI was too dumb for my taste. Yes, the Empeg has spoiled me. Now I'm still waiting for Pearl.

This is was I posted about it back then.

For me it's simply much more convenient. I had an Archos Jukebox for a few weeks in my car until I got the empeg. Sure, it did what I needed - played MP3's, and lots of them.

But, for a car stereo, here's what the empeg did better -
* Easy to read without picking up out of the changeholder each time (I'm sure I'd have crashed by now if I still had the Archos)
* Looks cool! (I'm not being facetious, it really does. Much more than a hand-held with a long wire sticking in the change tray)
* Hard drive space. Well, mine's a 60 Gig, but sure is nice fitting ALL of my CD's onto it, instead of always missing the one I really want to hear at the time.

The ipod is designed to take to school, on a trip, etc. All things an empeg could do but isn't designed for. However for a car stereo, sure the ipod could do most of it, but it's nowhere near as good.

I think it comes down to the primary use of it.

I don't think the empeg is "better" than the iPod. To me its like asking why a tamborine is better than a telescope.

I can see and hear a tambourine. The stars are too far away to make noise.

I like the Empeg over the Riot (don't have and Ipod) because of how I listen to music. I like to play my 2500 songs (all singles) at random. Then when I hear an artist I'm in the mood for I press the "Aritist" buton on the remote and enqueue the rest of their music.

Riot does not do this and Ipod (from the descriptions) apparently doesn't either.

I may buy pearl just for this feature. If it has it (anyone listening)…..

Well ya thats just the thing, i own an ipod myself. its great for walks, working out, and genreal potable music listing. But the only time i use it in a car, is when im in a differnt car other than my primary, and i hate it. He dsont plan on using it other than stricly in the car. I should have restated mypost to "why is the empeg better than an ipod for I.C.E.:)

I've got both an Empeg (actually, many Empeg's) and an iPod. I can tell you right now that the 20gb storage on the iPod is a big problem if your music library is bigger than 20gb. I have almost 40gb worth of Mp3's and trying to figure out what you do want and what you don't want can be incredibly frustrating (Aarrgghh!!!). When you consider that the iPod uses Music Match to send and arrange music, it's makes it an even larger hassle. If you want more reasons for having an Empeg as an in-car unit over the iPod, you can add the countless playback features the Empag has and the iPod doesn't. Just the fact that the iPod doesn't have an "insert, append, enqueue, replace" option is enough for me. Besides the iPods lack of playback features, who wants to have some dangling wiring coming from their dash all the time so they can hook-up thier Mp3 player.

Don't get me wrong, the iPod is a nice unit and I bought mine for a few specific purposes, but I would never consider it to be any part of I.C.E. $.02