Portable MP3 player

I am looking at purchasing a portable MP3 player, should I go with the Apple 80gb Ipod or Creative Zen Vision W?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4144551
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controll...1953&is=REG
http://www.amazon.com/TrekStor-vibez-Player-Black-Silver/dp/B000KDZR5U

If you can live with the relatively-low capacity, it is the finest portable MP3 player currently on the market.

Peter

Wow! Great looking product, and great specs! (Linux support, too!)

Included: Sennheiser headphone

Nice!

Not to mention our own discussion:
http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/286642/an/0/page/0#Post286642

I'm not so sure that the vibez is the best response to his question. It's in a completely different category than the two players he mentions, and I'm a firm believer in buying gadgets that fit your uses. So really, it comes down to how you're going to use the MP3 player you're going to get (ie: you can't go running with the Zen W, and the Vibez wouldn't be great for a long vacation away from a computer to load it up with more songs).

To be honest, I don't know what I'd choose. I recently bought the Archos 604 WiFi, and I think it's a neat little device, but it's still not the ideal gadget and has some problems that just get on my nerves. I think Apple makes some well-built devices, but their philosophies just kill me. I want mass storage, I don't want soup modes, I don't want DRM, etc. I also want a bigger screen than what's on the iPod right now. Maybe we'll see that device sometime next year.

The Creative is pretty good. I'd say it's on par with the Archos, but it bugs me that neither of them went with larger 1.8" drives. Yeah, the devices would have been thicker (like a milimeter or two), but that wasn't worth the 50GB they could gain with the 80GB double-platter 1.8" drives?

I just know that sometime next year, Apple will release their 6th-gen iPod, and I'll probably break down and buy one, cursing it the entire time I own it.

While I like the device that you listed I am looking for something over the 20gb storage limit here is what I like about each device:

ipod:
industry standard
80 GB vs 60 gb
Lots of Accessories

Zen:
removable battery
FM receiver (can record as well)
larger screen
Compact Flash Card Reader
Not stuck using iTunes

Oh, so I assume you're going with the 60GB Zen? I'd recommend that one if it's between the two, mostly because of the screen.

if I go with the Zen it would be the 60GB version yes.

As much as I dislike iPods, at least they now have gapless playback. Not so with the ZVM. Though I much prefer the ZVM's screen and interface.

You're not stuck using iTunes with the iPod either (Anapod, Songbird (with plugin), Yamipod). Nor are you stuck with DRM as previously mentioned (no DRM on your own ripped tracks).

What it does lack is FLAC and OGG support. FLAC on a flash player right now is rather pointless (the Vibez) but in the case of an 80GB player it can easily be used.

I would steer clear of any Creative product in any category. They do not support their products. They put oout some press before it's launched, a coupld of web pages while it's being sold and then that's it. It happens over and over with all their products. Lack of updates, etc. You can get any player for exactly what it is and does at that very moment, but with an iPod you're pretty safe to assume it will be updated in some way in the near future.

I have no desire for a portable player right now - not until more in-dash head units come out with displays that match the ones of the player 1:1 in functionality and best it in size (Alpine has something interesting coming out for the iPod, but I dislike cheap Alpine stuff almost as much as Creative).

Things I would like to see in a future iPod: huge screen (the size of the entire face of the unit), WiFi, USB2.0 OTG (to connect a camera and unload its images or connect a USB mass storage device to copy files to the iPod). We'll likely see 100GB models before 2007 is done (I won't hold my breath for 100GB models in January).

I'm sure the code under the hood in the Vibez product is simply amazing, but none of the images on any of the sites linked do it much justice. No reference images next to a human hand or at least a coin or something. Very small screen with even smaller second line text. The playback UI looks very basic (5+ years old) in the sample images.

And for me, SOUP views (that's sorting and displaying by meta data) is the way to go. I don't want to have to manage folders - not to mention how rigid that setup is (sorry beloved empeg). Soup views done right (like with Slimserver/Squeezebox) is the way to go. Of course you have to support more than the most basic tags to really make it shine (like TSOP and TSOA for sorting by something other than display names, compilation tag, artist-album tag, etc..)

Quote:
FLAC on a flash player right now is rather pointless (the Vibez) but in the case of an 80GB player it can easily be used.

I know what you meant, but the Vibez is a hard disk player, not flash.