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60G Nomad Zen vs. The iPod
war3rd writes "According to an article in BetaNews, Creative is going to be releasing an upgraded Nomad Zen at the end of the month that is not only larger than the iPod, but cheaper too. At $400 for 60G ($100 less than the 30G iPod), the new Zen will sport more features, although it may be slightly larger than the newer generation of iPods. I have been putting off buying an MP3 player until I felt that the arms race was settling down, but the new Zen is making my mouth water. So what does the /. community think, are Creative and Apple going to be the top players in this arena? Is it time I jumped onto the bandwagon? One thing is for certain, I am going to be watching the reviews closely."
Looking to draw Windows users away from Apple's wildly popular iPod, Creative has released a mammoth update to its NOMAD Jukebox Zen portable audio player. The hard drive based Zen boasts an immense storage capacity of 60GB - twice that of largest iPod.
The NOMAD Jukebox Zen sports a sleek aluminum case and USB 2.0 connectivity for fast song transfers. Creative has priced the Zen at $400, $100 cheaper than Apple's new 30GB iPod.
"We've heard from our users that they would love to see a huge capacity NOMAD Jukebox Zen to take their entire music library and their digital files wherever they go," said Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo. "And of course they demanded a great price. With the NOMAD Jukebox Zen with 60GB we've delivered a breakthrough capacity in a portable player."
Creative claims a battery life of 14 hours in the NOMAD Jukebox Zen, slightly higher than that of the iPod. The Zen offers the ability to edit playlists directly on the device, and a "Find" function to quality search thousands of songs. An optional FM Wired Remote is also available featuring an FM tuner and microphone.
But despite Creative's superior capacity and lower price, Apple has leapfrogged its competitors in terms of dollar market share. According to NPDTechworld, Apple held 27 percent of the market in the fourth quarter of last year, followed by S3's Rio unit with 10 percent.
Apple's third generation iPods debut May 2, while Creative expects to ship the 60GB NOMAD Jukebox Zen later this month.
Oh, and let me guess, can you not get firmware upgrades for the iPod? Because of course we all know how Apple feels about upgrades...
Hmm. I updated mine just fine...
According to my calculation, the Nomad Zen is over twice the size (volume) of the iPod and 60% heavier.
Apple iPod (Gen 3)
103.5mm(H)*61.8mm(W)*15.7mm(D) = ~100k cubic mm and 158 grams
Nomad Zen
112.6*75.9*24.5 = ~209k cubic mm at 268g.
Furthermore, the set of functionalities that the two players offer are different (sync vs FM capability for example) so their value to user is highly different.
While I like iPod to support other formats (WMA and Vorbis Ogg) but I am satisified with AAC and MP3 for now.
Oh, and you speak as if there is not a HUGE iPod community? Ever been to http://www.ipodlounge.com/ and the 1000+ pictures of iPod around the world?
It does not play WMAs though.
In December we purchased an original Nomad Jukebox (10GB for $100 after Mail-in-Rebate). Exactly 96 days after purchase, the unit failed to boot. Creative's warranty, of course, was an impressive 90 days. Thinking back to the knee-jerk reaction of declining the Best Buy extended warranty, I felt like quoting some Khan from Star Trek II.
Anywho, I take care of my devices. The Jukebox still has the plastic covering the LCD. Ghetto, ya dig?
I engaged in an epic duel with Creative's tech support via e-mail. Sending extremely detailed reports to them, and met in return with extremely canned responses. Most often, the responses asked questions that I had already answered in the previous mail. Obviously, this wasn't going anywhere.
To make matters worse, it had been over the '6 to 8 week' waiting period and I still had no rebate check. Customer Service said 'sorry' and acknowledged the irony that the unit was out of warranty and broken before Creative could even be bothered to mail my rebate. And by that I mean they didn't acknowledge the irony. At all. They just didn't care.
Instead of pursuing the matter further with Creative's customer service, I used the 'protection' feature of my credit card to reimburse me for the unit, and swore off Creative for future products.
I don't doubt the Nomads have gotten better through the revisions. However, I try to judge a company equally between the good products they make and how they handle thier failures.
Buyer beware.
See....Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20GB hard drive. Has video playbeck and a small screen.MPEG-4 SP with MP3 stereo sound, near-DVD quality. Resolution CIF-352X288 @ 30f/s. AVI file format, reads XviD and DivX(TM) 4.0 & 5.0.
Also plays MP#'s AND RECORDS IN MP3!!!!
Just to let ya know it also takes still pics and VIDEOS !!! All this for $359.00 Oh yes interface is USB 2.0.
The file transfer protocol is proprietary and has only been partially reverse engineered. See libnjb.sourceforge.net for details. The Linux tools for getting songs onto the device currently suck goat nuts.
The iPod on the other hand, appears as a mass storage device (generic SCSI hard drive on top of Firewire). You can easily "mount" the iPod and use "cp" to copy files to it. This is very different from the Zen, which appears as a random USB device and requires special programs and scripts to put data onto it.
I bought a Nomad Zen 20GB USB 2.0 for $212 and I think it was a waste of money. I'll probably give it to someone who uses Windows and buy an iPod.
My other first post is car post.
After an obsessive amount of research on both the iPod and the Zen, I bought a Zen.
.. I got the Zen for $300, which was $200-less than a comparable iPod.
.. I like to be able to listen to WHAT I want, WHEN I want, without having to futz with the iPod after each song (pre-programmed playlists have never worked well for me.. I have spontaneous music-needs
.. From what I've read, it's quite easy to upgrade your Zen to 40 (or even 60!) gigabytes. This always appealed to me, in case I find my music collection suddenly growing by a factor of 4
.. These features weren't deal-breakers for me, but I figured they'd be nice to have (especially the voice recording).
.. because the Zen looks AMAZING (it easily rivals the iPod in this regard). The metal-outside feels so much sturdier as well, and unlike the iPod, doesn't scratch at ALL.
After using the Zen extensively, I returned it for an iPod.
Initially, I was attracted to the Zen for these reasons:
- Price Value
- "Playlist on the Fly" Options
- Expandability
- FM Radio / Radio Recording / Voice Recording (with add-on remote)
- Looks.
Everyone here who has been ragging on the Zen's looks has a) never seen one in real life or b) has no tastes
I ended up returning it for these reasons:
- The user-interface was AWFUL (IMHO). To get to a particular artist would take me at least twice as long as it takes me on my iPod. Little quirks - like having to scroll to "OPEN" before you could browse an artist or album got annoying pretty quick.
- The screen is small.. it's still very usable, but not nearly as easy-to-see as the iPod's.
- The scroll-wheel was a bear to use, and scrolling through long lists was not fun (this was after a firmware-upgrade, which improved this problem somewhat).
- The buttons were not overly-easy to press, which made using the Zen a challenge when using one hand. This wasn't a huge problem, but after seeing how easy the iPod is to use, I realized how the Zen is lacking in this area.
- There are NO accessories for the Zen (unlike the iPod, which has cases, stands, docking stations, etc, etc.) - This alone, however, was hardly a deal breaker, but being stuck with Creative's case wasn't fun (it's bulky and ugly).
---
Oh, one other significant difference between the two is the support you will be getting if you ever have a problem with your player. From everything I've read, Creative's 90 day-support is anywhere from "decent" to "awful", and Apple's 1 year support is nothing short of amazing (this is simply based on stories I've heard, not any statistics). Still, I was uncomfortable owning the Zen knowing that Creative only supported it for 90 days.. that's unacceptable for a consumer product of that price.
People like to compare the software that goes along with each of the players, but that's pretty trivial IMO. For the Zen, get Notmad Explorer (It'll save you a LOT of headaches), and for the iPod, get ephPod (It'll save you a LOT of headaches). Both of those programs are amazing, and make transferring to your portable-player a cinch.
I'm now a happy owner of an Apple iPod (a 20-gigger). Using some coupon codes I found for Dell, it only cost me about $420 - which is only $70 more than the $350 Zen (they discontinued the Zen's rebate, correct?). If FM-Radio, voice recording, WMA support, or expandability are essential to you, by all means, go with the Zen. Otherwise, I'd recommend the iPod to anybody.
Of course, before you buy EITHER player, you should go down to your local CompUSA and hold both of them in your hands. This is important, do not skip this step!
If anyone has any questions about either player, just ask...
Raven001