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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.
Interesting how the iPod has become the standard by which other players are judged. Interesting that the submitter has found a player that is both larger than the iPod (a good thing) and also slightly larger than the iPod (a bad thing). Maybe being specific about when we mean capacity in GB and when we mean physical dimensions wouldn't be such a bad thing...
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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.
Also the Nomad Jukebox 3 (not the current Zen) has optical-in recording to MP3 or wave. It's not as simple as pressing record on a portable MiniDisc recorder, but it works in a pinch.
I don't know. That's a great price, but it's a Creative product so I have a feeling it's not as good as it sounds.
See, I've used Creative audio products since the days of the original SoundBlaster... and Creative really doesn't do as good of a job as they used to. These days they have horrible drivers, false advertising, and practically nonexistent tech support. They release a new driver update around every six MONTHS, even when there are dozens of outstanding bugs to fix; and cards like the Audigy barely did half of the things they advertised on the box and on websites.
So anyway, this thing sounds cool... but if I were you, I wouldn't buy one without finding out a LOT about it and making sure I'm really getting my money's worth. You really can't trust Creative anymore.
using namespace slashdot;
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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?
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.
I hear lots of people say things like this. "Macs are way too expensive for the speed of the machine" or "MP3 player X is a lot cheaper than an iPod".
I understand this... I used to believe it too. The error is in assuming that the alternatives are all essentially equal... all mp3 players play mp3's, and computers are equal save for the speed of the processor.
That's not the case. I can't explain it other than saying that there is a design quality and esthetic that is different in the Apple products. You won't believe it until you own one, but once you do, you understand the price difference, and realize it is negligible... that in fact all MP3 players are not the same. All computers are not the same.
I boycotted XP and switched to Mac, while cursing the increased cost. Not any more. I recognize the difference between my Mac and my PC, and I know the differences are well in excess of the cost.
Same is true with my iPod. It's the 3rd MP3 device I've owned, and it's cheaper compared to buying other devices, not using them, and having to re-buy an iPod.
That's my take. Hate to sound like a ravenous Mac-head, but... well... I am one. Now.
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.
Drag and drop? I've gotten spoiled by just plugging my iPod in, waiting 30 seconds while it automatically updates everything, and then unplugging
For data files, yeah, I guess I have to do the drag and drop. But for music, I'll stick to "plug and un-plug"
While I prefer the iPod, I enjoy the competition because it only make both products better in the long run. And that benefits me, and isn't that what it is all about?
Here is a rather amusing message I saw over at hydrogenaudio.org about AAC support on the Nomad series.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
You know what's funny is that I was shocked to read above that a top guy at Creative wouldn't know what is up with MPEG-4 and especially AAC, and not even know that everything Apple (Mac OS X, QuickTime, all Mac apps, iPod, iTunes) are all fully MPEG-4 and AAC.
Then the next question the Creative guy goes to is about 48kHz sample rates! The CEO of Creative wants you to use Windows Media and he doesn't even realize that 48kHz is itself like the Windows Media format of the 1980's.
The 48kHz sample rate was chosen by the RIAA for "consumer" digital audio recording (DAT, MiniDisc, Hi8) so as to make it harder to make CD's from those recordings.
The small increase in quality you get by sampling at 48kHz instead of 44.1kHz does not pay for the HUGE decrease in audio quality you get by a Sample Rate Reduction from 48kHz to 44.1kHz. It's more destructive than converting to analog and then back to digital with good converters.
To still be talking 48kHz in 2003 is abysmal. The next rate that's useful above 44.1 is 96kHz, which is high up enough and done at 24-bit or 32-bit and gains you so much quality that you can then come down to 44.1 right at the end and you're better than if you stayed there through the whole process.
Creative's stuff is sub-par. It's good PC gear but it's not good audio gear. iPod is both good PC gear and good audio gear.
In short, iPod and Apple are MUSICAL ALREADY. Creative are not as creative as Apple.