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Newest iPod vs. the Nomad Zen NX?
flyingember asks: "I am considering purchasing an iPod, since they are so cool looking. I then came across the new Nomad Zen NX. Size isn't an issue, my current MP3 player being a MP3-CD player. The big thing is price. In the US the 30GB Zen costs $300, the 30GB iPod costs $500. Or you can get a 10GB iPod for $300 or a 20GB Zen for $250 on the low end. Has the iPod got better design and layout of controls to make the price difference worth it?"
Nomad Zen reviews
iPod reviews
Of course, Epinions are not too helpful when the product is brand new. I usually go through a couple of five-star reviews and several one-stars (if such exist) to see what people are generally complaining about.
I have a 2nd generation ipod and now a new 3rd generation ipod, both 10 gigs, (i got the second one as part of an apple store rebate and only paid 70bucks for it). The layout and design is really really worth it. Even if you just get the 10 gig, it's worth it.
The cool factor really throws it in my opinion, unless you are on a super tight budget, but seeing as you are even considering buying one, you probably aren't. It's a great piece of equipment and my only complaint is the battery life blows. If that and the price are significant issues, then you can side with the Nomad, but otherwise, the iPod is your best bet.
The ipod isn't just an MP3 player. It also can store your contacts, and appointments, as well as functioning as a portable harddrive as well (the zen can most likely do this too.) So it does a little more in a better package with a better interface. I'd say ipod.
Size isn't an issue, my current MP3 player being a MP3-CD player. The big thing is price. In the US the 30GB Zen costs $300, the 30GB iPod costs $500.
So the difference is $200 give or take. The Zen NX isn't quite as small as the new iPod, but it's much smaller than the original Zen.
One of the coolest things about the Nomad's is Notmad Explorer, or more specifically, the Notweb Explorer. It's a cool web interface to your mp3 player. You can browse it, search it, download or stream your mp3's. Very cool.
The battery life is significantly longer on the Zen NX (and the battery is user removable). Also very cool.
Apple has publicly stated that they're working on getting the iTMS working for Windows users (by the end of the year (macobserver story)), and as of the end of April Apple had a job opening on their website for a developer of iTunes for Windows (macrumors story).
So yes, there will be a Windows version of iTunes.
20 and 40 gig versions, supports Ogg Vorbis and shipping in October (allegedly)
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Details:
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/00799
http://gear.ign.com/articles/382/382161p1.html?
http://msg.mp3.com/hardware/liststory/?position
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/008007.php
http://empeg.comms.net/files/133662-ipodcompare
You probably wouldn't have heard of this yet unless you have an Empeg, but wait for the upcoming Rio Karma before deciding.
-- V
Audible handles my audiobook addiction. I wouldn't be able to stand a player that didn't handle that format.
No Zen is good zen
Since most comments here have been about the iPod and its features and nothing has really been said about the Zen, I'll take a shot.
First off, I love my Zen, but then I would probably love whatever mp3 hard drive player I had (sweet, sweet 60 gig of musicy goodness). The biggest point for the Zen versus an iPod (at least in my clumsy opinion/experience) is that the Zen uses a standard notebook hard drive, which means that if you buy the 20 gig version now (or perhaps you, uh, drop and kill your Zen) and later want to go to a 60 gig, you can replace it fairly easily.
Second -- the Zen sounds great, but I can't compare it to an iPod since I have never heard one.
There are drawbacks to the Zen, however -- you need drivers for it (and, for a while, when transferring by firewire the music would be randomly corrupted with parts of the song being mixed up and transposed everywhere) which means no just plugging in and using it as a external hard drive; the Playcenter software that comes with it is just utter shit which makes it necessary to buy Notmad Explorer (and then something like Mp3/Tag Studio to tag all your files so they show up right on the Zen) and while that is a nice little piece of software, it is an extra $30 you have to spend that should have been fixed by making it a USB storage device like the Archos; the lack of any input/output jacks other than headphone-out kind of sucks meaning that I have to use the headphone-out with the fm-transmitter and line-in on the car and no recording without shelling out another $60 for the fm/mic remote; the battery is non-replaceable without sending it back to Creative and is supposedly only good for 300-500 charges (although the NX's battery is replaceable).
While it may sound like I am coming down hard on the Zen, I do still dearly love mine -- having it full of 60 gigs of music means having my entire music collection in my pocket and being able to listen to anything on a whim or showing up at a party and having pretty much anything anyone else wants to hear.
And as for size? Eh, I wear pants with big pockets. I've already got the camera, flash cards, and phone in there, what more is another big toy?
You can get an external battery pack for the current generation iPods. That should provide some insurance against running low on juice/battery degradation. I have an earlier generation machine, so I don't know how good the pack is, but it is available.
My 2nd gen iPod does the advertised 10 hours. For the size, this is by far the best battery life I've ever had on a portable player. Way better than my old solid state mp3 players (2-3 hours), and only eclipsed by my sony CD walkman, which had plenty of room for larger batteries (ie. barely portable, certainly not pocketable). I can't really argue against either of these players, unless you have a mac, in which case the iPod is a no brainer.
I don't know if it's my setup (about 12GB of MP3s on a Samba share), but the software was diabolically bad at cataloging my collection & copying it to the iPod. Musicmatch locked up completely several times, leaving it "Not Responding" according to Task Manager under XP. It took about 2-3 hours to do the cataloging of the collection (I'm not sure as I had to keep restarting it and actually ended up leaving it running through the day while I was at work). Also, it seemed to be incredably slow at copying tracks to the iPod (about 15 minutes for 4 songs!).
In the end, I downloaded EphPod and used that to copy files to the iPod. Worked a heck of a lot better, getting a full list of MP3s in about 10-20 seconds (about the same as Winamp). Copying wasn't as fast as I'd hoped (about 1.5MB/sec; I'd have hoped for nearer 8, the limit of the 100Mbit/sec ethernet) but still OK.
However, the iPod itself is great; the lack of moving parts is a comfort as it prevents dust entering the system anywhere. The sound is excellent and the controls are good. The hold button is a fantastic idea, preventing the unit starting up when you don't want it and the headset controls are pretty good.
The iPod is just more asthetically usable. I don't know how to explain it. My friend got a zen recently. It has a jog dial on the right somewhere, but the interface is just weird.
I unfortunately have to say the same about the iPod. The one giant wheel is very awkward to use for certain things such as playing Solitaire. However, after a couple days, I was very used to it.
The iPod is also just plain better designed. There are practically no moving parts, and I can't imagine anything other than the hard drive dying.
Plus, it's just the coolest little device. This might not matter to you much, but it's very, very aesthetically pleasing and is an attention grabber. I decided to shell out for Creature Speakers and a NaviPod remove, and I'm using the iPod as a stereo when I'm not walking around with it. It is just the coolest looking device ever. I even cleared out the dresser that it's all sitting on just so it'd be the only thing sitting there.
I've gone through a lot of different MP3 players ranging from the original Rio to MP3 CD players to the Archos Jukebox Multimedia 20, and I have to say the iPod has been the best deal so far. It may seem really expensive, but once you get it and experience the quality that goes into it, you won't feel like you got ripped off.
Obsessive? Perhaps, but it's just a hell of a good machine.
"Like, on the iPod, you can even dream about using *another* software besides iTunes? But, oh, I forgot, Apple software is perfect, no one would ever want to use an alternative."
You don't need to use iTunes to use an iPod.
USB 2.0 is 480Mb/s peak. FireWire 400 is 400Mb/s sustained.
The FUD is companies claiming that USB 2.0 is faster than FireWire 400.
(And USB 2.0 can't even compare to the newer FireWire 800...)