I had a bit of a hate relationship with iPods before I ever had the chance to play around with one properly. Now that I have had my iPod for nearly a week, has that relationship changed at all?
I’m having a love-hate relationship with the iPod at the moment.
There are features on the iPod which make it a better player than the Zen (my previous mp3 player), but there are also some rubbish things about the iPod which makes me a bit upset about having to sell on my Zen.
First of all, the extra 10GBs of storage on the iPod over the 20GB Zen is a bit of a plus. Especially when you configure iTunes to synchronize your iPod with podcasts such as the Fish Go Deep’s podcast. The Zen can also be synch’d with an application. Outlook. Why Outlook? Crikey, i don’t have a clue! I never really wondered why this feature was added and I don’t really care. The synchronization with iTunes is a major plus point over the Zen. It makes managing your music a bit of a no brainer…until you need to delete songs from your iPod when you have more mp3s on your hard drive than what your iPod can hold of course!
iTunes can be great for buying music and for getting podcasts but it doesn’t let you easily browse your player to view its contents. I downloaded a handy little application called iPodDisk which allows you to browse thru your mp3 player in a similar way to which Finder (Apple’s version of Explorer on Windows) lets you browse for files.
The iPod is leaner in dimension over the Zen too. They are each the same height and width but the iPod has half the depth of the Zen which makes it that bit easier to fit in your pocket. The iPod also comes with a little carrier bag to protect it from scratches and smudges. And it needs it! The ‘glassy’ feel of the iPod makes it the most ’smudgable’ yoke I have ever held in my hands. The minute I lifted it out of the box last week, it was covered in thumb marks. The Zen has a more plastic/metallic finish which looks and feels better than the iPod.
The Zen also has a dedicated ON/OFF button. The iPod doesn’t and it is wrecking my head! You can turn the iPod on by pressing ANY button. Disaster! Each time I pick the thing up I’m accidentally turning it on, and then I need to turn it off again. I don’t like that one bit. How hard would it be to add a button to the iPod up near the HOLD button for ON/OFF?
The headphones with the iPod are FAR better than those supplied by the Zen too. They fit better in your ear and the sound is suppier. The headphones for the Zen are very bluky and you really need to force them into your ear, otherwise they’ll end up falling out. They aren’t the most comfortable things I have had plunged into my ear loobs to tell you the truth.
The reason I bought the iPod in the first place was because my Zen wouldn’t work with my new iMac. I plugged my iPod into my PC yesterday to drag some music onto it and iTunes told me that I had to format the hard drive on it so that the PC would recognize it! Great! So the iPod is only compatabile with either a MAC or a PC. It isn’t compabtible with both MAC and PC. Fantastic news! 
The best thing about the iPod is the video playback. But I haven’t used this yet as you need to pay for Quicktime Pro to be able to convert video files into a suitable format for playback on the iPod.
One of the features I’m really missing from the iPod is the FM radio that came with the Zen. I get sick of listening to the albums I have on my player. Listening to the radio is a decent break from the monotimy of mp3s. But alas, that’s a thing of the past now.
If only Creative and Apple could come togehter to make the complete MP3 player…
Oh wait, the iRiver!
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8 responses so far ↓
1 Jay Ru // Feb 22, 2007 at 1:31 am
i don’t get ur issue bout turning the ipod on and off. its pretty easy just hold the pause botton til it goes off then push the hold switch to “hold” and u won’t have to worry bout turning it on everytime u pick it up
or
and if u want to take music from ur pc and put it on to ur ipod without formatting it, connect ur ipod to the pc but don’t open itunes. go to “my computer” and find ur ipod. drag ur music onto ur ipod (it acts like and external hard drive when u do it this way)when thats done connect ur ipod to ur mac transfer the mp3 on the the mac and then transfer them back on to the ipod the normal way
2 cormacmoylan // Feb 22, 2007 at 10:57 am
I have a major problem with the ON/OFF thing. How many other electrical appliances can be turned on by pressing any button on them?
I will need to check out the file transfer method you mentioned.
Cheers
3 Gavin // Feb 26, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I’ve always been fond of Creative’s audio products which was a reason I went for the Zen. Plus the fact iPod was getting so much bad press at the time.
Now that you mention it, the Zen ear plugs do keep falling out. I always put it down to me having big ears.
4 cormacmoylan // Feb 27, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Those ear plugs are massive alright, and fairly uncomfortable once you have to push them right into your ear to stop them from falling out. I’m sure a decent pair of phones can be picked up for a tenner.
The ipod headphones are very comfortable.
5 Niall // Mar 1, 2007 at 2:35 am
Have a Creative Zen Touch which I have a love/hate relationship with.
On the plus side, battery life is great, MP3 playback is perfect and it works well under Linux.
However, the user interface is crap compared to the ipod, it doesn’t allow do simply USB Mass Storage (as you’ve already found out), and the random button is very very annonying.
I don’t want to touch the Ipod as it seemingly has issues with working with multiple PCs. At the moment I keep my music collection synced between my Desktop, Laptop and the Zen, I don’t want to risk having to rip that lot again.
I am seriously looking at the IRiver at the moment, but haven’t actually used one. What’s the OS like?
6 cormacmoylan // Mar 1, 2007 at 3:23 am
Hi Nial, I have never actually used an iRiver but according to my friends who have used it; it has blown the iPod and Zen out of the water.
The OS on the Zen is fairly poor, it doesn’t have as many features as the iPod.
A big annoying thing about the iPod, which i forgot to mention, is that it doesn’t allow you to scroll past Z to go back to A,B,C in the library. It only goes from A-Z and from Z-A. That is really annoying
7 bob soinso // Mar 30, 2007 at 2:43 pm
i hated this i wanted a graph and you didnt deliver
8 Cormac Moylan // Mar 31, 2007 at 7:13 pm
A graph on what exactly?
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