Advice on a MP3 Player: Creative or Sony

colin300

I think i will buy one now since i am about to finish school and start going to the gym and as you can imagine it will be boring on my own so i need a bit of advice.

I dont want an ipod for the fact that it only plays its stupid format and MP3 as far as i know. I was thinking of one of them Creative Zen Micro 5GB ones since they have a radio and it can be quite boring listening to the same ten songs u get hooked on . What I am wondering is, are they good quality and do they have a clip or any sort of clip you can get for it? I would be afraid it might fall out of my pocket while jogging and shatter in a million pieces. It seems good value for money at €189 off komplett. Also are there any software faults with it that might stop it from working. I know 5GB aint too big but I have well over 20GB of music so no point in a big player. Also what about the charge time on it? It says it lasts for roughly 16 hours but no recharge time. I might think about the Creative Zen Touch 20GB if people have good things to say.

I am also thinking of the Sony NW-HD5 20GB it looks good and it lasts for 40 hours and only 3hours charge time but only a MP3 player no radio. It does have 20GB space though.

My main question is do either of these have a problem like software glitches or just things that are annoying like low sound? Also i have read players like the sony and ipod rename songs so u cant copy from the player and u dont know what songs are what once there on it. Does the creative do this? And a clip to carry it is a main problem.

Also does anyone know a place to get the player cheaper? Or maybe there is a better player then this? I know iRiver are brilliant but I dont have that sort of money.

Wertz

Bear in mind that the Sony, whilst a lovely machine to look at and very nicely speceed, uses propreitary formating. The software you have to install to transfer music to the player converts your music files or CDs into a format called atrac3. Whilst it is a very high quality encoder in terms of bitrate/sound quality, it is also copy protected.
The sonic stage s/w is also apparetnly horrible and can crash frequently.
Also all the stats quoted like battery life, number of tracks, etc are based on 48kbps atrac3+ compression....mp3s will take up more space and use more abttery due to higher bitrates.

I still like the NW-HD5 after all that. The sound quality is what you expect from Sony, but the player has run into criticism on the build quality and the + shape button on the front which apparently cracks on the silver model.

I'm going for the 30gb model, since it's only another 50 quid, but I've been swayed by the toshiba gigabeat a few times; it looks like a nice machine with some great features, and toshiba are the manafacturers of the hardrives behind the success of the iPod and all the other big name players out there...

I know SFA about the creative, so I'll let someone else answer that part...

J-blk

colin300 wrote:

What I am wondering is, are they good quality and do they have a clip or any sort of clip you can get for it? I would be afraid it might fall out of my pocket while jogging and shatter in a million pieces.

You really don't want to be jogging with a hard drive based MP3 player .

Wertz commented on the Sony, so I'll stick to the Zen Micro since I have one. As far as issues go, there have been various things reported with the Micro, from dodgy headphone socket connectors to poor battery life. I have had my Micro since it almost first hit the market in December and I have never had a problem. I'm sure your thread will soon fill with people saying that it's a crap player but I disagree. If you search around, you'll find iPods, IRivers and all kinds of other brands have numerous issues.

Warranty is 1 year and since Creative has its' EU HQ in Dublin, you won't have major issues getting it replaced if it goes pear shaped. I guess most problems would show up in the first year if you happen to have them.

As for the clip, the Micro ships with a small "cradle" thing, that the unit slips into and you can then change the back to either a belt clip or a desk stand for sitting it upright on your desk. A soft cloth pouch and power adapter are what was included with mine but according to www.creative.com, these are now "limited special accessories" so you may want to check what Komplett includes with their stock.

Creative also sells a better leather pouch for it and there are a few third party cases there. Personally, the Altoids tin is the best case for me and you get some mints in the deal . The Zen Micro fits perfectly and you get a good aluminum case - the rip-off Altoids that Marks & Spencer sell does the same trick.

Recharge time from dead on the AC adapter is around 3 hours - longer if you are charging from the USB port on a PC. And don't expect 16 hours in "real life" use, moving between tracks, switching on and off, etc. I think around 10 hours is my average though I do not pay much attention to this (I am never away from a PC that long so I charge via USB often!).

On the radio though, it's not that great - it uses the headphones as the aerial and when you are on the move, even stations like 2FM just don't come through strong enough... I think this is the case for most MP3 players with radios though - if only Ireland had DAB Radio stations....

However, I never use the radio so I don't mind - you can easily get around 1000 good quality MP3s on there, so not much to bore you . I particularly like the "DJ" feature on the Micro, which will randomly pull songs from your collection, allow you to listen to the songs in most popular order that you listen to them usually or most rarely heard, etc. It's a great way for listening to old gems you forgot where in your music collection .

The naming on the Zen Micro uses the ID3 tags embedded in your files so if they look good on your Windows Media Player, they'll look ok on the Micro (screen shows title/artist/album and duration while playing).

The Creative software can be a bit annoying - you may or may not like it. It works fine with WMP 9 and 10. I tend to use WMP10 myself.

Other features in it are mic recording (I've used it for a couple of interviews - it's ok for what it is) and the abillity to store Tasks/Contacts and Appointments from Outlook which is the most USELESS feature to me.

All in all, I think it's a brilliant little player but as I've said in other posts, it all boils down to what YOU need and want. For you, an IRiver may rule, or the Sony, or an iPod or whatever...

colin300

I dont like what you said about not jogging. Why not it dont have any moving parts like a walkman? The only thing that might move is the earphones.

Was this what u had in mind Leather Carry Case

Guy:Incognito

Wertz wrote:

Bear in mind that the Sony, whilst a lovely machine to look at and very nicely speceed, uses propreitary formating. The software you have to install to transfer music to the player converts your music files or CDs into a format called atrac3.

The HD5 plays MP3's.

colin300

I dont think he ment that. What he ment was that the player encodes them to Atrac3 when transfering.

muckwarrior

colin300 wrote:

Why not it dont have any moving parts like a walkman?

The hard drive is a moving part.

colin300

No way! But the hard drive is the whole thing how can it move. Unless we talk about the internal workings of the hard drive??

*Angel*

I have the 20GB Creative, I like it...

J-blk

colin300 wrote:

No way! But the hard drive is the whole thing how can it move. Unless we talk about the internal workings of the hard drive??

Er yes... that is what we are talking about. A hard drive is essentially a series of spinning disc platters, stacked on top of each other. Expose it to multiple hard shocks and before long, you'll be needing a replacement player. If you need a player with no movable parts, for jogging,etc, then you need flash memory and those typically only go to 1GB at the moment. Try jogging with your PC's hard drive.... same rules apply.

And that is the leather case I was talking about.

I'll also throw in a point about the Sony. The new models support MP3 and ATRAC - the crowd over there figured out that only supporting ATRAC was a major no-no. However, ALL of Sony's claims about the stupidly long battery life are based on ATRAC, which is more compressed than MP3 (and crappier, and proprietary...). You can use only MP3s on the Sony if you like, but don't expect the battery life those ads promise...

muckwarrior

colin300 wrote:

No way! But the hard drive is the whole thing how can it move. Unless we talk about the internal workings of the hard drive??

Well it's basically a disk that spins around, just like a CD, and we all know the effect jogging has on a discman with no memory buffer!

Wertz

Stekelly wrote:

The HD5 plays MP3's.

Yes of course it does

From a personal persepctive any files I transferred across, I'd encode from mp3 to atrac anyway; the equaliser won't work on mp3 and 48kbps atrac is sonicly superior to 128kbps mp3 (IMO)

colin300

Thanks for the info on hard drives it just surprises me when in fact Creative do a hard drive player resistant to jogging and the like why isn't the Zen Micro the same.

J-blk

colin300 wrote:

it just surprises me when in fact Creative do a hard drive player resistant to jogging and the like why isn't the Zen Micro the same.

Really? Which one? As far as I know, HD + Jogging = major no no (for the reasons outlined by some of us here). I've never seen Creative actively push an HD player as ideal for that use, only flash based ones.

colin300

it is the the creative Nomad Zen Xtra i hope i got that right!!!

Sorry only saying it now was doing exams.

I have read that it is jogging proof.

TheBigLebowski

I got a sony HD5 and I think it's quality. The battery lasts 40 hours when playing AtracPlus 48kbps which I thinks sounds fine (supposed to be equivalent to 128 kbps mp3). There is a volume limiter because of some EU law but it's easy to disable through a hidden menu (I've done it myself). There has been some concerns about quality on avforums that you might wanna check but it is a very long thread. Here's the link...

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215060&highlight=hd5

It plays MP3's and supports WMA which the ipod doesn't. As for jogging with it? I'm a lazy bastard so I don't know...

Creamy Goodness

TheBigLebowski wrote:

As for jogging with it? I'm a lazy bastard so I don't know...

you cannot jog with any hard drive based player, the needle of the hard drive will just not read the platters.

colin300

Why do sony say the following then:
G-Sensor™ Shock Protection Provides Impact Protection
The innovative G-Sensor system automatically and instantly reacts to changes in gravity and velocity by releasing the recording head. This protects the hard disk surface, preventing crashes and loss of data, ultimately improving long term reliability.
Skip-Free5G-Protection™ Technology
Provides quick recovery from both horizontal and vertical shock

TheBigLebowski

And it has a good delay system so even it did skip, it would correct it by the time you hear it so you'd never know...The G sensor will also protect the heads.
It's this delay that allows for gapless playback of songs where you don't want a gap such as a mix, unlike some other players that pause during a mix so it can go find the next track.

Ciaran500

All harddrive based mp3 players put information into flash memory before playing it. Its impossible to skip when its in flash but once the flash memory is emptied it will have to read from the harddrive again. It will not be able to read if the player gets any type of jolt. This is when the skip occurs. Running with a spinning harddrive is generally considered a bad idea what ever protection they put on it.

All the G sensor does is remove the head from the disk so it doesn't cause any damage and loss of data. Most harddrive based mp3 players do this.

colin300

So its a no no then??
Even if i did fork out for the Sony.

I will probably take it off me then when i am running.

Wertz

If it's imperative that you have it for jogging or other physical activity, primarily, then why not get a Sony hi-MD player? A lot more resilient than a hard drive player, and cheaper as well. It takes both normal and high capacity (1gb) minidiscs,l works on one AA battery (which lasts for about 40-50 hrs) and is pretty small too....
No matter what protection a HDD based player has, constant knocks and bumps will eventually derail the hard discs or the heads and poof goes your few hundred quid...

colin300

I have ordered the Creative Zen Micro.
I wouldn't go for a mini disc the whole idea is not to have to carry any other stuff with me.

Wertz

colin300 wrote:

I have ordered the Creative Zen Micro.
I wouldn't go for a mini disc the whole idea is not to have to carry any other stuff with me.

On a normal netMD, discs recorded at LP4 last 6.5 hours...on a hi-MD you can extend that out to maybe 50 hours...so what else would you need to carry? 50 hours on 1 disc that's inside the player...

Anyways, that's besides the point...hope the Zen works out for ya...

J-blk

colin300 wrote:

I have ordered the Creative Zen Micro.

Enjoy... BTW, you don't need to freak out too much about the hard drive. It won't fail if you have to speed up to catch the bus, e.g. It's only a bad idea to expose it to shocks constantly, like when jogging.

If you want your tunes while exercising, then you could always pick up a 256 - 512MB flash based player to compliment the Zen Micro... Do you really need over 1000 songs when jogging? That must be one loooong jog .

Oh and the Zen NX is most definitely not jog proof either - in fact, since it uses a laptop 2.5" HD, it's just as prone to shock damage (if not more) as the Zen Micro and the Sony...

colin300

Well its not only for jogging that was just main fear.
I am joining a gym so i know most of the stuff wouldn't cause damage just wondering about the exposure during jogging.