Help! Zen Micro or iPod?

cormie

The iPod shuffle is a disgrace though. The cheek of them to release a flash player without a display. Maybe it was a test to see how much they had the market wrapped around their finger. I'd say their fingernail is about to fall off with the lack of blood flow to it :rolleyes:

NotMe

I fixed my iRiver h10 I went to "portable device initialization" in iRiver plus and wiped everything off it. Then I copied the music back onto it and it works great now! I take back everything I said about it.

So yeah Nala maybe you should consider the h10

rsynnott

cormie wrote:

The iPod shuffle is a disgrace though. The cheek of them to release a flash player without a display. Maybe it was a test to see how much they had the market wrapped around their finger. I'd say their fingernail is about to fall off with the lack of blood flow to it :rolleyes:

*shrug* It meets many people's needs; a lot of people are quite happy to listen to random songs.

cormie

I know, but the same applies to all iPod things really, you can find better for cheaper.

rsynnott

cormie wrote:

I know, but the same applies to all iPod things really, you can find better for cheaper.

Hmm, depends on what you mean by better, really, particularly for the shuffle. Don't think you'll find anything else with such a simple, clean, interface, if that's what you're looking for.

NotMe

NotMe wrote:

I fixed my iRiver h10 I went to "portable device initialization" in iRiver plus and wiped everything off it. Then I copied the music back onto it and it works great now! I take back everything I said about it.

So yeah Nala maybe you should consider the h10

good, happy for ya!

rsynnott wrote:

*shrug* It meets many people's needs; a lot of people are quite happy to listen to random songs.

i had an Mp3 player 4 years ago, bought from Lidl for €99 which was a better machine than the ipod shuffle is now!

Nala

cormie wrote:

What do you want an mp3 player for?

Basically, to make my walk to work/college less boring! I enjoy walking to music.

cormie wrote:

Your music collection size

Well over the past 6 or 7 years I've accumulated a music collection of about 60 albums, which isn't very much. I'm hoping to get an MP3 player that can hold at least another 40 albums on top of that so I'm covered for a few years.

cormie wrote:

hours spent listening per day

It depends, at the moment I'd only be listening to it for a half an hour or so, getting to work and back, but if I was going shopping or just going for a normal day at college I could be listening to it for 5 hours+.
Plus I'm going on holiday to America soon, it's an 8-hour flight each way plus the usual 2+ hours in the airport beforehand so I need good battery life.

cormie wrote:

situations where you will be listening to it with

I'll be listening to it when I'm walking, when I'm on the train/bus/plane, on the treadmill, when I'm on a computer-the usual really. Oh and on the beach!

cormie wrote:

are you computer literate

Yep, I'm pretty good on a PC. I'm not a "computer-whizz" but I can get from A to B and back again!

cormie wrote:

are you prepared to spend time to get your collection the way you want it.

Yeah, but I'd like to be able to just put all my CDs onto the player and then for the player to make a list of the songs I listen to most or something. I think that's called an "intuitive" player or something?

cormie wrote:

Give as much info as possible and you'll get a better response.

Well that's about it really.

i suggest

iriver h10

cormie

I'd really opt for a bigger sized device myself if I were you. There is a better choice if you go for the larger capacity and the price difference isn't really that substantial. Once you get one, a whole new world of music will be opened up for you. With something like an iRiver H-1XX/3XX, you will be able to plug it into any of your friends computers and work away at their albums. You will get that extra 40 albums in no time, and 100 albums is about the amount you can fit onto a 6gb unit so once you reach that mark you will have to start deleting albums you don't listen to as much etc etc. Save yourself the hassle and go for a 20/40GB unit.

One big question is... what's your budget?

you see, if you get a 5/6gb model, spend a tiny bit more and you can get a 20gb, spend a tiny bit more on that and you get a 40gb, but I'm guessing you don't need 40gb just yet, and by the time you do, MP3 players will probably be allot cheaper than they are now, well maybe not that cheaper but there will definitely be a better selection.

Let me know your budget anyway:)

muckwarrior

Deleted User wrote:

neither,
easy to use = iriver h10

masterofthereal wrote:

iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver iRiver !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For God sake shut up with the iRiver propeganda. They are not that good! Especially when it comes to usability.
As someone else has already pointed out, creative's firmware is vastly superior. My prehistoric Jukebox 2 has features that my so called state of the art H320 could only dream of!

well i have a creative, its better than an ipod, but it's no iriver. In fact someone had pointed out that the Creative's were inferior already!

Irishstabber

I got an Ipod mini the other day and I have listened to it for a total of about 3-4 hours so far.
I am worried that the battery life is NO WHERE near what is advertised. I say this cause the battery symbol is about 1/3 down and 3x3 is 9 and 4x3 is 12
According to the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980, anything you buy from a retailer must be:
of merchantable quality
fit for its normal purpose, and reasonably durable
as described, whether the description is part of the advertising or wrapping, on a label, or something said by the salesperson.

Could I, if its not at least 14 hours, bring it back?

4Xcut

I have an iPod. Get a zen

muckwarrior

Deleted User wrote:

well i have a creative, its better than an ipod, but it's no iriver. In fact someone had pointed out that the Creative's were inferior already!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that iRivers are bad, but there are certain areas where they're severely lacking. Like FFS you cant even create a playlist! If creative could do this 3 years ago then why the hell can't iRiver do it now??? :mad:

new Creative's don't have that option either afaik.

Goldstein

Irishstabber wrote:

I got an Ipod mini the other day and I have listened to it for a total of about 3-4 hours so far.
I am worried that the battery life is NO WHERE near what is advertised.
...
Could I, if its not at least 14 hours, bring it back?

Battery life depends on a few factors:
> The bit rate of the tracks you listening to
> Amount of backlight usage
> Amount of flicking you do between songs
> Volume level

If you want to check your battery life against the advertised figures:

1. Make a playlist in iTunes from nothing but 128kbps songs, around 50 of them (Just add duplicates to the playlist if you don't have enough 128s). Update the iPod to add your new playlist to it.

2. Go to settings on the iPod. Turn off the EQ and set repeat to "All".

3. Charge it fully, then disconnect everything except the earphones.

4. Play the playlist you made.

5. Set the volume to 50%

6. Leave it playing. Come back to check it's still playing after around: 10 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours, 17 hours, or more often if you want a more precise measure.

It should last somewhere in the region of 17-18 hours.

RicardoSmith

The iShuffle is considered to havve the best sound quality of all the iPods. Its also the only flash Apple player. Probably the MP3 less likely to break after a fall since there nothing in it to break.

One thing that bugs me about the iPods is that if you switch between a few computers, say at work, and at home and maybe a laptop, its designed so that you can only really use it with one PC. AFAIK if you want to transfer stuff to it from another PC you essentially have to delete all of the music off it. For me thats a problem. I've heard that it can have this problem with music files. Not sure about data.

Same problem with Sonys Sonic Stage. Dunno about the creative players. I know its for DRM, but its still annoying. I'm not a bit fan of iTunes as its tagging is dire. You can rip 3 CD's from the same boxset and it will put them in different album names, catergories etc. Its also a bit slow as a player. Resource instensive etc.

I'd like a player with a line, and a radio so that rules out iPods for me. But I would be concerned about all the bugs with iRivers. The support isn't good either. All HD based players seem to break a lot, and have dire battery life.

There doesn't seem to be a "perfect" mp3 player. They are all flawed in some way or other.

I like the size of the Rio Carbons myself. Has its own issues, but for €200 its a 5GB player with a decent battery life.

CrimE

Deleted User wrote:

new Creative's don't have that option either afaik.

yep they do.

imo creative are far superior than all other brands. i have tried both ipods and irivers and wasnt half as impressed as i was with my zen.

and regarding the 12 hours battery life i sincerly doubt you could bring it back. that 14 hours is based on "perfect" conditions ie. no backlight use, browsing low bitrate etc 12 hours isnt actually bad at all.

people seem to be forgetting that ipod mini doesnt have a removable battery which i believe is terrible...

Nala

Irishstabber wrote:

I got an Ipod mini the other day and I have listened to it for a total of about 3-4 hours so far.
I am worried that the battery life is NO WHERE near what is advertised. I say this cause the battery symbol is about 1/3 down and 3x3 is 9 and 4x3 is 12
According to the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980, anything you buy from a retailer must be:
of merchantable quality
fit for its normal purpose, and reasonably durable
as described, whether the description is part of the advertising or wrapping, on a label, or something said by the salesperson.

Could I, if its not at least 14 hours, bring it back?

As with the batteries in mobile phones, it takes a few cycles for the battery life to be at it's full potential.

You can't create playlists with iRiver-what does that mean?
Does that mean I wouldn't be able to make a folder of my favourite songs?
My 128mb flash player can do that!

I'm now seriously considering buying the 6gb Zen Micro when I go to America in a few weeks, though I've no idea what colour to get. The light blue looks much nicer in real life than on paper.

NotMe

You can create playlists with the iRiver but you have to do it on your computer. You can't create them on the fly.

cormie

Nala, what's your budget?

iRiver need a good kick up the arse and need to start adding what are now the basics, otf playlists, gapless etc etc. rockbox.org has done a great job on their firmware for the iRiver, I can now enjoy crossfade gapless playback (sounds beautiful), otf playlists amogst a tonne of other little things from simple things like a backlight that dims instead of turning on to being able to play gameboy games on it and much more.

I'd say the best mp3 player at the moment is the Cowan iAudio X5L, it's a nice design (I know that important to you Nala :rolleyes: ) it's got good battery life, great firmware, lcd remote, photo+video viewer etc etc.

It's by far the best out there at the moment. Pricey though.

goin'_to_the_PS

niether go for a rio carbon smaller lighter better memory better battery....

knifey_spoonie

I got an zen micro and have been using it today since about 8 stoped at half 6 and have listined to it for another hour. so thats 10 hours and ive had it loud around 20 of 25.so the battery is ok.the 2nd bar has just disappered

GS404

What can I say.....*pets his Silver Zen Micro*

CrimE

GS404 wrote:

What can I say.....*pets his Silver Zen Micro*

Lol same here I have said this in every micro thread but best bit of equipment I have ever owned

Nala

cormie wrote:

Nala, what's your budget?

The most I would spend would be about €250.

cormie

Go for the H320 in Dixons, I think it's only about €260 there. It plays video and everything and rockbox (www.rockbox.org) are working on doing a H3XX firmware which will make it amazing!

muckwarrior

cormie wrote:

and rockbox (www.rockbox.org) are working on doing a H3XX firmware which will make it amazing!

Got any timescale for that? Feckin sick of this shítty iRiver firmware. :mad:

cormie

No timescale for rockbox ever really. Just keep an eye on this page, the H3XX topic. I think things are beginning to move now for it. They said once the H1XX is in swing it should be much easier to do the H3XX because some hardware issues are similar so they have the workaround for them already and stuff.

RockBox is amazing, anything you can think of it can do. Gapless playback, true shuffle, otf playlists, bookmarking songs (say for audio books, you can bookmark a point and go back to listening to it whenever you want and listen to whatever you want in between), crossfade, gameboy games, otf delete, folder creation etc etc etc so much in it.

muckwarrior

It really says somethin when a third party can come along and blow iRivers own firmware out of the water! I think they should seriously consider outsourcing the development of their firmware to someone like this as they clearly aren't capable of creating software to match the standard of their hardware.