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nostromo
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Montréal, Québec
Mar 2002
time: 00:16
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I hesitated between the Zen micro and iPod mini. Both sound very, very good, provided you buy a decent pair of headphones. So if he's serious about sound quality, he'll have to invest in a decent pair of cans. However, according to some people, it seems the Zen micro has a slight advantage in the sound department. But Stereophile gave the iPod a very good review. I certainly can attest that it sounds very good with a decent pair of headphones.
The choice was a hard one, but I finally bought a iPod mini. It was 80$ cheaper than the Zen micro, and for that price I'll get myself a decent pair of cans, maybe Sennheiser PX-100's. Or maybe your brother could get himself a nice pair of Grados GR-60. Unfortunately, Grados are overpriced here in Canada: they're like 69$ in the States and 130$ here in Canada 
I tried both and I also prefer the iPod's interface. Its more intuitive. The new iPod mini's also enjoys a longer battery life. I haven't tested it, but it's 18 hours according to Apple.
The battery is standardized, but it's very hard to replace in a Mini. You can send it to someone and for about 60$, they'll replace it for you.
I don't know if your brother listens to House or techno. But the iPod inserts a one second gap between each song. So if your listening to a dj mix, there's a gap between songs. That sucks. The only way around that is to rip the whole dj mix album as one song.
Last edited by nostromo on 09-04-2005 at 23:40
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mrmitchell
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Yeah, me too. I may well soon ditch my CD player and huge CD carrier, so what I'd be looking for is a compact, easy to use player that will play mp3s with respectable sound quality and long battery life (I have no idea how long a normal mp3 player battery life is, but my CD player is supposed to play for about 15 hours before it craps out IIRC, so I'll probably be pleasantly surprised.)
I'm not particularly interested in huge capacities, I won't listen to 4GB of music before I return to my computer unless I walk to Tierra del Fuego.
How big is an iPod mini or a Zen micro? I want to take these things in my pockets, which already have cell phone, papers, pencils, pens, batteries...
And for those of you that use mp3 players, give your own personal information that I won't see in magazines. Like the iPod putting a second between each song, that could end up pissing me off, or having to send away your precious iPod to get the batteries fixed. Screw that.
edit: the Zen Micro 4gb actually looks pretty good. it'll be a while before I actually buy one so maybe it'll be cheaper by then.
Plus, I drink a lot of Pepsi and they have the promotion going on where you get a free song code on the bottle cap. It's a pretty minor reason to change my mind, though. Could I possibly download a song in iTunes using the Pepsi code and then listen to it using any other player (or burn it to a CD), or do I have to have an iPod to listen to it?
Last edited by mrmitchell on 10-04-2005 at 01:00
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Zopperoni
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Zen Micro is business card size in height and width, and a bit thicker than a cell phone.
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nostromo
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Montréal, Québec
Mar 2002
time: 00:16
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quote:
How big is an iPod mini or a Zen micro? |
About the size of a cell phone. The iPod is 3.6 inches high, 2 inches wide and 0.5 inch thick. The iPod comes with a belt clip so you don't have to put it in your pocket.
quote:
or having to send away your precious iPod to get the batteries fixed. Screw that. |
You can always buy a battery and do it yourself. But its harder opening Minis than other iPods, since Minis are basically flattened aluminum tubes, without seams. But I don't think its that big a deal, really. Like I said, the battery is good for about 18 hours, according to Apple. If you take care of your battery properly it should be good for 300 to 500 full charge cycles. And you'll need to do a full discharge/charge cycle about once a month. So the battery should last you a couple of years before you need to replace it. So overall, I think I made a fairly good choice. Of course, if its a big deal for you, get a Zen micro. You can easily change the battery. Some micros even come with two batteries.
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Zopperoni
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You won't find a harddisk player that runs on AA(A) batteries. One GB Flash players from Creative or iRiver are as good as it gets...
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Kaak
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Man, I recommend the Zen Micro or the iRiver H10, and from what i understand the iriver is the better of the two. The MAIN REASON you don't want an ipod is that you have to use iTunes. The zen and the iRiver both work like hard drives. You plug them in and drag and drop!
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Kaak
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nostromo: nope, when i say drag and drop, you don't need any drivers or software (like iTunes) which is my main gripe with the ipod. Plus, both of those devices support more formats than the ipod, so no conversion is necessary, AND you can store other types of files on them if you want to transfer such a file from one computer to another (like movies or even school work)
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nostromo
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Montréal, Québec
Mar 2002
time: 00:16
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Well, according to Tom's hardware review of the Micro:
quote:
Creative does seem to have a lot of trouble making its audio players truly nomadic. For example, synching the Zen Micro with your PC first requires installation of a driver. Wouldn't a simple drag-drop program without the need for prior installation of a driver or software be the best solution?
Like Apple, Creative has made its player Outlook-compatible and provided a removable-disk function. But in order to store data, the user must first use the player's "Extras" menu to partition part of the Zen Micro's 5-GB capacity exclusively for storage. Then the user must turn on the player, connect it to the computer, and configure it as a "Removable Disk." Otherwise, the PC won't detect the Zen as a possible storage medium, even though it locates it with no problem for synchronization. Indeed, saving a few files to the Zen Micro is far from being a no-brainer. |
Btw, I'm not saying this to diss the Micro. Its a great player.
I haven't tried storing files on my iPod: I have no use for it. But Afaik, you only need iTunes to turn on the iPod-as-a-hd option. Once this is done, your can use Windows explorer to drag and drop files on your iPod. And afaik, you can store any kind of files on it.
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09-04-2005 22:44
)
(as do most of my non-ipod friends)
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