Need an ipod or zune for a trip to Europe

[Obsoleet]

I'm torn.

the zune 120 looks fantastic.. 120gb with a decent screen.. and no itunes (not a fan of that), but zune software that i havent used. but possibly easier to get working with WMP11 than ipod.
wireless never hurts.

ipod touch is $400 for 32gb.. and i'm not poor but good god thats expensive. i understand pay to play and that its very nice.. and that the zune120 is more directed towards the ipod classic120, but i think the zune120 is a better choice than the ipod classic personally. so im comparing the touch to the zune120.
i can stack a ton of movies on the zune120, and music and still probaby have a hard time filling it up. granted the battery life is worse, but it means less hunting for songs on my pc and syncing for me.

i rarely change the songs on my nano due to me hating itunes.



a final consideration is that when i return to the US.. im buying a new HDTV and either a 360 or an appleTV.. depending if Apple can update their device (i feel its losing competitiveness).
if possible i'd like to stay in one ecosystem or another.. preferably the more open ecosystem of microsoft.

but i am considering mixing a 360 with a ipod touch. but probably not likely due to the advantages that keeping an ipod touch and apple tv brings.. if im paying for the expense (a bit much) for one apple device im going to go all apple for these devices.



thanks for the advice in advance, i havent played with these devices too much personally so i appreciate all the help from those of you in the know!

 

[RandomFool]

I've got a Zune 30 and have been mulling over purchasing an iPod Touch for awhile now. The problem is I can't justify spending that much money on a touch. I'd love to have the extra features of the touch (wifi browsing, apps, and whatnot) but I'm not convinced I'll use them often enough to justify the expense.

I should also add that I love my Zune. The software is much better than iTunes and MS is consistently making it better and better. I'd buy a Zune Touch in an instant.

 

[pm]

The Zune is cheaper, has an FM tuner, and you don't have to use iTunes and I agree with you that the Microsoft ecosytem is better than Apple's in terms of openness (who'd have thought the day would come when Microsoft would be the "less DRM evil" choice?). The Touch can surf the web over WiFi, has an argueably better interface, has better games and other apps, has a higher resolution screen (better for movies) and has better battery life. But it costs much more and has much less space.

If you don't care about surfing the web, and you don't want to watch movies or play games much, then you are definitely aiming at a Zune. The resolution of the Zune is adequate for watching movies but the Touch is much better. And once you've played the Apple Texas Hold'Em, the Zune version is definitely disappointing (although the AI on the Zune version seems a bit better) and that holds true for a lot of the games for the Touch vs. the Zune - the Touch has vastly more games and the ones that it has are better than those (two?) for the Zune 120.

The Zune is an excellent music player, and it's hands-down better than the iPod Classic for both music and movies and software... but the Touch is more useful for other things... like playing games and surfing the web, IM'ing people and other non-music-playing things. It depends on how much you can afford, and what you want to do with it. If it's just music and a few movies, get the Zune.

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm still viewing both as equal for my uses. I will use the games (if they're any good) and wifi (not much but I will).

So it comes down to:
120GB, and all the funtionality that I NEED. By the way the storage space means a lot to me, its a significant point.
or
all the functionality, but more money for less space.

What will decide this for me, is if the appletv itself gets updates. If I buy an appletv, buying the ipod touch is a no brainer. If I get a 360 for media streaming, then I'll go for the storage space. So far, Apple is dropping the ball with the AppleTV. They need free ad-supported streaming of tv shows at least. Because right now, a 360 has a good marketplace, a dvd upscaler, and just as good streaming capabilities.. possibly better for MP3s from what I've read about apple's interface.
That said, the ipod touch with an appletv is a great combo.

considering i never could force itunes on myself, and prefer WMP11's database method.. I'm leaning towards the zune. The FM radio for me isn't completely insignificant, it's a great feature.

I'd like to load the Zune120 full of movies and MP3s and have something stacked full for the flight to Europe and downtime that I'll have at work. I work in global IT and sometimes when monitoring systems we need something to break the boredom. The touch is better in this regard, but games do exist on both.. and I can't imagine browsing the web on an ipod touch being too rewarding. I'd probably be better off waiting till I can get to a computer for that..

more input welcome!

 

[pm]

Browsing the web on an iPod Touch works extremely well. I do it almost too often on my iPhone. It's fast, intuitive and looks good. Trying to write a lot using the virtual keyboard on it is definitely not as pleasant, but it still works.

When I went to Europe for 2 weeks over the summer, I just brought my 16GB iPhone and left the laptop at home. Aside from the inability to load more movies onto it when I was over there (it will only sync media with one machine <sigh>) and the general annoyance of writing long-ish emails using the touchscreen, it worked great. On the plane I watched movies, and played Solitaire, Hold'em and Blackjack as well as this turn-based strategy game that I can't remember the name of.

A lot of the games on the iPod Touch are pretty impressive.
Star Wars: http://www.quicklybored.com/20...-unleashed-for-iphone/
Spore: http://www.sporeillustrated.co...ge/Spore+iPhone?t=anon
Texas Hold'Em: http://www.apple.com/apps/holdem/
Crash Bandicoot: http://www.gametrailers.com/pl...usermovies/259763.html

I've only heard of the two so far for the Zune 120: Hexic (vaguely like Bejeweled) and Texas Hold'Em.

Still, it sounds like you are leaning towards the Zune... everyone that I know loves theirs and it's certainly a lot cheper, smaller and lighter. If you will have your laptop handy then everything on the iPod Touch will be even better on a big screen and keyboard of a laptop.

I agree with you on the AppleTV thing - it could be so much better if they would just a few more features. As it is, the 360-as-media-extender is a better choice for Windows users. Or the cheap PC turned into media extender which can play iTunes stuff and Windows Media Center on the same device.

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm still undecided on this one. I got the camera I was looking for ordered, would like to get one of these now.

The reason it gets difficult is because I'd like to pair a Zune or Touch with either a 360 or AppleTV. I'm leaning towards the appletv, and there has to be a software update coming for that device. If not, I'm not enticed enough to go that route. Apple definitely makes high quality products but sometimes they move a little slow for my taste. I get the feeling they prefer products like the ipod that no one can really compete with very well.
In the digital set top box realm, they're going to have to compete rather than create their own little "island" like the Mac and Ipod world.

We've got PS3s, 360s, devices like Popcorn Hour.. very little incentive to do things the "apple way" in that department. Certainly going through all my MP3s and tagging songs is not my idea of a good time and something I've been able to avoid for years due to WMP. Frankly it works great using that method. That's really my only complaint about itunes.

 

[Obsoleet]

Can I sync an ipod touch wirelessly like the zune?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Obsoleet
Can I sync an ipod touch wirelessly like the zune?

Unfortunately no.

 

[Obsoleet]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: Obsoleet
Can I sync an ipod touch wirelessly like the zune?

Unfortunately no.

That's pretty ridiculous to be honest and I'm a bit surprised.

 

[pm]

Well, it can be done - just you have to jailbreak the phone, install OpenSSH and then use something like SmartFTP or some other SSH aware file transfer program to drag and drop the files over. But it's not supported by Apple and it's not all that easy to do.

I'm convinced that Apple doesn't allow bluetooth or WiFi sync'ing to make it harder for hackers to hack into... not that this was much more than a speedbump.

 

[Obsoleet]

This is the hardest decision for me.

It's either an AppleTV, ipod touch and wii or a 360 and zune.

A coworker has a first gen ipod touch that he was going to sell. If its priced right, I'll probably just get that and go that route. The ipod is better obviously due to the games and internet. He said they might not sell it now that the price has bottomed out. If not, I don't really want to pay $400 for a new 32GB touch. That's just a lot of money for 32GB, regardless of the features. 60GB for $400? I'd bite no doubt.

We'll see if the coworker will sell, I'm hoping I can pick it up for $150 for the 16GB model. That's pretty low but honestly the 1st gen is significantly less attractive than the new one. If he won't go for that or doesn't want to sell at all, I'll probably just default on the Zune.

120GB of movies and music would be really nice. To be honest just having texas holdem is probably enough gaming for me. I've never found most handheld games sophisticated enough to keep my attention. Toss in free upgrades, FM radio (I won't spit at it), and more open standards and I can't deny Microsoft's product.


Now another issue that might be a problem down the road, neither device works on Linux. At least natively. Which is a shame. I'll probably always have a windows OS of some sort though. That would've been a large deciding factor as well. Zunes lack of Mac support doesn't mean much to me because if I leave the windows realm I'll go all open source.