• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Zune Vs Ipod - which is better??

Page 8 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Originally posted by: Dimkaumd

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
read engadgets review on the zune. doesnt look to good.

the ipod is a good player...but i think it needs a UI update of some sort.
Click to expand...

what did the engadget review say??
Click to expand...

Some people are having problems with the Zune Marketplace software installation.

Like I said earlier in the thread MS rushed the launch to make it out for the critical holiday season. Its why I will wait until after the first of the year to buy a Zune. I also want to see what Apple is up to and that should be known by the second week of Jan. Honestly though, I dont get my financial aid money until after the first of the year so no anything for me right now. And before anyone says anything, the way I was billed, I had to pay $1500 out of my own pocket for the fall semester, Ill have ~$1800 left over during the spring semester.
 
crap, i voted for the zune thinking it was for which was cooler. I do think the ipod will outsell the Zune though.
 
Originally posted by: thehstrybean
Originally posted by: michaels
Isn't the Creatize Zen Vision better than both?
Click to expand...

Zen Vision:M!!!

<--:heart:s his...
Click to expand...
I prefer my new Zune to my 2 month old Vision:M by a long shot. The only thing that it has over the Zune is more colors on the screen, resulting in better contrast. Other than that, I think the Zune wins because of interface, design, and speed.
 
Originally posted by: blurredvision
Originally posted by: thehstrybean
Originally posted by: michaels
Isn't the Creatize Zen Vision better than both?
Click to expand...

Zen Vision:M!!!

<--:heart:s his...
Click to expand...
I prefer my new Zune to my 2 month old Vision:M by a long shot. The only thing that it has over the Zune is more colors on the screen, resulting in better contrast. Other than that, I think the Zune wins because of interface, design, and speed.
Click to expand...

I used the zune briefly while doing some shopping. It seems to have a similar concept to creative's "now playing" in the "quick playlist" or whatever they call it on the zune. How does the implementation compare? I did notice you can just play it without adding it to the quick playlist. Is the quick list just like the On the Go of an ipod? I did like the interface more than the zen in general... but I'm not convinced that holding a button down to scroll is as easy to deal with as a circular dialing motion.
 
Damn, I want a Zune, but I got my Vision:M in May as a graduation gift...plus it's kinda scratched up now, but perfect otherwise...🙁

Oh well, the Zen works great for me...maybe in a year or 2 I can grab a Zune...
 
Originally posted by: torpid
Originally posted by: blurredvision
I prefer my new Zune to my 2 month old Vision:M by a long shot. The only thing that it has over the Zune is more colors on the screen, resulting in better contrast. Other than that, I think the Zune wins because of interface, design, and speed.
Click to expand...
I used the zune briefly while doing some shopping. It seems to have a similar concept to creative's "now playing" in the "quick playlist" or whatever they call it on the zune. How does the implementation compare? I did notice you can just play it without adding it to the quick playlist. Is the quick list just like the On the Go of an ipod? I did like the interface more than the zen in general... but I'm not convinced that holding a button down to scroll is as easy to deal with as a circular dialing motion.
Click to expand...
The quick list is the exact same as On The Go with the iPod. Just a quick way to create a playlist. While I didn't hardly use this feature on the iPod, I plan to on my Zune due to the subscription service and the restrictions on syncing. I'm assuming it's the same as when I used Napster and the Vision:M, in that even if you create a new playlist with a song that's already on your player, it will take away on the count of times you can sync, which is retarded. Afterall, the Zune Marketplace is the exact same thing as WMP11, just a different name. Everything down to the option dialogs are the same.

However, after adding a couple of songs to the quick list on my Zune, it doesn't appear to give an option to remove individual songs, only clear the entire list at once. I'd like to use it as a quick playlist for me to add songs that I'm into at the time, instead of just shuffling through my entire collection. Creating playlists at different points is out of the question because of what I mentioned before.....you only get a couple of syncs per month or so.
 
I'm not quite ready to retire my 30 GB iPod Photo yet. Maybe I'll wait until next year, when the rumored wide screen iPod comes out and the Zune has been throughly debugged.
 
Originally posted by: OREOSpeedwagon
For a girl, definitely get an iPod.

But on the topic of the post I don't think there will ever be an mp3 player will sell as well as the iPod.
Click to expand...



that is the 100% truth too.
 
why would anyone want either of those 2 devices? they force you to use thier own standards for everything.. WMV for zune and itunes for thier music and video


look at this.. creative has a better player that plays ANYTHING xvid dvix etc etc etc.. and was rated higher.. yet is ignored..

http://www.creative.com/products/produc...gory=213&subcategory=214&product=14331

now they have a W version with the same great screen thats in the PSP for huge on the go videos.. these are all playforsure devices and can use any format of music..

then there is the Archos which blows ALL of them to hell... its a portable DVR/TIVO and plays any format as well..

http://www.archos.com/products/video/ar...wifi/index.html?country=global&lang=en


why are people so attracted to apples POS? and zune??? forget it...
 
Originally posted by: CVSiN
why would anyone want either of those 2 devices? they force you to use thier own standards for everything.. WMV for zune and itunes for thier music and video


look at this.. creative has a better player that plays ANYTHING xvid dvix etc etc etc.. and was rated higher.. yet is ignored..

http://www.creative.com/products/produc...gory=213&subcategory=214&product=14331

now they have a W version with the same great screen thats in the PSP for huge on the go videos.. these are all playforsure devices and can use any format of music..

then there is the Archos which blows ALL of them to hell... its a portable DVR/TIVO and plays any format as well..

http://www.archos.com/products/video/ar...wifi/index.html?country=global&lang=en


why are people so attracted to apples POS? and zune??? forget it...
Click to expand...



Wow you make an excellent point. The Archos doesnt play Divx?? What a shame, but that Creative W player is awesome, 4.3 inch screen, plays music and movies, no restrictions!!!

Any downsides?
 
I don't know anything about Zune....but Apple has terrible customer service and quality control. I will never order another iPod. If you do happen to order anything made from Apple, be sure to buy it with an AMEX card so you can get your money back when it breaks...

BTW...I don't like MP3 players that have microdrives or rechargable batteries in them. I prefer flash drives with AA or AAA compatibility. A battery will last forever (you can use rechargables if you want), but battery replacement isn't an issue. Battery life is long because of no moving parts, and you don't have to worry about the hard drive crappin' out in 2 years. I've had many friends have to pay to get their iPods serviced via Best Buy, Circuit City, etc... Usually they never work exactly right after they get them back either (some cases were cracked, battery life poor, etc)
 
lots of ipod haters posting in the poll.

wallstreet journal had an article today on the zune, its dropped pretty hard in the amazon electronics sales rank. was top 10 the first few days of launch, now down to sales rank #334 for brown, #75 for black, #445 for white. ouch...

btw ipod sales rank #1? yes ipod video 30gb😉
ranks 1,2,4,6,8,9 in the top 10 are all ipods.

so why's that poll going 50/50? 😛 clicks are cheap
 
After 2 weeks of use, I still prefer my Zune to the iPod. The two biggest things I dislike is the same resolution as the iPod on a bigger screen, and the fact that the Zune marketplace is just plain weird sometimes. The program itself is working great, but most of the stuff they advertise on the front page, new releases and the like, they don't even have tracks for. For example, the new Jay-Z album they've had up on the front page of the marketplace ever since it was released last week. The problem? You can't even download the tracks, because the Marketplace doesn't carry them. It does show the album and all the tracks, though, only they are all greyed out and not available.

At this current moment, out of the 8 new releases they advertise on the store front, only 2 of those actually will lead to downloadable songs. I don't know if these things should be downloadable, or if it's just broken, but they need to do something about it.
 
Originally posted by: JackBurton

Same could be said about Zune Marketplace when its DRM is cracked as well.
Click to expand...
Yes it could, but for now it's not and Apple's iTunes is. So for today, I'm comparing DRM vs DRM free. Like I said, in the future this may change, but for now, it is what it is. So that is a HUGE plus for iTunes. 🙂
Click to expand...

You can burn purchased songs on a playlist to a CD. Then, simply transcode the songs back to DRM-free mp3s. Ta-daa, Zune songs are now DRM free!

Oh, and they updated the "itunes music freeer" or whatever it was called to work with V7 of iTunes? Because last time I downloaded it (about a month ago), it only worked with V6, and if you installed V7 it didn't "free your music" anymore.
And did I mention the Zune is ugly? 😛
Click to expand...

Subjective. The iPod is a tacky fashion accesory.
 
Originally posted by: Dimkaumd
Originally posted by: CVSiN
why would anyone want either of those 2 devices? they force you to use thier own standards for everything.. WMV for zune and itunes for thier music and video


look at this.. creative has a better player that plays ANYTHING xvid dvix etc etc etc.. and was rated higher.. yet is ignored..

http://www.creative.com/products/produc...gory=213&subcategory=214&product=14331

now they have a W version with the same great screen thats in the PSP for huge on the go videos.. these are all playforsure devices and can use any format of music..

then there is the Archos which blows ALL of them to hell... its a portable DVR/TIVO and plays any format as well..

http://www.archos.com/products/video/ar...wifi/index.html?country=global&lang=en


why are people so attracted to apples POS? and zune??? forget it...
Click to expand...



Wow you make an excellent point. The Archos doesnt play Divx?? What a shame, but that Creative W player is awesome, 4.3 inch screen, plays music and movies, no restrictions!!!

Any downsides?
Click to expand...

actually Ive seen personally the Archos playign DIVX tracks here at work.. friend has one.. I didnt know they existed till the other day. he assures me they play it just fine..

there are 0 downsides for me on either of the creatives.. both beat apples at best of show this year.. its just that people off the street care less about formats and identify with the ipod name over creative..

sad its actually the far superior product to the Ipod video and zune..
 
Originally posted by: CVSiN
why would anyone want either of those 2 devices? they force you to use thier own standards for everything.. WMV for zune and itunes for thier music and video


look at this.. creative has a better player that plays ANYTHING xvid dvix etc etc etc.. and was rated higher.. yet is ignored..

http://www.creative.com/products/produc...gory=213&subcategory=214&product=14331

now they have a W version with the same great screen thats in the PSP for huge on the go videos.. these are all playforsure devices and can use any format of music..

then there is the Archos which blows ALL of them to hell... its a portable DVR/TIVO and plays any format as well..

http://www.archos.com/products/video/ar...wifi/index.html?country=global&lang=en


why are people so attracted to apples POS? and zune??? forget it...
Click to expand...

I can't speak to the newer creative units, but I purchased a couple of creative mp3 players in the past and returned them due to software and UI problems I had. I couldn't deal with the now playing interface on the things.

And even if it were improved, at the moment I would have to seriously consider it because my car head unit integrates directly with my ipod, which is a bigger deal than I thought it would have been. I hooked it in to the aux input for comparison and it was a lot more unwieldy.

I don't have much interest in the DVR aspects at the moment.
 
i just bought a zune 3 days ago and i love it!....its awesome i don't know why everyoone hates it and no im not a microsoft fan boy b/c i have 2 ipod nanos and my sis had a 60gb ipod video so i know how the ipod video works...ofcouse its alittle bulkyier that the ipod video but i like the screeen size and how its built...its also more customizable that the ipod video...in all i think its kool...
 
Didn't wanna start a new thread 😀 Just got a Zune here are some of my impressions. For the record, i haven't owned an iPod, but not living under a rock I have used them extensively (even borrowing a new 80gig video ipod for an extended period of time)

1) The Packaging
- Nice. Just Nice. It may seem unimportant, but I think presentation matters, the box is pretty solid, the overall aesthetics pretty pleasing. Hopefully it doesn't end here
- Once you (slide) open the box, there is a compartment with manuals, and then a flip open thing with the zune, with more flip open things for the headphones and the usb cable

2) The actual Zune
- It feels pretty nice. Kinda big, not anywhere near as small as a nano (not that a regular iPod would be either)
- Had some music/videos preloaded, I figured meh, why not. I tried listening to it, the song's weren't great but they weren't terrible. The video was enough to demonstrate the quality of the screen, playback. Didn't notice anything in particular during playback that was (and while I'm talking about the preloaded stuff.. yes.. it did delete easily and quickly off the player)
- The black is kinda tranclucent making it appear kinda blueish (in 'case' you didn't know..bwahaha I'm sorry, that's the eggnog talking)\
- The buttons are unresponsive at times. I'm not sure if it's the hit not registering or if it is the player lagging. It has happened a couple times, but doesn't really have a big effect.

3) The Install...
I was anxious since it seemed like every installation has gone awry, but the software loaded just fine, no problems on my computer. Didn't have to do manual DLL adds anything of that nature.
It downloaded and installed the new firmware, and synced it with the zune. It was all pretty seemless. The only thing that kinda was annoying was i didn't have a windows Live ID (or whatever it is called) so I took the time to sign up for one.

4) Moving Music
- This was actually annoying since I have more then 30gigs of music, i dont want the entirety of my zune filled up with music (i want space for videos), and the zune is setup to sync between the computer and zune automatically by default. It didn't take long to find the setting in the software and change that. I uploaded whatever of my own music I wanted, listening to it now

5) The zune software/marketplace
- IMO this is where the zune really hurts. It's not bad stuff, it's just nowhere near as well done as iTunes or even Yahoo's service (marketplace). It's pretty straightforward yet has the "reinvent the wheel" feel where it tried to make things 'better'. One neat thing is you can change to show icons (like in the store) vs long list of things broken down by letters. It feels like it tries to add more where more may not be necessary creating a sense of "this isn't redundant or clutter, but why is it here"

The marketplace itself seems pretty decent in terms of quantity of songs. The Zune comes with a free 14day pass to the music thing, after that it is 14.99 a month, and then 44.97 a month. Why anyone would buy in three month installations... boggles my mind. In MMORPG's they give you discounts for blocks, but here you pay full price anyway... *shrugs* To browse what they have... leaves one wanting. They have "top genres" that include a large amount, but it seems anything that doesn't fall into those groupings (Which don't include classical/jazz it seems) gets all bundled together in the "more" grouping. Overall the searching in the software (both marketplace/library) is kinda slow, there isn't a way just to search for stuff in the marketplace, it automatically searches your library as well.

other things
- The headphones are not that good (Surprise..) but that magnetic gimmic on the back is a nice touch
- The case is a -tight- fight around the zune. Don't think i'll ever be using it and will pick up a new case. Maybe one of those stand type ones..

I feel at this moment, that between the ipod and the zune... it's pretty much a tossup. The zune so far seems pretty solid, had it loaded with songs in under with songs in under an hour. If i didn't receive it for a gift, I would probably have not bought a zune (I wouldn't have bought an ipod either) and waited for the next gen of the mp3 players (Fullscreen touchscreen and wifi oh my) and might still switch over if it is impressive enough, but for now I'm plenty pleased with the Zun
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top