Regarding the iPOD and its battery: should one be concerned? (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Shopping for a hard-drive, that's all that matters. Buying a music player, that's not only metric. I'm interested in capacity, size, cost, battery life and ease of use. Top-quality sound isn't critical since I will use it in noisy environments (work, gym, biking, planes).

But I may change my mind once I start seriously looking.

 

[gregstaten]

Ron - you won't be disappointed with your Jukebox Zen. I've owned two Zens (the first one was stolen) and my younger brother just bought one last weekend. The player is just phenomenal.

But if you want to get the *most* out of your player, you should purchase a wonderful $25 software add-in called Notmad.

Notmad is a wonderful program that blows away Creative's PC link/download/etc software. Not only do I find that it copies to/from the Nomad faster than Creative's, it also fully and completely integrates the Nomad into Windows Explorer - and does a *much* better integration than Creative's. For example, you can fully browse your player from Windows Explorer, manage/create playlists, edit track tags, etc. Even better, you get full drag-and-drop capability to/from your hard drive including automatic playlist creation based hierarchically on folders, etc.

Words can't describe how much more wonderful the Zen is with Notmad.

BTW - for those of you with iPods or Rios, they also produce similar software for those players. iPod users especially should check out Anapod as it completely torches iTunes.

-greg

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Greg,

I am one step ahead of you already.

I previously owned a Creative Nomad Jukebox 2.
I was made aware of Notmad Explorer and
purchased a copy. You are right -- it is an
essential piece of software.

So....

With my Creative Jukebox Zen NX due to arrive
on Monday, I have already upgraded my version
of Notmad Explorer to the Universal
Edition -- for a mere $10.

Can't wait for this baby!

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

I came here to research the ipod mini and now I'm looking at the Creative Zen Xtra, due to the high recommendations that I have been reading here and elsewhere on the internet.

I now have decided to take the plunge and purchase a Digital Audio player myself. I just don't know which one.

This player will be used in a couple different ways:

1) Running/Jogging: I have decided to start running more in 2004 and I want to be able to have a DAP with me when I do. The ipod seems ideal for this, especially since they offer a iPod mini Arm Band for this type of activity. Does Creative Zen Xtra offer anything like this?

2) At work: I work in an office setting (usually alone most of the time) so it would be nice to have my muisci collection with me to play at my own will. I suppose either the ipod or the Zen would be well suited for this activity, but I think I'll give the nod to the Zen due to it's ability to store more music for a lower price-point.

3) On the go: I'm in the military, so I'm usually on the go quite a bit. Currently, I use my laptop (where I have all my music stored as well) to listen to music when I'm on the road or overseas. This works well for a couple hours until the battery on my laptop dies :frowning: A DAP of any kind would offer me more hours of playback over my laptop, so the nod here goes to all DAP's in gerneral.

Price is also a factor, and the Zen seems like it offers the best bang for the buck. Those prices on amazon are really pretty good, but I haven't done much pricing research just yet.

Keep the discussion coming, as I'm sure there are a couple other potential buyers here on the HTF that are in the same predicament as I am.

BTW: The amazon.com price on teh 30GB Zen Xtra is now down to $235.24 w/ Free Shipping.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Well, I'd say that jogging with any hard drive based MP3 player is asking for trouble. Shaking moving parts around like that is bound to cause damage. They're fine for work, the car, or a quick walk, but the shock from running with one is bound to cause problems. Unless Apple is doing something very strange with the ipods to cushion them that Creative isn't, I really can't believe that they're encouraging this.

 

[Jeff Perry]

So, wanted to let everyone know that I bought a 40G iPod. I'm very happy with it. Few things:

1. Accessories rock. No other MP3 player has so many various accessories made for it.

2. Apple's "DRM" that I was worried about isn't. Essentially the iPod indexes all of your music based on ID3 tags. This info gets put into a database and the MP3 itself is given a funky name that corresponds to the database entry. This is why you have you use special software to put your music on the iPod. It's not a big deal: I use Ephpod (http://www.ephpod.com freeware) to transfer files to and from the iPod.

3. Sharepod (http://www25.brinkster.com/carmagt/SharePod/, freeware) is a little app that you just copy to the iPod. When you plug the iPod into a computer it shows up as a standard firewire drive. Run Sharepod from the drive and it will pull the database info and let you play your music right from the iPod's drive itself, or copy it back to your computer. This is great when you're at a computer and want to listen to your music on the computer itself instead of the iPod. SharePod does not have to be installed on the computer, it just runs from the iPod.

As for jogging, I don't see a problem at all. First, these are laptop drives. They're much more robust in terms of taking shock than desktops. Second, the iPod caches like 20 minutes of music and plays it all from memory. Assuming you start a playlist and go jogging, the drive is only going to spin up for a few seconds every 20 or so minutes. The rest of the time it is shut down and your music is playing from memory. So, jog away.

 

[PatB]

Hey Ron, just wondering if you received your Zen Nx and what your impressions are of it. Any regrets about not going with the ipod?

 

[Chris Bardon]

What exactly is it that makes laptop drives more robust than desktop drives? Whether the drive is spinning at the time or not, you're still subjecting a delicate piece of equipment to a great deal of shock-I still don't see how there isn't the potential for damage...

 

[Jeff Perry]

They're designed to be mobile and can take much more shock and vibration than a desktop drive. And whether the drive is spinning makes a huge difference: When powered down, hard drives park their heads away from the platters and are capable of taking an awful lot more shock than when running.

We had desktop IDE drives in computers mounted to the walls within a processing plant I once worked at. They lasted 3 to 6 months, as the low level vibrations simply destroyed them. The solution? We replaced them with laptop drives. They were still working fine when I left the company several years later. These low level vibrations were significantly worse in terms of damage potential than the shock from jogging, and those drives were spinning 24x7.

Is there more potential to damage an iPod when jogging vs. a pure flash based player? Yes. Would I be worried about it? No. I run with my iPod. It isn't an issue. People workout with their iPods all the time without problems.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I had the 30GB Zen for awhile it was a nice little machine I returned it only becasue I bought it for use in the car and the controls were difficult to operate in a moving vehicle, I've since switched to a Delphi SkiFi. If I was going to need a portable again I'd consider another zen, maybe a 40 or 60gb model this time. It's a rugged little machine seems like a much better build than the plasticky IPOD. The Ipod has a nice little interface thou. The 20GB Rio Karma is another I had looked at in the past.

 

[Angelo.M]

I don't agree. By the same token, however, I think some type of service plan, like AppleCare, is needed with any of these DAPs.

 

[Chris Bardon]

This thread actually reminded me-has anyone else ever seen an ipod's "touch wheel" interface completely break? I was looking at a display model a few weeks ago, and noticed that the controls were almost completely unresponsive. It seems like a much more fragile design than the scroll wheel on my creative player, but I have no idea if this is typical behaviour or not.

Interesting story with the laptop hard drives. I know that the manual that came with my Nomad specifically mentioned being careful not to expose the player to undue shocks, but perhaps it can take more than I'm thinking. I'd still rather not push it though-given that I ended up spending like $650 CDN on the thing (stupid customs fiasco) there's no way that I want anything to happen to it.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

I bought one of these...
http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iFP-890.aspx


Runs off a AA battery. I rip my music to my computer at 192kbps and can normally fit 3 albums plus a few stray songs on it. AM/FM radio in case I get tired of my music or wanna catch a radio program. I only use it for solo-athletic activities, so the storage is more than enough for me. I had the previous model for about a month and loved it, but then this updated one came out, so I exchanged mine at Best Buy. I used $60 in reward zone certificates, so I'd say I got a pretty good deal.

 

[Mark Shannon]

I've been thinking of getting an iRiver H120. From all the reviews I've read on it, it's a very good product. And the battery life (during tests) is longer than the iPod's.