News Creative creatively clones video iPod

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/12/08/Creative_Video_Ipod/

 

they're gonna need to advertise it to death if they want to remove the ipod from it's confi seat.one of the key element to ipods popularity is it's synonym with mp3 player

 

meh will only buy if I dont have to go through DRM stuff and I can just drag and drop files without annoying software and the thing doesn't need all its videos converting into its custom format.

 

1 flaw in the creative players imo is that they dont use usb mass storage
if you just install the explorer plugin thing its not so bad, at least it mostly mimicks explorer

 

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/08/156250&from=rss

It's actually quite funny that you say Creative is imitating Apple. Although Apple has marketed the iPod much better than Creative has marketed their own Zen, the two are so similar that the iPod patent was refused because it so closely resembled the already patented Zen.

On a more personal level, I'm not a big fan of iPods, they're all hype with not a whole lot to back them up.

 

My zen micro is just drag and drop (after creative software installation though) but there aint no DRM and i can throw files around at will.

I found their battery life estimation a laughable over estimate though.

 

Its kind of funny someone can say they ripped off the design of a video ipod when its really only a big LCD in a tiny box and a control wheel (buttons?). Creative has always released a better product than Apple, yet sadly they dont get enough advertising out there to let people know.

 

Well, better is a loose word. Ive had to have my zen micro replaced 3 times already.

 

I've been looking for someone else to bring out something similiar to the video ipod as I hate DRM with a passion. This thing may just be the ticket. I say bit-tech should do a review and let us know if it's worth it. An ipod comparison might even be better.

 

He he... same here, but I still find it better then the iPod, I can just plug it into any computer with WMP 10 and transfer songs real easily, plus I find the ability to choose how big the partition for storage of non-music files can be changed at will.

Other then that, The Zen Vision:M looks cool but I hope it doesn't have jack problems like the micro does, and the battery life thing seems kinda high to me...

 

I've been disappointed at Creative recently tbh. I always considered their players to be better than Apple's- the Zen touch, Zen micro etc were a good range. But recently they've been trying to play catch up instead of jumping ahead. Another problem is that they leave old players in their current range- they don't replace the zen micro with zen micro photos, they put them alongside them. Now they're just blatently trying to be the iPod's better, bigger brother with the Vision M. What they should have done is made a horizontal styled zen micro with a decent hdd or nice lot of flash memory and of course, video playback. This would allow them to compete with not only the iPod, but the Nano and the iriver U10 at the same time. If they're really serious about being bigger than the iPod, they should create something better, not the same.

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Wha?

so you would buy this over an iPod because you hate DRM? That doesn't even make sense... The iPod supports apple's DRM, the creative players support Microsofts DRM... You can play unprotected files on both devices... What does hating DRM have to do with it?

 

What I really want to see them is integrate WiFi into MP3 players, and be able to connect to sites like www.di.fm and stuff, that'd be awsome

 

on the other hand my old skool hueg zen xtra is still going strong despite being held together with duct tape and being dropped and stood on and bashed about for years now

 

Ahh god did you have headphone jack problems too?
My total list of problems is along the lines of: backlight LEDs failed then battery failure and it came apart then finally the headphone jack broke so I sent it back and got a 6gig instead of 5 and I've now got 2 batterys

 

Well, I currently don't have any form of portable music player. And on the other hand, I must also agree that the Zen really can't rip off of the iPod's design too much, given that the design itself works, and is pretty generic. My big pet peeve with these, though, is that they measure their capacity in "songs." Not only does it assume a certain compression level, (128kbps, which is acceptable) they assume that your songs will always average out to a certain length! (2:08) I'd prefer that, in the face of the fact that none of us really have enough of a collection for 10,000+ songs, that they instead use the term "hours." That's actually a far more useful measurement, both for the neophytes who want to know how long their play list will last them without repeats, as well as for those of us more experienced who could more readily use the measurement to figure out the actual capacity.

And most forms of DRM really annoy me. They provide overly restrictive mandates on use, effectively to the point where you can only copy it down to a music player licensed by the same company that sold you the music. Yet for those that are determined to break through, they'll be able to do it anyway; the gray-haired (but without the gray inside their heads) execs in the media business need to think up a copy protection plan that actually WORKS, and doesn't just punish their (previously loyal) paying customers.

 

Jack broke thrice, then the player wouldn't start anymore, I had to plug it into the USB cable on computer several times before it would turn on, power button was dead or something and then it started giving off acrid odor, and kept losing songs. They sent mine back a week ago, I hate the new icons for the touchpad, the other version I had had nice high res and small graphics on them with words and stuff... Now it just looks big and unstylish, oh well. I've got 5 batteries lol. Got 2 originaly with the Black Edition thingy on xmas last year, then they gave me another 1 when I sent it in the first time (gave me a brand new box) and then same thing again for the other two times I sent it in

 

Honestly I've always loved creative's products. The sound they produce is amazing. I'm on my 2nd zen micro now, also have owned a zen xtra. I haven't rma'd to creative before... but I heard they will straight up swap a gen 1 out for a gen 2 if jack problems come up. Anyone had experience with this?

 

Yes, I traded my gen 1 micro with the gen 2 micro and aparently (for now that is) the jack is fixed and when I plug in the headphones it feels way stronger. They take a week to send it back about and their service is real helpful, make sure you get it in with your warranty...

 

I never had a problem with my zen xtra. It the hard drive did die but that was because i droped while on on to a hard wood floor. the player it self still works just need to replace the hard disk. But i may just get this player it looks very nice and supports a larger range of video formats then the ipod version. I never went for ipods because everyone else had them.