New Creative Zen "Touch" coming out- Ipod and Iriv

[dbr1]

I am a relatively satisfied h120 owner, with the usual complaints- firmware needs upgrading, especially for on the fly playlists and file deleting, as well as fixing the shuffle feature. I also don't like the controls that much, especially the joystick.

I am in the market for a second player (for my girlfriend, who otherwise is continually using my h120).

I won't buy an ipod, and was hoping to see if iriver had a fresh hd based player that would be the ticket.

Now I see this new Creative player, that looks super, at least on paper, while the new iriver players seem to be more microscopic digital video players than music machines.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_Zen...?tag=pdtl-list

Does anyone besides me feel that iriver is moving in the wrong direction? Does this new creative player look tempting? Does iriver have anything in the pipeline that would be competitive?

[jelly]

Looks nice, but i'll stick with my H140, i spent too much on it to change any time soon!

[FlameGrilled]

I definately think iRiver have aimed in the wrong direction re the trend to mini-micro VP's - but i'm old-school ex-iRiver fan mentality.. so not really in touch with the trends of the current gen of iRiver owners or would-be's.

Dunno what to make of that new CL Touch...

[XavierGr]

Still it hasnt got the features of iRiver and more importantly I have heard that it cant be seen as a normal HD.

But Ok its a newer product so there must be better features. Time will tell...

[turdburglar]

The touch pad is a better feature.. if it's done properly.

I owned a Zen before.. it didn't work as a normal HDD.. that is a must-have feature for me.

What reason could CL possibly have to avoid this absolutely flawless way to connect to XP/OSX machines? I don't get it.

[mboy2004]

From what i've read in other forums it's something to do with the way the database works. If they let it act as a plug n play removable drive they would need to sacrafice some of the database features.

Something along those lines anyway

[coreman]

This is way too early to judge, I am not a big fan of soft touch controls since they are easily inadvertently activated and can corrode/break after frequent use (think TV remote controls that quit working).

Also no mention of warranty, Creative has been the other "90 day" wonder in addition to Rio.

[divad6719]

If she is continually using your 120, just buy her one of those. At least she'll know how to use it straight out of the box.

Out of interest , any reason for discounting the iPod ?? or is it just bias ??
Bar the battery life issue it's a worthy player.

You seem to be passing on the two (in my experience, can't comment on Rio) most tried and tested players on the market just now.

As for iRiver moving in the wrong direction, in regards to HDD players, I don't think so. Colour screens are a natural progression and the iHP-300 does look like a nice machine.

[turdburglar]

Originally Posted by coreman

This is way too early to judge, I am not a big fan of soft touch controls since they are easily inadvertently activated and can corrode/break after frequent use (think TV remote controls that quit working)

No moving parts=less stuff to break. And I don't know about you, but my joystick is already a little wobbly.. on my 3 week old player..

I've never had a soft touch controlled remote..

It's not the little bubbly buttons if that's what you're thinking.. it's like the ipod.

[dbr1]

"Out of interest , any reason for discounting the iPod ?? or is it just bias ??
Bar the battery life issue it's a worthy player. "

Battery life is the number one reason I don't wan't the ipod, along with the high price. I guess there is some anti-apple bias that may be at work subconsciously.

Re the h120, the inability to make playlists on the player is a big issue, especially for my girlfriend, who could never figure out in a million years how to do it in winamp and transfer to the player. She is currently proposing to delete the songs which she doesnt want to hear (vetoed).

Even if Iriver figures the playlist feature out, I feel that after a year, that it is time for an updated mp3 player, and as I mentioned, the minivideo Irivers that will be coming out look like to be emphasizing the wrong features. Maybe I should wait till an indepth review comes out before prejudging. Or maybe Iriver will also bring out a audio only player that improves on the h120.

[FlameGrilled]

'90 day wonder'

No in the UK, re Creative Labs, my original JB1 gave up the ghost after many months (about 6) of being commericially used as a recorder.. and CL replaced it without cost to me..

In fact, i ended up with two as a result.. a replacement 6Gb that got lost in despatch .. and as a result, a free upgrade to a 10GB (20gb JB1's were expensive then) .. which arrived and turned out be a 20Gb unit.

Two months later, the despatch company the 6Gb got sent to me by, found it an delivered it to me..

So i was, temporarily, using 2 JB1's just in time for when my last SP250 died... good timing.

So far, nearly 2 years later, the 20Gb JB1 aint glitched or played up once... no freezes/lockups yet either.

And that 20Gb JB1 still got used for heavy-duty recording.. the 6Gb got sold off after i got a replacement CDP (iMP-250) for full price :P

[sweetspot]

Well, if there's one thing for sure, it's that Creative players have always been good with playlist support and other little things. In fact, the NJB3 after years, still seems like the one to contend with, even though it's a mammoth of a player. Iriver is a freegin' enigma to me I tell ya. I can't ever figure out how they got to where they are, because it seems as if their ideas are sort of half brewed, and then when the plans are pushed foward into production, it seems like they're implamented in a half assed way.

We can debate what they need to do in order to step it up a bit, but at the end of the day, it's the final given product which will be scrutinized to death, and make a lasting impression. So far, Iriver have seemed to miraculously just "get by" using their current marketing strategies, and will most likely continue to do so, as long as their sales figures continue on as they have in the past couple years.

I think that they only "sort of" listen to their customers, but most of those that they do, are not in the western hemisphere, and from what I've seen, those ideas implamented from the "westerners" requests, are those that most closely resemble ideas already suggested from those in the east. ie; camera anyone ?

I dunno, I'm not overly impressed with the new Creative players specs to be honest. Big deal, so it has a touch pad. Whooptie doo, the iPod already has that, and if I had to make a choice between using Creative drivers and software, or Apple SW..I would go Apple. Besides that, the thing is freekin big and heavy. Will they ever learn that the future of technology is all about big power in a miniscule body ? They're lost in that respect for sure.

I personally would wait for the Karma 2, in hopes that Rio will drop that crumb bum HD manufacturer they're using (Hitachi ? /who of course is in league with IBM, and we all know about IBM drives...top notch GARBAGE) and hop into bed with Toshiba.

I personally think though, that for the money, and with all the price drops lately, that the IHP 120 is a great value, and a great player. It does what I want it to do, and when we FINALLY get our new FW, it will do it even better.

[y0da]

you know the toshiba 1.8" drives owe alot to IBM....it was IBM who developed this stuff then sold it all off to toshiba

but hell they could make crap stuff ...never actually owned anything by them so i couldn't comment

[sweetspot]

Sure. Form factor is one thing, but manufacturing, R&D, and testing is an entirely different matter all together. IBM is the crowned King of big name F up's when it comes to HD's.

[FlameGrilled]

Funnily enough - i never had any grief with IBM drives - then again, it seems old FG here frequently gets a bit more than his fair share of luck in such things.

I dont recall if any of my IBM's were real IBM's, or OEM'd WD units (Western Digital, for the benefit of those who think mass storage HDD's started with the Maxtor brand...) - it was a long time ago when 850Mb was like 'sh*t, that's a lotta storage'.

JB3 & JB's pre Zen - definately, Creative got the DB & the OTF Playlist bit down to a tee right from the beginning - god know's, i used OTF PL's many times.

JB3, being the JB most will remember as it crossed over with the mainstream HDD units in availabily terms, only really fails to impress due to it's form (being about trad pers CDP type size). It's battery endurance isn't too bad vs today's kit.. and being able to slot in two packs is still a good feature. Easily-replaced (i.e. not a warranty-buster) packs was and is still a good idea.

Ok, the Zen's one good notable feature is it broke with the JB mould of like-for-like one style design (the zen is definately a more shirt pocket-sized deck). Since it allows for remote use like the JB3, noone can claim it's additional use of a remote to be outstanding.

The Lyra 2840U, despite it's inherent no-hope fragility if a firmware ferk-up occurs, actually is more like the iHP than it resembles anything else - operation wise. It's UMS access is good (like the iRiver decks, UMS transfer isn't outstanding after using TM-based devices), and it's GUI is pretty good in it's DB access and also the ability to navigate files and folders directly as per iHP. It lack digital socketry - but for most hifi users, they still use line-connections as the iHP, JB1&3 and iHP provides.

Even if we stick to mainstreamers (Thomson, Creative, Apple, and recently iRiver) there is a HDD choice to suit all. It's what your choice dictates that writes off some and accentuates others.

I can't include Rio (the revamped Rio) in as a mainstreamer, yet, .. as it's in-store UK availability is somewhat phantom-like and it's specialist e-tailer availability isn't that much better here.

[Skeeve]

If she generally likes your player, give it to her and get yourself a h140, she can do what she likes with the files then and you have a shiny new player of your own.

[DMWmngr]

i got the the crative zen touch

its a nice player... if your girlfriend isnt a tech geek she will probably love it...
it looks kinda cool and its quite "user-friendly"...
no doubt due, the ihp is much better, but for the avrage user the zen touch is a good choice

[Haku]

When I first realised I'd be able to afford a DAP I looked at the Creative Nomad 3 because I saw it on sale for £150 and a lot of the reviews I read were positive, but as with all new gadgets I get I buy I look at the spectrum of availabilities.

Settled on my iHP-140 and am pleased with it, too many other DAPs all look alike, plastic silver/white bricks/soap bars, at an asthetic level they look more like plastic boxes than metal devices.

I saw a Creative Zen 60gb in a shop alongside an iHP-120 and an iPod, the thing was large in comparison and looked more like a metal pencil tin you'd take to school than a DAP.


Have to say one of the biggest reasons I bought my iHP-140 was the external USB drive feature, no faffing about with having to install stupid software just to put files on the device, the amount of extras it has built-in, recording, optical, radio, full function remote control, multiple audio formats etc. were the icing on the cake.

As for where iRiver is heading I think they started losing the plot when they made a modified version of the H3xx series that doesn't have the USBOTG feature - a player with a colour screen and massive amounts of storage space for pictures and you can't copy the pictures onto it from a digicam? how screwed up is that?
The whole portable video player area is in it's infantcy, there's even a unit that has 128mb ram and can record off it's built-in tv tuner... 128mb for chrissake! what the hell use is that? the market is getting to be flooded with these things and unless iRiver's offerings are something exceptional they're going to crash and burn along with countless others.

Ehh what do I know, I'm just an end user


Oh and the amount of reviews of that new Creative player by users who don't own it and are only going by specs highlight just how much you should take CNet reviews with several pinches of salt if they can't properly police the users reviews and polling system.

[andrewmel]

i would guess that daps as stand alone things will dissapear soon. if i had a 20 gb dap with all the h320 features in my phone why would i want another one unless i wanted a 40 gb dap in my phone?

[FlameGrilled]

Ah hell, it's another mere toy compared to what CL used to make.

No matter what anyone else (non-owner i mean) thinks, since they aint had any time to get to grips with the quirks and qualities, the last decent box CL made was the JB3.

Sure it didn't look portable, compared to the JB1 - the JB3 was a relatively small unit, but they didn't look out of place sitting on a hi-fi stack and would easily fit into a quality CD carrier. By comparision, the Zen was smaller than the JB1 but heavier and progressively the Zen series (in various incarnations now) seems to becoming the victim of being built more cheaply (quality wise) with each incarnation.

Features, whistles and bells, dont mean crap unless the inherent good qualities is carried across.

The only time i'd ever deem giving a CL DAP the time of day to consider for buying, would be an mint condition JB1 or JB3 - beyond that, not a bloody chance.

[ChucklesLBowen]

I would wait a few weeks and get the new Zen Micro. It's got many color choices to choose from, has many more features than the touch, and it's smaller and more attractive.

[sanjay]

hmm zen micro isnt being released in australia AFAIK...can anyone dispute this?