Oh man Creative dropped the ball...

[NFactor]

Originally posted by: cobalt

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: FishTankX
24 hour battery life might atract people, too.

The iPod with it's external battery "backpack" strapped on is probably about the same size as the Zen Touch. Is 12 hours not enough? I have yet to see my 8 hour 3G iPod run out of juice. I even took a bus from Toronto to Philadelphia with it and it lasted the whole trip.

You could probably fit 8 AA batteries in the extra volume that the Zen Touch takes up over the iPod.

I'm still amazed the nobody seems able to compete with Apple after all this time.

The iRiver H series-120,140,320,340- IMO and others, stomp all over the iPod.

Last week i was about 10 minutes away from ordering a 120 from Newegg but then i decided to check out the iRiver forums and figured out that the device had major issues in its sound recording capabilities and numerous other glitches that iRiver was taking forever to fix. Needless to say I held off on ordering. The players themselves seem to be designed very well but iRiver's support is apparently crap.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Hardcore

Originally posted by: SickBeast
You keep on comparing AOL to tech gear which makes no sense; you're comparing a service to a product. Name a single piece of tech gear that costs at least $300 and outsells a similar product worth $50.

Wow, you're so oblivious. The comparison he's doing isn't hardware vs. software, but giving examples of other 'world's opinions' that are obviously untrue to most people in the know.

Anyways, why is it you feel you have to justify the ipod so much? So you like it, do you have to convince us to agree with you for you to enjoy it?

First of all, 90% of the time if something is popular it's an excellent product. He found an example of a poor product that sells well. Big deal, they exist.

Nobody has been able to refute or intelligently discuss my point that the $300 iPod outsells ANY $50 MP3 player. I challenge you to find another piece of consumer electronics that costs 6 times the price of a similar product AND outsells it.

As I've said before; it's not that I have to justify the iPod to everyone. I just want to point out what I see as misinformation. People *love* to bash the iPod without knowing the facts. They just throw out nonsense and assume that they are correct. I don't know why this happens.

If the best you guys can do is come up with "world opinions that are bad" to prove me wrong that's pretty lame IMO.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
First of all, 90% of the time if something is popular it's an excellent product. He found an example of a poor product that sells well. Big deal, they exist.

Nobody has been able to refute or intelligently discuss my point that the $300 iPod outsells ANY $50 MP3 player. I challenge you to find another piece of consumer electronics that costs 6 times the price of a similar product AND outsells it.

I contend that iPods are one of this 10%. I've given many reasons why I feel this way and you've either sidestepped or blatantly denied all of them, going so far as to rationalize screwing customers in the name of piracy prevention and giving them no choice in terms of music management.

If the best you guys can do is come up with "world opinions that are bad" to prove me wrong that's pretty lame IMO.

I've given many very practical and real reasons; buggy software, inability to drag & drop mp3s for playback without said software, "child's toy" looks (subjective), low battery life, high price, problems with legitimately purchased music due to copy protection, low feature count, low file format support, etc. The only reason I brought up AOL specifically and the phenomenon of bad products selling well in general in the first place was in answer to you bringing up sales and 'world opinions' in its defense.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Gurck
I've given many very practical and real reasons; buggy software, inability to drag & drop mp3s for playback without said software, "child's toy" looks (subjective), low battery life, high price, problems with legitimately purchased music due to copy protection, low feature count, low file format support, etc. The only reason I brought up AOL specifically and the phenomenon of bad products selling well in general in the first place was in answer to you bringing up sales and 'world opinions' in its defense.

If you started a poll asking whether people would rather use iTunes or Windows Explorer to organize their music collection, my guess would be that at least 8 out of 10 of them would choose iTunes. Yes, it would be nice to be able to use Explorer if you wanted to, but there's nothing we can do about that ATM. It could be much worse; I remember having to use Musicmatch for one MP3 player I had and SonicStage for my old MiniDisc player.

The looks, as you said, are subjective. I subjectively think the iPod is the best looking MP3 player out there. You think it's ugly. It's a good thing we don't have to drive the same model of car.

12 hours of battery life isn't an issue for most people; typically you're only awake for 16 hours each day anyways. The iRiver iHP-120 gets 14 hours of battery life AFAIK which is very comparable. If you want to consider the Zen Touch's 24 hour battery life then you have to hold it up against the iPod in every other area, in which case it will lose badly (aside from maybe sound quality and EQ support).

The price is competetive w/ the iRiver iHP-120, it's closest competitor.

The low feature count and lack of file format support is not an issue for 95% of people out there, and as another person posted, the iRiver player's recording features are terrible anyways. People generally buy these things to play MP3s, not to use as an all-in-one device.

You've still failed to rationalize/explain how it is difficult to play legally purchased music on the iPod.

Whatever. This is getting ridiculous. There are going to be people out there who will flame me endlessly on this issue as not everyone loves the iPod.

Gurck, you obviously *HATE* the iPod more than I love it. You even call it the "iClod". There is no way either one of us is going to convince the other to either love or hate the thing. I think we should just drop it and agree to disagree. I did enjoy the discussion though.

:beer:

 

[Gurck]

Bah, I'd say we're equal (and obviously opposite) on the bias scale But yeah, no opinion will change. Always enjoyable to debate with someone willing to be civil and keep to debating the issue & not the other person :beer:

 

[HermDogg]

"If you started a poll asking whether people would rather use iTunes or Windows Explorer to organize their music collection, my guess would be that at least 8 out of 10 of them would choose iTunes."

Come on, at least don't use generalizations that you have absolutely NO way of backing up (or anyone else of refuting for that matter). And I think the whole "Why does the $300 iPod outsell EVERY $50 MP3 player??" argument is a little skewed. For starters, there are TONS more $50 MP3 players than there are $300 dollar ones, splitting the user base. Secondly, I'm not going to spend $300 for a 20 gig MP3 player. For $250 I got a 20 gig Archos AVI, MP3, WMA & OGG player with a built-in LCD screen. About 12 hours battery life for Audio, 6-8 video. There ARE alternatives, but most companies aren't using their MP3 player as a flagship product, and thus can't spend almost their entire advertising budget on them.

MusicMatch and Creative PlayCenter are far worse than iTunes, and I've had to use both for MP3 players in the past.

 

[JackBurton]

I'd like to throw in my two cents. Ever since the iPod came on the scene, everyone has tried to come up with something that can compete with it. I think the iPod is second to none right now. The Zen is ok, but it looks horrible! Nothing can compete style wise with the iPod. It's just an awesome looking mp3 player, and the interface is very intuitive. I couldn't care less if the Zen had 480hrs of battery life. It's too big and clunky for me.

I give the iPod two thumbs up.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: HermDogg
"If you started a poll asking whether people would rather use iTunes or Windows Explorer to organize their music collection, my guess would be that at least 8 out of 10 of them would choose iTunes."

Come on, at least don't use generalizations that you have absolutely NO way of backing up (or anyone else of refuting for that matter).

I have created a poll in the Software forum.