I have decided that it is time to retire my Dell DJ 20, and switch over to a small, lighter flash based drive. It means giving up the big 20 GB storage, but I think that 8 will suffice for the music I most want to carry with me. I will also still continue to carry my Creative Zen Vision W for movies, Audible, podcasts, photo, and occasional music content. The Zen is about 3/4 full right now, and most of that space is divided between movies and Audible books.
So the big decision has come and I have narrowed the playing field to two possible players. Of course, I cannot decide which one to go with.
Player #1: Creative Zen 8 GB
This is sort of a mini me to my other Creative. It does not have the wide aspect display, but it is a Creative and so is similar in many other ways. If I bought this device it would be my 4th device from Creative (I have owned a Nomad II, Jukebox 30, and the Vision W). The upside of this device seems to be a good size, decent battery life, voice recording, and Creative’s good track record with audio and video quality. One other nice thing is that it runs pretty much all the same software I run today. On the downside, many owners are reporting firmware issues that result in lockups and crashes, some people are reporting the players as dead, but I wonder how many of those are true. Creative devices, in my experience, respond very well to the paper clip reboot. The price on this one is 180.00 from Amazon.
Player #2: Microsoft Zune 8 GB (Green)
It does not match my laptop, or my laptop bag, or any of my other green stuff. But I have never been one for matching. The new Zune players seem to have some of the quirks worked out from previous versions. I have heard that the audio quality is good, and that the device is pretty stylish. I am a bit concerned though that the device will require the Zune player software, and I would rather just use WMP 11. I am also a bit concerned about the issues I have heard with interface being a bit slow, although a firmware update could fix that. The Zune is 199.00 at Amazon.
There are no IPOD’s on this list, I know. I don’t want an IPOD. I want a light weight player for music and a few pictures of Iain, that plays WMA files, and is not an IPOD. Anyone have any thoughts on either of these players?