The new Zen Touch: 24 hours battery life...

[Q Classic]

the new ipods don't really look any different.

[Asher]

You know how innovative Apple is.

[Evil Knevil]

It's a nice enough design, can't say I particularly like the amount of buttons though. More importantly it's features are better to the Ipod (esp battery life).

However, being Creative, they're be some insane design flaw

[Q Classic]

i'm waiting for mr. nice guy's slashdot thread on this.

[Asher]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119038

[Q Classic]

ask, and you shall receive.

[Adagio]

Finally it's been released... now I'm just waiting for the European release...

[Adagio]

Anybody who's actually got this thing?

[Agathon]

No. Because everyone is buying ipods.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If that were true, it wouldn't be the first time an overpriced competitor won out (VHS and Betamax comes to mind).

[Agathon]

Not everyone thinks as Asher does.

Is Creative Losing Touch?

At least Apple's player keeps getting better. I'm not sure I can say the same for Creative's offering. I took a brief look at the company's newest hard drive player, the 20GB Zen Touch. At $270, it seems like a step in the right direction. It's smaller. It has a nifty touchpad control that's easy to use. And I thought it would have the same ultra-powerful interface for selecting and playing songs.


But it doesn't. Sigh.


You might remember that a few months ago I went a little nuts (in a good way) over the playlist interface for Creative's Nomad Zen. I mean, I loved this thing. It absolutely changed the way I listen to music. The idea of an IPod-sized player with that interface had me drooling.


But no, Creative wanted to simplify things, to aim for the ease-of-use found in its IPod rivals. So with its latest player, there's no more moving songs around within a playlist. No more treating albums and artists as objects so you can collapse them for easy navigation or move a full album of tracks with a few clicks. Gone. Poof. No more. And no "advanced menus" option that brings these features back.


I can hold out hope for a firmware upgrade, I suppose. But I can't help thinking that Creative really dropped the ball here. How, exactly, do you sell this device? With a powerful interface, you could pitch it as the power user's MP3 player. Without it, the Zen Touch just comes off as a slightly larger, slightly heavier IPod. Sure, it's $30 cheaper and it's got 24 hours of battery life. But that's not going to put a dent in IPod sales, is it? Especially not when people pick it up and realize it still uses pick-list commands for many of its functions. Looks a lot like a poor IPod knock-off, doesn't it?

Like Gary Oldman playing Zorg in The Fifth Element, I am very dis-a-point-ed.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117220,00.asp

But then again, one can throw around reviews and stats. The only rational thing to do is try out the different players.

[Kuciwalker]

at Aggie talking about "rational"

[Adagio]

Can't say that review makes the Zen Touch look bad... I only need a few things on an mp3 player: Long battery, lots of storage, able to copy files to/from and a 'random play' button... I don't need to change playlists on-the-fly or anything like that...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
at Aggie talking about "rational"

People who live in glass houses....

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Not everyone thinks as Asher does.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117220,00.asp

But then again, one can throw around reviews and stats. The only rational thing to do is try out the different players.

Funny that you link an article that blasts Creative for making their player more like Apple's, in a negative way.

Use your Philosophy instructor powers of induction to figure that one out.

I do agree that the Zen's playlist (on the earlier Zen models) puts the iPod to shame, but then again I've only been saying that for two years now. It's nice to have you post an article that supports me. Kudos.