Philips vs Creative

[Monica]

I'm seariously considering switching MP3 Players. Right now, I have a 2GB white Philips GoGear I got a year ago. Now, I don't need millions of songs, as a matter of fact, I've only ever filled a 3rd of my 2GB, so the most I'd need is 5GB. I kind of hate my Philips. It started out great, and it had its own little program, and it was all good. Then, after awhile, they desided to merge the software with Musicmatch Jukebox which I already hated... This was tolerable, even though they completely stripped it of its good features and basically all you can do now is just add it and put it into playlists... (I tried to reinstall the other program from the CD but it no longer worked with the MP3 Player's new firmware so I restored the factory settings and it STILL doesn't work) And finally, now, the device manager inside MMJB crashes every time I try to load a song, so now my MP3 player is virtually usless (I did try loading it with WMP but it treats it like a drive and none of the music shows up in the player)

Summary:
Philips GoGear
-No Player Features
-No color choices
-Started with great software, reverted to crap software
-All Software no longer functioning
-6 hour batter life
-The only good thing, the player only locked up once

Conclusion
Philips are idiots in the MP3 department

Now, Creative has a fantastic reputation when it comes to sound so I can expect great audio quality from them. Their players come in all different colors and they all have voice recording, and they have their own software and will probably never use MMJB. I really want the 5GB purple Neeon. I'd like some feedback from all Zen users on their software quality, and player behavior, features, etc please? :)

[War Lord]

I've not used a Zen, but have had friends who had them before purchasing iPods. They never said the Creative's weren't good players, they just felt the Pod was a better player.

I have purchased 2 iPods thus far and wouldn't trade them for anything. I am also preparing to buy another one now that plays videos. The iTunes software can't be beat either as far as ease of use and other various features.

Are you totally against an iPod? The Nano's are very feature-rich and have a plethora of accessories and such, and are also more than likely in your price range.

[Monica]

Well I'd need a very good reason to choose an iPod. I've just heard so many bad things about them, like they're only an expensive fashion statment, which makes them have less quality (I care way more about quality then being in style) I've heard of their sensitive screens, low battery life, not great sound. And ITunes annoys me just like MMJB. ITunes forces itself into installs of other programs, which makes me not want to use it. Plus, doesn't Ipod have problems and conflictions with stuff like WMA and stuff? Please correct me on any of this.

The Creative Neeons look very nice, have 7 different backlight collors which is cool, a voice recorder, and I think an alarm, and you know they have nice sound, and they use their own software without forcing it on anyone.

Oh yeah and I don't care about accessories, but what features do they have that Creative doesn't?

I just went to ipod.com and read about it, it looks good now, I guess they've gotten better. :) I keep ipods in consideration. ^_^ (I heard all that stuff when they first came out)

[ONeilcool]

Well I'd need a very good reason to choose an iPod. I've just heard so many bad things about them, like they're only an expensive fashion statment, which makes them have less quality (I care way more about quality then being in style) I've heard of their sensitive screens, low battery life, not great sound. And ITunes annoys me just like MMJB. ITunes forces itself into installs of other programs, which makes me not want to use it. Plus, doesn't Ipod have problems and conflictions with stuff like WMA and stuff? Please correct me on any of this.

The Creative Neeons look very nice, have 7 different backlight collors which is cool, a voice recorder, and I think an alarm, and you know they have nice sound, and they use their own software without forcing it on anyone.

Oh yeah and I don't care about accessories, but what features do they have that Creative doesn't?

The reason you've heard so many bad things about ipods is becuase they are so popular and so your going to hear more things(good or bad) about them. I believe they are most popular for a reason, they really are the best. Plus the Creative ones are just as expensive, so it would be just as much as an expensive fashsion statment as an ipod would be

[Monica]

Yeah, that's a good point, lol. I spent $179 on my Philips and the 5GB Neeon is $179 at Walmart.com, I was hoping to stay in that area if possible. One thing about IPods, do they support WMA files? And are there any Purple Ipods? (ok 2 things...)

[AtmaWeapon]

I have a Zen Nomad and while it is a nice player the software blows.

Instead of the mp3 player being a USB Mass Storage device, you have to install the Creative Driver and the Creative MediaSource program to work with the player. The interface is clunky and horrible.

I don't know if they've changed since I bought mine. Personally I'm debating getting an iPod Shuffle at the moment due to the new price (which is what I would have expected it to be at first) and the fact that I really don't need 40GB of space because I don't like half of the MP3s I have.

[Monica]

Oh the MediaSource isn't that good either? That's discouraging... Does it crash a bunch like MMJB?

[goKi]

I'm only disappointed in my iPod Mini because i sent it away to service with a battery life of 4-6 hours (as opposed to 18. 12 would make me happy.) They sent me a new one, and still.. only 6 hours. I almost always use it in my car, so i purchased a 12v charger off eBay. I'd recommend iPod if you didn't count on the battery holding out.



One thing about IPods, do they support WMA files? And are there any Purple Ipods? (ok 2 things...)

They do support WMA files, but iTunes will convert them before loading them onto the iPod. And no, there are no purple iPods, but it is possible to buy some pretty high quality skins on the internet to make it purple.

[Monica]

That's another thing about Ipods, stuuf that should come with it (skins/colors) is sold seperately (and expensive) Creative made most of theirs in a bunch of pretty colors, and am I mistaken or did they make an IPod shuffle because the first IPod didn't have shuffle/random? Even Philips had it, and they didn't make a whole new MP3 player around one feature. I've seen those pretty light pink, blue and green nanos, and if they had lavender, it probably would be mine like yesterday!

[AtmaWeapon]

Oh the MediaSource isn't that good either? That's discouraging... Does it crash a bunch like MMJB?Most of my complaints are about the UI. I want to be able to drag and drop folders onto some window and have those mp3s transferred. Apparently, Creative thinks the best method is to show you every MP3 in a big list and let you select them and move them on to another list, then transfer what is on the list.

Because the list doesn't really let you control or filter which shongs are displayed, it can become really difficult to be selective about which mp3s you send to your player.

So basically my beef is I feel like I should be able to use Windows Explorer to put files on my mp3 player, and instead I am forced to use other software with a different interface.

The entire flash portion of the player is writable so I was hoping someone would write a newer software package that would allow it but no dice so far.

[Monica]

That first Philips program actually was the perfect drag-n-drop that let you customise the order. I liked my songs in Alphabetical by artist order, and it let you fix the tags and everything. That's why Philips are such morons, they moved it to this plain little thing in MMBJ that only lets you add songs and remove them and put them in playlists, and you can't order them on your player, they only show up Alphabetically by song, even though my MMJB library is set to Alphabetical by artist.

[Masamune]

http://creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=9288

That was my mp3. I loved it up until my friend's little sister broke it by being a fucking moron. So now I'm using a 20 gig Dell DJ. It's alright I guess. The UI is very similar to my old Zen Xtra, but it's less reliable. And I tend to stay away from iPods because I really couldn't give 2 shits about special features. I just want something that will hold a large library of music and that I can take with me. So I 30 gig Zen Xtra that costed me about $240 at the time was perfect. ..Up until that bitch broke it.