120GB Zune Vs 60GB iAudio

wet-paint

Hey folks,
After losing my treasured Iriver H340 (Man I miss it!) there, I have narrowed down my choices to the 120 Zune and the older Cowon iAudio X5.
They have a mix and match of my preferred features which would be:

Large hard drive
FM tuner
FLAC and OGG playback
No proprietary software
Standard USB port

And then a lot more unnecessary sh1te.
So I'm just looking for opinions from people who've owned one or both models, why you chose them, or what turned you off them.
Cheers,
WP.

Gran Hermano

That x5 is as old as your H340, I'd look at the S9 or Zune 120.

I've used a Zune 80 for just over a year, having owned a Iriver HP140 and
H340 before, and I've no regrets in purchasing the Zune.

wet-paint

Wow, that's basically just what I was after, cheers. I know the iAudio is old aye, but I've a lot of FLACs that I don't want to go about converting. I guess I'll just have to stump up.

jesus_thats_gre

Had the H340 for ages, have an iPod Touch and Zune as the moment and the Zune is by far my favourite.

pleasant Co.

I'd consider waiting for the Cowon D2+ and getting 32gb sdhc card to go with it, considering your need for space, flac and all that jazz

wet-paint

Well when I say I need space, I've 150+GB of music, so the Zune would suit me an awful lot more. Cheers though.

I bloody hate choosing what to put on the player, far better to hanve it on already.

pleasant Co.

Absolutely! You can of course convert your flacs to WMA lossless, although you will have to put up with proprietary software and usb port

Gran Hermano

If I'd known the Zune needed it's own software I'd probably not have bought mine. My initial disappointment when setting it up was soon put aside as I realised it included some pretty good features. It does everything Windows Media player should do and better than I thought MS could do.

I've numerous media players installed on the laptops I use and I use the Zune now as my main music playing program. The latest version has a great mix-view feature where you can view lots of info on the music you are listening to. People often ask me what app I'm using as they like the look of it!

Once you register a Zune account you can also use the podcast function for audio and video. I'd no problems with adding Irish content to my podcast lists and there's a wealth of US content available. Just use a gmail account to register for the Zune account and put in a US address and you can add content like video podcasts relating to TV shows or automatically recieve trailers/reviews on latest video games.

The one piece of advice I'd give a new Zune owner is make sure your music is tagged perfectly before your first sync. Use tagscanner or media monkey and pay particular attention to compilation albums and the album artist tag.

The guest mode for syncing on other PCs means you can easily copy and play the media on your Zune on any other machine with the Zune software.

I couldn't find a player that matched all my wants when I was last shopping but the Zune ticked the most boxes and I've yet to be disappointed with it, I also one year later haven't found a player that ticks more boxes. YMMV but I haven't seen many people on here or elsewhere hating theirs.