Which to buy: IRIVER or CREATIVE ZEN

Kingp35

Ok Im having serious problems deciding on which of these to buy. I have heard very good things about both players so am really stuck as to what to buy. I like the idea of being able to view photos and videos on the iriver but i have heard that the resoultion for photos is not very good and also that watching video files such as AVI on such a small screen could become very annoying. The iriver is also alot more expensive than the creative zen. However i have never used the iriver so maybe the video features are very good.

Basically the main reason I would be bying the player is for its audio capabilities. The video and photo would be an added bonus but I mainly want the best player for audio.

Could somebody plaese recommend one of these players too me and maybe tell me what the video features on the iriver are really like. I also know that there is many different iriver players so if you recommend this please say which one.

Thanks for your help

Kevin_rc_ie

maybe get one of the last iriver ihp-120 from www.mx2.co.uk.

they're cheaper then creatives i think.

astec123

I own an iriver PMP140 the media player model above the H300s, but comparing the H300s and a zen take the iriver, the creatives are prone to falling appart, of all the iriver owners I know only one has had a problem with theirs, it was replaced under warranty and they got a completely new one, with all the accessories. Not a bad deal. Creative owners I know have had the following problems,
-Broken screen - quoted 150 to replace it!
-Broken rear panel
-screws falling out
-shattering into bits when it was dropped from a chair.
The creatives are nice but their price reflects the shoddy workmanship.

Kingp35

I heard that the iriver isnt the best in the way that it organises your music library and its hard to make playlists on it. is this true or does it just take a bit of getting used to?

I have been looking at the irver H-320 as a possible one to buy. Is the video playback on the iriver any good?

astec123

I use a file tree method and put this way I can find a song faster than ipod owning mates and I have in all cases over 3 times the amount of songs, as for video, its quite good considering its not a main feature.

Third_Echelon

Iriver
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Kingp35

Ok two final questions to you guys.

What is the sound quality on the iriver like compared to the creative zen and the ipod? I have already heard that the creative zen is alot better sound quality to the ipod.

And what is the volume level like on the iriver? I have listened to ipod before and the volume level was pretty low at its highest and I have beeen slightly hard of hearing since I was born so I like a player that has a good strong volume.

Thanks for your help. Im going to buy one of them today and so far it looks like the iriver if it has the sound and volume quality

Third_Echelon

Sound quality on the Iriver is excellent. Plenty of 'sound'. Good Bass and effects if you need it. Manual settings as well are good if you want to set up the sound levels yourself.

Not sure about the creative, but the Iriver has not dissapointed me in this department. This was the most important factor for me as well and im happy...

Kingp35

Thanks I think im going to go for the iriver. The only downside to it seems to be that playlists can be a pain in the ass because you cant use the player to make them you have to use winamp or something but thats a small thing I suppose.

Anyway nice one its well worth the few extra quid with all the added features it has

skywalker_208

Id love an Iriver.. but they are so damn expensive compared to Creative..

£239.99 for 20GB.... for iriver..

Kingp35

skywalker_208 wrote:

Id love an Iriver.. but they are so damn expensive compared to Creative..

£239.99 for 20GB.... for iriver..

No mate if you go to this site:

http://www.mx2.co.uk/acatalog/MX2_co_uk_iRiver_9.html

you can gey the 20gb h-320 iriver for only £189.99
Thats only €275 which is cheaper than an ipod in alot of places.
You just gotta search for the good deals

skywalker_208

Ah i see... I was looking at the PMP140 ...

skywalker_208

oh another note i see if you update the firmware on that IRIVER it can play video....

Has anyone done this successfully? Just wondering if this feature is any good...

Kingp35

skywalker_208 wrote:

oh another note i see if you update the firmware on that IRIVER it can play video....

Has anyone done this successfully? Just wondering if this feature is any good...

I dont have mine yet but yeah supposedly you can watch videos even full length dvds on it. Picture quality is supposed to be quite good if you set up the size and resolution right. I found this site here.

http://medulla.co.uk/images/H340

This gives you info and help about every aspect of the h-320/340 and tells you how to play video,set up graphics playlists pretty much everything you need to know. I ordered my iriver today seems like it is a very good piece of kit

skywalker_208

Must say - you are tempting me away from the Zen touch!!!

Kingp35

skywalker_208 wrote:

Must say - you are tempting me away from the Zen touch!!!

yeah the only thing is with the iriver is that to get the full and best use out of it you need to know a bit about computers because there is so many different applications etc. you can get to get the best out of it. If your comfortable with doing things like that then its definitely a top quality player.
That site above gives you all the different applications you can use to do different things. Just try different ones out I suppose to see which ones are the best

skywalker_208

yea that shouldnt be a problem...

so your basically looking at this when it comes down to it:

Colour Screen vs 40Gb....

ie. iriver vs zen for same price...

hmmm

Kingp35

yeah I think thats it. I would go for the iriver because of the extra features that it has available. I wasnt sure at first hence this thread but after reading what other people have said and all teh reviews etc. i gotta go for iriver.

This is because I dont have over 20gb of music to put onto it so I wont need the extra storage. If you need 40gb storage you can get the h340 iriver too.

Put it this way if you want a run of the mill audio player go for the ZEN it is excellent but if you want to have a few more features go for the iriver. Thats the choice you have

jesus_thats_gre

Have the H340 myself. Had the Zen Micro before it and ****ing hated the little bastarden thing!!

Transfering tracks took ages and it had to be done with the most blouted piece of **** software ever. The UI on the device was horrible also. The battery ran down even while turned off (happens to all of em) also.

The IRiver can be navigated exactly like Windows Explorer when playing music. When you wanna transfer music, just connect the USB cable and it appears as an extra drive and you can just drag and drop stuff to your hearts content.

RE*AC*TOR

I have a 40gb Zen Touch - love it. The battery life is streets ahead of the irivers. I had a zen xtra before and i have a friend who has an iriver h120 - would have recommended the iriver - but the zen touch is a different beast. Either way they're both great players. The iRiver h3*0 series is a step back IMO.

As for transfer software - I use the Notmad explorer (which you have to pay for - but its very much worth it) - Much better than Creative's own stuff - and best of all it can reduce bitrates on-the-fly to save disc space.

corblimey

I was going through the same thing as the op, and all it really came down to was the price. At the time, I saved about 70 yoyos by buying the Zen. I lost the FM tuner, but that's no great sacrifice. The sounds quality on both is excellent, transfer times seem comparable and while the Zen software is a bit sh!te, you can still transfer using Explorer.

So really, it came down to do I want to view photos on my mp3 player (no) and do I want to save some money for beer (yes). Zen every time.

Kingp35

corblimey wrote:

I was going through the same thing as the op, and all it really came down to was the price. At the time, I saved about 70 yoyos by buying the Zen. I lost the FM tuner, but that's no great sacrifice. The sounds quality on both is excellent, transfer times seem comparable and while the Zen software is a bit sh!te, you can still transfer using Explorer.

So really, it came down to do I want to view photos on my mp3 player (no) and do I want to save some money for beer (yes). Zen every time.

what about the ability to view videos and dvd on the iriver plus the unternal mic to record yourself or concerts, lectures etc. and the ability to record real-time radio into mp3?

Doesnt just come down to the ability to view a photo

corblimey

Yeah, okay, I was being a little flippant in my post. When I said "view photos", I meant all the extraneous stuff that iRiver offered. I had no interest in doing any of the stuff you mention. I just wanted something portable that would let me listen to my rather large collection of mp3s. And since the only major difference between the 2 machines for my requirements was price, the Zen was a no-brainer.

Kingp35

corblimey wrote:

Yeah, okay, I was being a little flippant in my post. When I said "view photos", I meant all the extraneous stuff that iRiver offered. I had no interest in doing any of the stuff you mention. I just wanted something portable that would let me listen to my rather large collection of mp3s. And since the only major difference between the 2 machines for my requirements was price, the Zen was a no-brainer.

yeah i agree with you there definitely go for the zen if its just to listen to mP3s. Took me a while to decide if I would be bothered looking a vids eventually I decided why not so I got the zen. It does just come down to whether you want teh extra features or not

muckwarrior

Just got my H320 yesterday and Im very impressed with the features but I have to say the interface is horrible! I've repeatedly had to refer to the manual to figure out how to do things. I never had to look at the manual for my old Jukebox 2 once. The only other thing that really pisses me off is that you cant create playlists on the go. You can only queue one song at a time! Like jesus my old jukebox is 2 1/2 years old yet you can still do this with ease. Haven't used a Zen touch but i presume you can do it on it too.

Kingp35

muckwarrior wrote:

Just got my H320 yesterday and Im very impressed with the features but I have to say the interface is horrible! I've repeatedly had to refer to the manual to figure out how to do things. I never had to look at the manual for my old Jukebox 2 once. The only other thing that really pisses me off is that you cant create playlists on the go. You can only queue one song at a time! Like jesus my old jukebox is 2 1/2 years old yet you can still do this with ease. Haven't used a Zen touch but i presume you can do it on it too.

one question since I havent got my iriver yet its in the post. If you select to play a song that is contained in a folder with other songs will it keep playing the rest of the songs in the folder or do you haev to keep pressing play for each song?

Probably a stupid question because surely no player could be that annoying

RE*AC*TOR

muckwarrior wrote:

Just got my H320 yesterday and Im very impressed with the features but I have to say the interface is horrible! I've repeatedly had to refer to the manual to figure out how to do things. I never had to look at the manual for my old Jukebox 2 once. The only other thing that really pisses me off is that you cant create playlists on the go. You can only queue one song at a time! Like jesus my old jukebox is 2 1/2 years old yet you can still do this with ease. Haven't used a Zen touch but i presume you can do it on it too.

as i said, i definetly think the newer irivers are a step back in terms of functionality.

muckwarrior

Kingp35 wrote:

one question since I havent got my iriver yet its in the post. If you select to play a song that is contained in a folder with other songs will it keep playing the rest of the songs in the folder or do you haev to keep pressing play for each song?

Probably a stupid question because surely no player could be that annoying

Ah yeah it can play all songs in a folder or shuffle between folders but what id like it to do is be able to manually select x amount of songs from various folders and play them in that order.

skywalker_208

Ok - after careful deliberations... i have placed an order for the Zen 40GB...

hope it doesnt take too long to get here!

muckwarrior

Btw, dunno about the zen but the earphones you get with the H320 are absolutely brutal! Dunno why they go so cheapo on the earphones, it could easily make a lot of people think that the ****ty sound is comin from the player instead.

skywalker_208

My Zen arrived today after 2 days! cool

only problem is it only has the 2 prong power cord to plug into the charging block. i know i can get an adaptor for this but i have a 3 prong plug to charge my Olymus camera.. looks the same... is it the same?

a little heavier than i imagined by the way but looks cool!

RE*AC*TOR

yeah you can interchange the cords.

skywalker_208

Nice one..

will charge her up when i get home so!

danniemcq

might help

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=232831

skywalker_208

anyone know if you can use a Zen as an external HD or transfer files without first installing Nomad Explorer or Media Source?

Nietzschean

i believe it was to be a firmware update for the current gen of zen's, but i got rid of mine before that happened so might be worth checking changes list for firmware updates....

(to goto a fat32 file system in a firmware update sounds like quite a leap tho..)

skywalker_208

I dont mind using Nomad.. find it good for organisation..

(but dont have rights to install it in work! )

RE*AC*TOR

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/

this is one of the few pieces of software i've ever payed for and its 100% worth it. Much better than the creative software. CHeck it out if you get a chance.

skywalker_208

Thanks RE*AC*TOR. Looks like good software. But you still need the drivers for the Zen installed to use it.

Was on the forums on the creative site. You cannot use the Zens as an external HD without having the drivers and Nomad etc installed..

a little misleading dont you think!!!!

woodyg

if you want a really good all round movie player try this on for size http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=565

this is a real piece of kit

astec123

Just to let the iRiver owners here know the iRiver community is happy to accept new members if you hadnt heard of us www.misticriver.net all the FAQs and advice you could ever need on one small community.

Kingp35

Ok I got my iriver h320 and im pretty impressed with it. The video quality is surprisingly good and well watchable. Its very easy to navigate, the features on it are great and the radio is excellent. It looks good too.

My only problem with it is that, like the ipod, the volume seems very low on it even at full blast. This is very annoying as I like my music load. Other than that its a very good player. pity about the sound. Wonder if there is a way to make it louder

joejoem

I was going to buy a creative Zen 20g but now I am a little unsure. Do you think I should buy it or go for something else?

Bottle_of_Smoke

Suspicious lack of iriver propaganda from cormie for a thread of this nature!

Mutant_Fruit

As regards not being able to make playlists on irivers... check out this: http://www.rockbox.org/

Its not finished yet, but its looking more and more finished as the weeks go by.

magick

iriver h320

NotMe

My input to this thread. I recently broke my 2 and a half year old 30GB Zen and decided to replace it with a 5GB iRiver h10. Worst decision ever.

First of all the sound was very low even on full. I fixed that with a firmware update. Apparently the EU firmware is volume limited because of some French law so I changed to the International firmware.

Secondly, NO on the fly playlists. I feckin hate this. The Zen was great at making playlists. It was so easy to just select any song/album/artist I wanted to listen to, add a few songs, delete a few songs and save the playlist. I really miss that.

Thirdly is the gap between songs. This is so annoying. There is a 1 - 10 second gap between every song and sometimes when you press forward or back there is a ~20 second gap. You don't know if it has frozen or stopped playing or what, you just have to wait.

You couldn't even play songs by track order (only alphabetically) up until the firmware update a couple of weeks ago.
Can someone tell me these problems exist on the h3xx models? I'm half thinking of ditching it and buying a creative. (anyone wanna buy a h10? )

/rant

muckwarrior

NotMe wrote:

NO on the fly playlists. I feckin hate this.[/SIZE]

I know what you mean. I've switched to a H320 from Creative. It has such deadly advanced features yet they can't even implement something as basic but incredibly important as this! FFS they should work on getting the mp3 player part right before they add all the other ****. Theres not a day goes by that this doesn't seriously piss me off. I would honestly trade my colour screen, pictures, video and text files just to have otf playlists.

CrimE

I own a creative zen micro and it is an excellent piece of gear.

Superb sound/ build quality. No hassle at all. Love the touch pad think its better than the i-pods .

It really boils down to this. What are you looking for in a player? Will you really use the mp4 capabilities? With the small screen/ poor resolution I dont think its worth it imho.

If you are looking at the players from an audio perspective, I would 100% say creative. More user friendly etc. I think the i river is a decent player but I would definitely say If you feel you can sacrifice mp4 (will you really use it?) go for the zen.

Im sure plenty of people will disagree but thats just my opinion from my various experiences with the players.

CrimE

skywalker_208

I have my Zen Touch about 2 weeks now and very happy with it. playlist option is cool and so is the touchpad.

The pouch it comes with is good for keeping it safe but a pain because you have to take it out to use the controls. havent seen any other types of pouches for the Touch either (The Zen Micro pouch opens up so you can use controls)

I suppose you could buy the in line remote (which looks cool - screen and all) but dont really want to spend more money right now!

stev2604

My brother had a zen micro and he returned it to get an ipod mini instead. It was the best decision he ever made. The Zen Micros arent great, but the other creatives are good. Steer clear of the zen micro, but the rest are all good choices