Posted by larrytxeast on 11/07/07 13:25

I have $100 to spend, and am looking for my 3rd MP3 player in a year.
(My other 2 either were lost or ceased working.) The 2 choices I am
looking at are the 30G Zune, which I can get new in brown for $100, or
an 80G iPod (black, 5th generation), which I can buy 2nd-hand from a
friend for $100.

I lean towards the iPod due to the larger capacity and slimmer form-
factor, however the Zune would be brand-new, and 30G would easily
cover practically every single MP3 I own, and has a built-in FM tuner
which I would use sometimes. (Then again, I did just buy a cheap dinky
Sandisk 1G for $20 and it has one, I figure I'd just use it for such
occasions.)

I have no loyalty to either brand, I don't consider Microsoft to be a
monopoly with its Windows software or Apple to be one with domination
of i-This & That and the Other. So I could really care less brand-
wise.

What I do care about are things like this:

(1) My previous player, a dinky-little RCA 5G and Coby 1G, both have 1
thing in common I liked--drag-drop uploading ability. I don't want to
have to install special software just to upload files to the machine.
If I have to, so be it, but the more "universal" one player is vs the
other with regards to that, the better. For the record, I do have
Windows MP10 on my XP SP2 machine, iTunes is not installed.

(2) How is the battery life on the 80G iPod 5th generation, and how
easily is it replaced if it gets diminished? I realize both the Zune
and iPod are probably not easily user-replaceable, but I do believe
I've heard of people having success with replacement of iPod batteries
using soldering irons or something.

(3) Navigation. How easy it is to get used to the "touch scroll" of
the iPod, to skip forward from 1 track to the next by feel while
bicycling?

(4) As far as file-compatibility, all my files are either MP3 or WMA,
and most of the WMAs were conversions of MP3s that I still have (the 2
other players were WMA-compatible and doing this helped save space). I
have no DRM content.

Any other tips?

LRH
alt.music.mp3

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