I guess this is a good a time any any to bring up where the music files will come from. Caractacus Pott has had experience with both iPods and Zens, so I’ll let him speak to his experience. As for me, using filers ripped from my own CD’s and subcription files (and a few purchased files) from Yahoo and Rhapsody, the Zen is perfect. If you purchase your music by the track, either should work for you (depending on where you buy the track). If you want a subscription, the Zen will work.
How does your friend want to get music? Subcribe? Buy individual tracks? Rip CD’s she already owns?
Unfortunately, iTunes will only copy songs from the computer to the iPod, not the other way around.
You could just enter Windows Explorer, find the iPod, and transfer that way. Unfortunately, the files have seemingly random names that have nothing to do with the files themselves, so you’d have to play each one to see what it was.
There are also third-party programs that will let you transfer from the iPod to computer, but I don’t know any off hand.
As to my pet cause in the MP3 player debate, I absolutely must have gapless playback. I listen to quite a few albums with no space between tracks, and it irritates me when the player inserts space where it doesn’t belong. I guess not too many people care, though, as almost every MP3 player does it. Fortunately, these guys are working on firmware for various devices to fix it.
The iPod port is fairly new, and they still haven’t gotten sound to work in the iPod video. It’ll probably never play encrypted songs downloaded from iTunes, but it allows you to switch back to the original iPod firmware at any time. Still, something interesting to look out for.
Ha, shows what I know. Three years ago, after much deliberation between the then-iPods (I think 3rd gen), the Creative Zen, and the one or two other serious competitors in the market just about 6 months before the market exploded with dozens of choices, I went with the Zen. I listen to a lot of musicals, a touch of progrock, and a smattering of multitrack classical performances, and in all cases the Zen plays without any skip between tracks. I took it for granted; didn’t realize this is actually a concern. But I agree, it is awfully jarring to your experience when there’s a pause between “Young Lust” and “One of My Turns” on The Wall.
iTunes is by far much easier. Everything happens within iTunes, from playing tracks on your hard drive to searching/auditioning selections on the website, to purchasing the tracks to installing, and updating the iPod or burning CD’s. The other services use your web browser to do the searching, track selection, and purchases then another piece of software on your computer to do the rest. It’s not nearly as seamless, although that may have changed using Windows Media Player as the workstation software. (aside: I didn’t get the Micro’s firmware update that supports WMP until January. Then the Micro stopped working with my Windows 2000 workstation at home. It looks like the firmware somehow makes it work only with XP. Now that I have the iPod I’m not really caring about the Micro. Like I said in an earlier post, the iPod is so much easier to use.)
Most of my tracks are MP3’s I ripped. iTunes imported the label tags properly. I always had to modify tracks after importing them into the Micro’s software.
must second the 5 GB/$100 inconsistency. not going to happen. if she wants to pay $100, she’s gonna have to settle for about 512MB.
ask her what is more important to her: the $100 price range, or the 5 GB? if it’s the $100, well, there are plenty of players out there, but they’re all going to be pretty limited on space and function. if the 5GB is important to her and she’s willing to pay about $200, the Creative Zen Neeon is promising. they’re WMA-compatible, they have playlist capability, and Creative’s just a damn good brand. I have a Zen Sleek Photo that I’m completely happy with. I’ve only had it a week or so, but it’s everything I wanted and more: the sound’s great, the interface is easy, and getting music onto your player and organizing it is child’s play.
then again, if she’s willing to pay $200, she can get a 4GB iPod Nano with a color screen that’s not WMA-compatible, but is more easily navigable.
you might also look into some others that aren’t as heavily marketed, like the iRiver or the Gigabeat… those might be a little less expensive. Amazon would be a good place to start.
also, I hope you’re getting something out of this, 'cause you’re going to be spending a pretty significant amount of time doing all this for her. good luck, though. =)
Zen Micro 5GB is currently on sale at Sam Goodys for $139.99 - they’re going out of business and everything in the stores is on sale (dvds, cds, games, mp3 players)