i was either going to get this or the ipod touch, i wanted solid state memory so i wouldnt have to worry about it breaking as easily as your traditional ipod or w/e. 32 gigs was a necesity withe the amount of music and movies i have. The itouch would have cost me 430$ (after tax) i was about to buy one, and then i started to think if it was worth the cost. 430$ is a lot of money for what it was. i ahd been looking into a x-fi. After i went back and looked at it i realized how foolish i almost was. This thing comes with 32 gigs for 100$ cheaper then the ipod. That alone would almost clinche it for me. The thing that makes this thing so amazing are its extra features that at this price i considered free. FM radio is very nice at times, theres no reason why ipods shouldnt have it. I would like to have AM but those need internal antennas if im not mistaken so i can understand not having room. Its got a built in mic that works pretty decently.i havnt used it much because i have no real reason too but my test run with it in the car and i could hear my mom from the back seat while she was talking noramlly with all the car background nosie. Its pretty decent for what it is. The built in speaker rocks, Great idea and i love it, thats another thing the ipods should have, especially the touch because people like to show others videos on it and such and headphones can be a hassel. The user interface is wierd at first, but once u get used to it its fine, not as great as the ipods but its definately usable as long as you dont confuse yourself with all the buttons (13 buttons +power/lock button). That sounds complicated but frankly its not. The only confusing part of the controls are the 9 button keypad. U usually only use top right, left, down, and center for obvious tasks, The diagonal buttons are used mainly for instant messeging. i like the shortcut button, a customizable button u set to what you want. Frankly, i havnt tried the wi-fi, but only being able to use MSN or Yahoo! chat is useless to me, nobody i know uses either of those clients and "typing" on a 9 key pad is kindof annoying. i have a acer aspire one with me most of the time (which costs as much as the itouch (lol)) so if i need to im or email somebody thats what i use. The xetreme fidelity options are nice to have but are a tad wierd in my opinion, i dont use them but i like having them, again, i consider them free. Sound quality is excellent, havnt noticed any difference from the ipod (i had a ipod video 80 gig (the fatty one) and its about the same in quality and loudness, it may be a little louder too depending on song and setting. Another benefit to this when compared to the ipod is its much wider file support, wav, mp3, aac, mpeg 4, wmv, w/e. it supports all the music that was on my ipod except for the drmed (evil) music i bought on itunes, i can just burn a cd and rip it into mp3 to fix that. the only file of interest it doesnt play is OGG Vorbis, but, who cares, i dont use it, and i dont know anybody who does, my dad always wants to get one that does but i dont really understand why other then that its an open format and all. This thing beats apple in every way except for its softtware, its utter crap, your almost better off not using it. I just drag and drop my music into my mp3 player. For some reason the software crashes quite often on my computer (which isnt shabby, its quite capable of running anything out there). I hate itunes, its bloated and the video support is abysmal, but, this is somehow even worse. i might find a third party program that runs with it better or not use anything at all. whatever. The battery life is good, i get about 2-3 days of use, 2 days of heavy use, the rest varies.
so, lets conclude, you can either compared this to the touches capacity or the nano for its size and price. It dominates the nano. It is around 70$ more then a nano, twice the storage capacity, and all the other features i outlines earlier. When compared to the touch, its 100$ cheaper for the same size, with a form of wi fi (but its not anywhere near as good) and all the other features it has that the touch doesnt. If you want a web browser and are willing to pay around 100$ more as well as get less features the touch is the mp3 player for you, if you want to save yourself some cash and try a very competant palyer from the most experience company in dealing with audio then get the x-fi.
In addition, it comes with a pair of really sweet headphones that are in ear, so they drown out a ton of background noise. When they say its about a 50$ value, they arnt lieing. The ipod headphones are prolly around a 20$ pair (in terms of quality, not price) and these are far far far superior. Its kindof annoying sometimes that it drowns out so much cuz i like to talk to my parents with my volume low so thats kindof annoying, but, if i need to work in class or at home and drown everything out, its great. seems good for airplanes too.
another side note, the wi fi can be turned off to save battery life, i forgot to mention it.
i love mine, i have no regrets, and i recomend it to all those out there who want to get away from the overpriced apple hype (in all their products) i highly highly recomend this. The value was amazing and the features are all very nice.
id give this product a 95/100
again, the only fault being the crappy software.
EDIT: about a few weeks after i bought it from fry's, my dad saw it on sale (at Fry's) i went in with my recipt and got the difference back!!!!! thats an extra 30$ cheaper then i took into accoutn while writing this review. I LOVE MY ZEN
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