Creative Nomad
So, I came to my senses tonight and got the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra instead of the iPod. It doesn't play AAC/M4A, but it's 30 gig (iPod mini is only 6 gig) and it's $50 cheaper. The only downsides seems to be the lack of AAC support and the screen isn't nearly as bright as the iPod. I can live with those limitations considering I'm getting what seems to be a really awesome player for only $200. I'll post my full review in a few days when I've had time to play with it. For now, it's charging...
4 Comments:
Okay, the software for this thing bites. It BITES!!! It can't just give me a drive letter and let me drag my songs over - I have to do it through this really really klunky ugly ass iTunes wanna-be program.
I wish I could use iTunes directly (yes, I know that means I wish I had an iPod). I have all of my music rated there. I have smart playlists like "50 most listened in the last 2 weeks" and "Added recently but not listened to yet" and "Electronic non-mellow favories".
Maybe eventually I'll figure out a way to easily create playlists for it using iTunes data (thankfully, iTunes stores my ratings, play counts, etc in an XML file). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can just write a program to create .PLS files or something, so <shrug>
You didn't buy an iPod? Are you nutz? Yes part of the reason that the iPod is popular is just that its a fad and it is expensive per gigabyte but damn it it just works fantastic and so does iTunes. You were so close to coming over to the white side too.
Hahaha. I love iTunes and the fact that I can't easily sync my smart playlists to the Nomad is a real bummer.
I think I'm just going to grab libnjb and write something that reads iTunes' XML, checks for ths songs on the Nomad and uploads them if necessary, then creates a matching playlist on the MP3 player and adds the tracks.
Yeah, that's a lot of work for the $50 savings, but I'm a programmer and I'll enjoy the challenge. :)
PS - I really like my wife's iBook (except for the awful keyboard) and I've almost bought an iMac for myself a couple of times already. I may still go all Apple someday. :)
Not an iPod, and you know me working at Apple and all.
Post a Comment
<< Home