Now and ‘Zen’ you can find a good bargain
New “Mozaic” media player from Creatve is one sound investment — especially for mobile music lovers with shallow pockets.
New "Mozaic" media player from Creatve is one sound investment — especially for mobile music lovers with shallow pockets.
You don’t need to break the bank to pick up a feature-rich media player thanks to the $69 Creative Zen Mozaic.
Not only does this 2GB device play music, podcasts and audiobooks (with support for Audible files), as well as display photos and videos on its 1.8-inch colour screen, but Creative’s latest Zen also sports a built-in speaker for when you don’t want to use the bundled earbuds (similiar to what the new iPod touch offers).
But unlike the iPod, this player also features an FM radio and supports many music formats including MP3s, WMAs and unprotected AACs. A 4GB model sells for $89.
Now that’s music to our ears.
I find your article a bit misleading, and I'm not sure if this is really meant to be advertising disguised as a quasi-review. As you point out, iPods do not include an FM radio, but you also imply that iPods do not support many music formats. Of the formats you list (MP3, WMA and unprotected AAC), it is only the proprietary WMA format that is not supported on an iPod. And if you really want a FM tumer for your iPod, it is available, but probably not needed by most.
Scandalous: :"Of the formats you list (MP3, WMA and unprotected AAC), it is only the proprietary WMA format that is not supported on an iPod."
Do you realise that that's 33% of the formats he mentioned are NOT supported by the iPod? Meaning that ONLY 66% of the formats he talked about are supported. Not to mention that WMA is one of the more popular formats after MP3 (although iTunes does have a format converter in it which is capable of converting WMA to MP3 or ACC). Anyways, I agree that it is a bit misleading, I doubt that it was intentional- he was simply listing off some features and committed a little slip of the tongue.
I agree that it was probably a slip of the tongue, but honetly people, does it really matter? That fudged bit of info is not going to wreck your life, and you can get the proper info simply by either looking at the package or asking a salesman. So don't go after the guy for not clearly stating something.
I find it interesting that an FM radio is included in almost every PMP *but* the iPod, raising some serious doubts about the notion that it is "probably not needed by most".
Actually, I use the radio all the time to listen to sports and I do enjoy hearing morning radio programs on the train on the way to work. I suppose I am unique in that I enjoy sports and take public transit.
BTW, only MP3 is an approved standard format. Wouldn't it be wonderful if iTunes published its specification publically, like WMA, so all players could support iTunes format?
I would really like a player that would support .flac files
rather than the lossy formats
Hey Dave check out Marc's article on RockBox:
http://tinyurl.com/4rkgkz
this mod would give FLAC support on an iPod.
Interesting point, andrewstation. However, MP3 is still proprietary. In fact, retardalous, all the formats you mentioned are proprietary. The only format mentioned by anyone that isn't proprietary is the one originally mentioned by Dave524 regarding FLAC files. Ogg + Vorbis files aren't proprietary either, fanboi-alous.
Seriously, I'm going to come off as callous here, but your Apple morons are seriously starting to piss me off. I'm sick and tired of your know-it-all attitudes, especially when you have the audacity to criticize someone for giving a slight misrepresentation of the facts by misrepresenting facts even more, yourself.
Apple is a hardware company that didn't keep up with the standard, and fell by the wayside. Apple started to become popular with non-hipsters AFTER they switched to the standard. Furthermore, Apple's OS is essentially a prettied-up version of an OS that has been around for literally decades.
Being a Linux-user, I never thought I'd say this, but: At least Microsoft isn't ripping off the open-source community as much as Apple is.
Was just reading about it b4 I came here. Thanks for the info.
Anyone who would like to compare the various formats and their quality on the same recordings, a lot of excellent recordings are available here in a variety of formats, for free I my add, and all legal.
http://www.archive.org/details/etree