i actually liked the ipod when it first came out. i was about to get one when i noticed that the interface was crap. apple started off with a good, new, and high demand product but ruined it. in order to use an ipod, you are forced to install itunes. creative doesn't force anything on zen users, which is why i like their mp3 players so much.
Everywhere I 've looked, it is reported that you need to install the Zen Vision Media Explorer to import/export files on the player.
you do not
need it. i have it installed on my computer at home, but i can take my zen anywhere and freely exchange files with any computer via windows explorer. unless you have the media explorer installed, the zen will simply show up as an external harddrive in windows explorer, and you can copy files to and from it as such.
I have yet to find a PC on which I couldn't hook up & update my iPod.
i suppose if every computer in the world had itunes, you could. perhaps there is some 3rd party software to copy between an ipod and a computer, as for that i am not sure.
i actually liked the ipod when it first came out. i was about to get one when i noticed that the interface was crap. apple started off with a good, new, and high demand product but ruined it. in order to use an ipod, you are forced to install itunes. creative doesn't force anything on zen users, which is why i like their mp3 players so much.
the zen allows easy and simple sharing of files between multiple computers. the first and last time i ever tried using an ipod went something like this:
a friend brought his ipod over to my place and wanted me to copy some music over to it (he picked out about 22 gigs of the stuff he wanted from my library). but in order to do this, first i had to install itunes. then, i had to import everything he wanted on his ipod into itunes, which took forever because itunes converted all the WMAs (thankfully only a few gigs) to another format, and then dumped the converted files into another folder.
finally, i managed to get all the desired media imported into itunes. i then learned that i could not simply add this media to the currently existing content already on the player. itunes lets you 'syncronize' the ipod, which to apple means overwriting whatever was on the player with itunes library. furthermore, on the ipod was some new music i wanted to try, but itunes had no way of copying that music back onto my computer.
my friend said screw it, just overwrite my stuff (he only had 5 gigs). so i hit synchronize, and waited for over an hour for everything to copy over. the worst part about it is now my friend can't add music from his computer to the ipod, so he's stuck with only what i gave him.
several days later, i brought over my zen vision:m and a usb cable. i plugged it into his machine, which had no creative software ever installed on it. windows xp immediately recognized the player. i opened windows explorer and found the player listed there, and navigated to my media library with a few clicks.
from that point it was as simple as copying the desired files to his local harddrive. the same 22 gigs that took his ipod over an hour to copy now copied in less than half and hour. before i left, i copied over some music files from his computer, again using windows explorer. once the copy finished, i simply disconnected the unit and listened to the new music on my way home.
it was, after this experience, that i decided that i didn't care much for the ipod in general.
i paid full price for my zen, it was not on sale or anything. at the time i bought it, all across the country the 60GB zen vision:m was $100 cheaper than the 60gb ipod video, and they probably still are now.
