Why people buy Apple iPod Video 30GB instead of Zen Vision M 30GB?

Question

They have the same price but:
zen has an internal microphone but ipod dosen't. It means you should pay to buy one for ipod(it costs about 50 $)
zen has an internal FM radio but ipod dosen't. It means you should pay to buy one for ipod(it costs about 50 $).
zen LCD can display 262k colors but ipod LCD can display 65k colors.
so it seems that you are paying less (at least 100 $) if you buy zen and also you are getting more (because of display and formats)
what do you think?

They have the same price but:
zen has an internal microphone but ipod dosen't. It means you should pay to buy one for ipod(it costs about 50 $)
zen has an internal FM radio but ipod dosen't. It means you should pay to buy one for ipod(it costs about 50 $).
zen LCD can display 262k colors but ipod LCD can display 65k colors.
so it seems that you are paying less (at least 100 $) if you buy zen and also you are getting more (because of display and formats)
what do you think? I really want to know the reason.

Answer 1

Everyone has their own reasons, but here are the ones I went by when buying mine:

1. More accessories. This is becoming less of an issue, but it still remains that you can find more variety of vinyl skins, silicone skin, regular cases, cables (there's even one that'll connect from the iPod dock connector to a stereo audio + S-Video input), FM transmitters, remotes, docks, and pretty much any other accessory you can name that works specifically with the iPod and nothing else.

2. Better audio formats. MP3 is old, outdated, and sounds terrible compared to what's available these days. Now, granted, Zen plays WMA, but I got terrible sound quality when I tried hooking my laptop up to my car stereo, no matter how much I fiddled with volume controls. I've had to tweak some settings here and there (I use MP3Gain, play with the iTunes playback volumes, and set everything to Deep on the EQ), but my iPod sounds pretty good on my 1986 factory-installed car stereo, at least comparitively. That's using AAC, not Apple Lossless format, BTW.

2b. iTunes. Granted, I don't buy music from iTunes, but they have the most thriving business of any (legal) music download service out there, and they only offer songs in the AAC format. Getting them from iTunes to any non-iPod player means having to convert them within iTunes. And the only universal format right now is MP3, which will cap the sound quality regardless of what other format you might intend to transfer your songs to.

3. Ease of use. Between the much quicker scroll-wheel design, and the full integration between iPod and iTunes, the iPod is just easier to manage in many regards. The one thing I have issues with still is the limiting options on synching podcasts to your iPod, but part of that can be worked around by building playlists for any podcasts that you want to treat differently than the rest.

4. Screen/video formats. Eh, I could care less about this. Yes, I will have a handful of video files on my iPod at all times (primarily podcasts that I've long delayed in watching), but frankly, that's not what I use it for. It's for playing music. Everything else is secondary. Besides, the comparisons I've seen between Zen M and iPod Video screencaps suggests that most of the "vibrant colors" you're seeing from the Zen are the result of cranking the contrast too high. Yes, colors tend to pop out more, but so do deep, dark, detail-obscuring shadows.

Answer 2

i have a creative zen and did alot of research and found that creative is better but it has it problems and accessories can only bought online. unlike ipod accessories are everywhere

Answer 3

People are sheep and most of the "herd" has iPods.

Answer 4

its just preferance its just like why get and xbox 360 when u can get a wii or ps3