Apple Ipod Mini VS Creative Zen Micro

Dilemmas dilemmas dilemmas. The official launch of Creative's Zen Micro has very effectively ignited, in me, a great interest in MP3 players. Many of my friends would have said a relieved 'FINALLY', cos they have never understood my insistence to get a MD player years ago, instead of the more popular MP3 player. However, its not to say that I regret my MD player purchase. I still like it quite a lot, but its just that the recording process tends to get quite tedious at times, and the necessity to bring along a couple of mini discs during my vacation is also not very pleasant (so leceh!). And heh heh, furthermore, my sis has offered to buy over my MD player (for a low low price lah). Hence, this will help to finance part of the expenses for a new MP3 player! =D.

Initially, my choices were either a Creative Tech, or Iriver product. Apple Ipods, although I would have loved most, seemed too far away a reality (due to the price lah, what else!). However, I soon narrowed it down to Creative Tech, as most of their products are quite well-priced (in fact, very affordable, I would say), and are jam-packed with many many features, such as a FM tuner, a plug and play feature (no need for USB cable), recording function, use of AA/AAA batteries, small in size, and best of all, since it's a local brand, I gathered it would be easier to get technical support after I bought their products. Even better was the fact that most of their players could be used on Win 98 SE and USB port 1.1 (I still have a rather ancient PC at home, unfortunately). Then I had to decide what type of MP3 player I wanted. Flash-drive or hard drive? 1GB or more? Wow...so many decisions!! But I thought the Zen Micro was still slightly out of my range, as I only wanted to spend $300 plus, and that 5GB is too much space for me.

Then came Saturday, where I met up with my hostel friends to get some birthday presents. Turns out that C, my friend who works at Apple, is selling her brand new Ipod (20GB) at a very very good price! It seems that Apple gave their employees Ipods as a bonus (WAH!!), and now she possesses 2 Ipods! And then, even if I did not want to buy over the Ipod, she could still help me get other Ipod products at a good discount. Suddenly, the idea of owning a Ipod product was not so far away anymore! After some fast calculation, I realized I could get a Ipod mini at $300 plus, which was well within my range. So I went to do some research on the product, and I finally understood what the hype on the Ipod was all about. Its really a sleek and sexy piece of gadget! The colours are nice, and it seems like owning it gives one the same status as owning a LV/Prada/GUCCI bag/ etc etc.

It was at this point, that I had to make a well-measured comparison between the Ipod mini, and Creative Tech's Zen Micro (or their other MP3 players). And trust me, it was a damn hard decision! If we are talking about features, Creative wins hands down! The Ipod mini needs at least a Win 2000 and USB 2.0 port. It doesn't come with a FM tuner/recording function. No plug and play feature, and loading of their software into the PC is a must b4 any downloading can be done. All this, I can still accept. But the one worst feature of the product, is that it uses a NON-replaceable lithium battery (rechargeable type). Which means, if the battery finally dies (as all rechargeable batteries will eventually), my Ipod mini effectively becomes useless! Apple has a trade-in program, where if the battery dies, you get to exchange for another Ipod mini for a $150 price. Not cheap right? On the other hand, Zen Micro has none of these lousy features, which is expected, since it was created mainly to compete with the Ipod mini in the first place.

So now what? I had some lengthy discussions with my colleagues regarding this issue, and I think one of them sums it best for me by commenting "Your head says the Zen Micro, but your heart much prefers the Apple Ipod mini" True true. All the cons are stacked high up against the Ipod mini, but it would really break my heart to get the Zen Micro instead, and at a higher price too! According to Apple, if I were to charge the battery at intervals of once a week, it would still last me around 4-5 years. However, I don't usually put too much trust in the stuffs these companies say, as it would usually be biased opinions. But I also cannot get any good feedback from other Ipod users, as the Ipod mini was only launched early this year. Which means no one in this world has actually wore off any of their Ipod batteries yet! Sigh sigh sigh....