Jodiuh

Misc features and other stuff...

I've been going down this road for about a month. Here's my take:



1. Zune HD - ownage time: 3 days

Waited in line @ midnight for this sucker and truly thought this would be an iPod touch killer. Bought the hype and got burned. The browser's a joke, there's no apps, it lacks a volume rocker, getting around the device's more of an up/down affair rather than an everything where you need it platter, it gets warm far too often (I'll assume from pulling biography data), the marketplace on the device itself feels half baked (top 10 songs were split between 2 albums in nearly every genre, and since when is Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga electronica?, skipping songs or pausing playbacks always a two step, sometimes 3 step, and never a blind or easy affair. And in my hands it feels a bit too small.

That said, it does sound better than the iPod touch 3rd Gen and has some neato whiz bang graphics. Also, the screen's absolutely ridiculously insane. It's sex in digital. Like a mini Kuro in your trousers. And not just the pop of color and inky blacks, but the response time and fluidity of everything! How I would LOVE to game on something like this. Another nice touch's the actual Zune software on the pc. It's much better than iTunes for just cataloging and includes actual watch folders, a nice touch. Unfortunately, I didn't use the Zune pass, but a friend of mine's completely stoked w/ this feature and has opened new doors for him. I guess it's like Pandora, but better. A nice feature of the marketplace on the Zune's the ability to see related artists compared to what you're listening to. It gave me a chance to discover new music, pretty nifty stuff.

However the cons outweighed the pros and...



2. iPod touch - ownage time: 20 days

When I got the Zune, I pretty much had my heart set on a portable browsing experience. I had recently sold my Blackberry Tour in anticipation for the Motorola Sholes/Droid/Tao and had been going through some mad bathroom browsing withdrawal symptoms...like waving flicking my thumb in the air and darting my eyes back and forth at the cracks in the wall.

Browsing on the Zune was an absolute chore because it took 2-3x longer than the newer upgraded touch to go anywhere. It also got warm whereas the touch did not. Oh, the touch will get warm and would kill it's battery in a few hours, but that's only when I had been listening to music via bluetooth and heavily 3D gaming with WiFi on.

Ok, back on track. As we all know, the browser on this device is excellent. Unlike the Zune HD, javascript performance is MUCH faster, it has tabs (VERY useful), history, and the ability to actually read a page wo/ panning every 4 words. I'm not going to spend anymore time on the iPod's browser. Just know that while I had it, I would routinely reach for it instead of my Samsung NC10 netbook when I had some surfing to do. It's FAST and AWESOME.

The apps (read: games). I had nearly 40 installed the first day. And this is partly the reason I returned the device. After 3 weeks, I discovered something. I had been putting myself through lazy convenience gaming simply because...well, I'm lazy. Yes, they're fun. Yes, they're cheap. But it's just more **** to do. I have a pc w/ much better games if that's really what I want to do.

The iTunes factor. How I hate this program. It's not that it installs the iphone "readiness" tool or whatever that was. Or the browser, or quicktime, or boner du jour, or whatever else it needs to ensure assimilation of my pc. It's not even the browsing in spreadsheets. In fact, I'm even ok w/ it making a mess of my collection by ignoring album artists in the big top 3 panes. No, what bugs the **** out of me about iTunes is that I have to give a cookie everytime I want it to sit up and recognize a new song. Really? 2009? No user selectable watch folders? And even if somehow I could get past that, there's still the whole, "Oh hi, I've come to lag out because I love!" Click here, lag, click there, lag, click here, blank screen. It gets confused w/ the simplest of commands. I hate this program.

And it gets worse w/ the iPod touch because of the apps. If you delete an app on the touch it doesn't sync delete on the desktop. Which makes sense I guess, but why not give me an option? Why make me go hunt and peck for the 10 apps I deleted and forgot what they were? That's ok, iPod, I'll sit here while you take 10 minutes to back up everything everytime. (I know I can shut it off.)

Sound quality - It's better than my old Sony NWZ-S616F, but no Zune HD. The soundstage's narrowed and there's just less head nodding and foot tapping all around. I found myself more and more disappointed as time went on...longing for the sound signature of the Zune.

GUI - It's a LOT less frustrating to get around than the Zune HD IMO. There's no half hidden words to get where you need, just full on buttons that'r easily tappable. Back, pause/play, forward are right where they belong, front and center. I cannot express enough how frustrating simple tasks like this were on the Zune HD.

HW Controls - Volume rocker, thank you! Not granular enough though.

Screen - It gets dim, which is nice because I'm very light sensitive. That said, it cannot display black. The best you're going to get is holographic near white black. It's ugly compared to the Zune. I just couldn't bring myself to watch much of anything on that player after watching the Zune.

So in the end the iPod worked out to be a fantastic little time waster, portable browser, and decent media player. But considering my Moto Sholes should be here soon and what I really wanted was a fantastic sounding media player...



3. Sony NWZ-X1051 - ownage time: 14 hrs

Oh Sony. $300 and you used a sticker, a fugly sticker to put the serial number on the back of this device? It actually looked as if it had been peeling off so I pulled the ****er off. Much cleaner! Bad idea. More on that later.

So off to the PC to load 10GB of 320Kbps MP3's. I think about 1200 of them? This took about...hmmm...maybe 20 minutes or so for the touch and Zune...ok, maybe a little longer. The Sony on the other hand utilizes advanced flash technology from 2004. It took 2 hours. It really didn't matter how good it sounded, that was a show stopper as I've no patience for slow flash after getting owned up and down by my Corsair Blue survivor fiasco.

Browser: Trash, don't bother. ABC, DEF, LOL! I tried to load up a review on a competing DAP from Driver Heaven and it didn't even try. It just plastered, "Lack of resource." in typical Sony black pop style. This should not have been included at all.

Youtube: At least launching this from the home screen's pretty useless as well because you're forced into the whole cell phone style of typing. QWERTY or die Sony. Although the app might work better when listening to an artist and pulling up related videos...if that's an option...I think that's an option. It was late.

Slacker: Wake me if they stream 320Kbps or FLAC.

Screen: I could have been late, but to my eyes the screen DID NOT look as good as the Zune HD, not even close. It's definitely smaller, but colors seemed a lot less saturated and even the blacks were less dark.

Music playing GUI: Not bad. On one screen you have your album art, timeline, play controls, access to full 5 band eq + clear bass (this works VERY well), and a very nice artist, genre, album, etc tree. The kinetic scrollings super fast and there's even a spot up top to select a letter. I think it's probably the best browsing catalog of the three as far as ease of use and quickness are concerned. The cover flow and even the album art browsing kinda sucks as they don't cache fast enough so you're consistently looking at little x's. It reminds me of the 56k days when we looked at red x's. Not a good feeling.

The sound: Such a one trick pony Sony. If this player were $200 and didn't take 2 hours to load I probably would have kept it and that would be that. Listening to 503 on Hans Zimmer's new Angel's and Demon's album through my Sennheiser HD 580's and a custom built PIMETA amp actually startled me right up. It's been a long time since I've been this impressed w/ an audio player and I think it may be the very best DAP I've ever heard. I continued to listen mostly w/ zero eq or any virtu/clear stereo/etc to Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek and Oakenfold's Tranceport in amazement. The details this S-Master class device seemed to pull out of its bass kept surprising me. I really, really, really love this device. You know something's going right when you completely forget about all the deficiency's of a player and get lost in the music, right?

In the end the lack of on the go music playlists, that crazy 2 hr thing, the $, and the looming thought of "something special from that Korean company" out there kept me up at night. So in the morning I headed back to Fry's and mentioned the sticker that had came partially peeled off and explained my situation. She talked to CS MGR who basically shut me down and said I'd have to take it up w/ Sony. Bummer. Being a stubborn fella, I asked for a 2nd opinion and she summoned another MGR who then explained to the CS MGR the difference between an MP3 player and a cellular phone. They returned the sucker and I placed an order for...



4. Cowon S9 ownage time: T Minus 16 hours and counting...

What I learned so far from this experience is that I'm far and away and audio junkie as opposed to anything else. And I think I'm willing to deal w/ a little odd GUI and lack of WiFi (since that's not really what I'm looking for anyway) to get the very best.

If anyone's curious, Techfreakazoid's impressions on the Sony X vs Cowon S9 vs Touch 2G @ Head-Fi are some of the best I've read.

EDIT: Ok, I'm not willing to deal w/ a terrible GUI.

I just got this in the mail today and there's most definitely double clicking going on everywhere in the OS. To make matters worse the capacitive screen feels more like a resistive one. I knew this would be a rough road coming from a 3G iPod touch 32GB, but I feel like I'm in the stone age. Kinetic scrolling's terribly slow, cover flow is a joke, and it took nearly 2 hours to load up what took the iPod 20 minutes of songs. Also interesting is that the device gets warm from simply starting up a song! The iPod needed at least 15 solid minutes of 3D gaming for that to happen. Of course it won't play videos that played fine on the Zune HD, Sony X, and the iPod.

More impressions: It's not just double clicking, but triple clicking, and sometimes quadruple clicking. If unresponsive screens piss you off, this is not the player for you! I'd be willing to forgive one or two issues, but after connecting via MTP mode which supposedly supports faster write speeds, I couldn't WRITE to the drive. Also, and I know I'm nitpicking here, but one of my pet peeves on a portable device or any electronic device is heat output. Why is my hand getting hot when I'm listening to music? This is not 2003. Also, the screen lives in fingerprints. It's by far the worst offender out of all of them.

Sound Quality

3G iPod touch 32GB (no eq, they're pretty bad)
Zune HD 16GB (no eq, same)
Sony NWZ-X1051 (no eq, clear bass 1 or 2, some fiddling)
Cowon S9 (BBE Viva, tried normal, minimal user 1 attempt)

Headphones:

Etymotic ER6i
Sennheiser HD580 w/ PIMETA built by MisterX tailored for the 580's

Songs:

Akon - Keep you much longer
Oakenfold - Words for love
Hans Zimmer Angels and Demons OST - 503
Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

I'm going to keep this short and simple as it's been about a month and I haven't had them all at the same time, so my memory's a little vague on the details. Also, I'm not that great w/ the audiophile glossary, occasionally getting things wrong and stuff, so take it FWIW.

-3G Touch
The new touch to my ears sounds a lot more exciting than the 2G. Somehow my head actually managed to bop to Akon w/ the Ety's, a wild feat considering how bass anemic they are. The details and clarity from 503 never felt too congested, but didn't stun me like another player. Through the amp and Senn's the touch really came alive. The 2 pair together very, very well. I never felt like anything came across too harsh and never had to put down my headphones due to fatigue. Still, it wasn't as thrilling or involving as another player.

-Zune HD
Overall, I would say this player's synergy w/ the Senn's came across about as well as the touch. Both DAPs sounded very smooth w/ the 580's, but the Zune had a seemingly larger soundstage and what seemed more clarity and texture to Imogens synthed vocals. Words for Love also had a bit more foot tapping going on. A decent notch up from the touch both on the Ety's and the Senns for this player.

-Sony X
Heaven. I'm sure a person's ears have a lot to do w/ it, but this player wo/ eq sounded absolutely fantastic w/ everything. Especially complex passages. 503 literally caused me to sit up and jaw drop because of the presence and clarity given to the various strings crossing paths towards the end of the track. Just as well, anything from the Tranceport (Oakenfold) flew by w/ amazing speed. Nothing is too fast for this player. The synergy between the Senns and my ears w/ this player were perfect for Akon as nothing sounded too harsh and I could listen for hours to this combo. The bass sounded tight and very controlled, very un klipsch promedia like. This was my favorite player by far.

Cowon S9
My biggest disappointment. Maybe my ears are broken. Maybe they're too sensitive. Maybe the player is broken? But it actually gave me a headache! The Ety's worked out ok w/ this player, but the Senn's seem to sparkle w/ a cold and harsh smearing to every vocalist. It becomes a bit less rough when I turn off BBE Viva, but then the whole player sounds a bit like a 2G iPod...boring. My biggest beef w/ this player was that it just sounds unnatural, ie undefined bass, smearing highs. 503 seems to lose instruments and the strings all mess together. It almost sounds like I'm listening to MP3's in a lower bitrate?! Akon's track was incredibly harsh, to the point I couldn't even continue to finish it. The soundstage's definitely freaked me out a little w/ Imogen's voice. But once again, the player just seems harsh no matter what settings I threw at it...eq, wide, narrow, normal, bbe, enhance, etc.

I'd love to hear anyone's comments on this. Do you think it's the synergy? Maybe I'm just a warm kinda guy? FWIW, I got a chance to listen to some Grado SR125's briefly out of the touch in a car and though they were a bit too fatiguing and forward for me.

lozanoa11

I would agree that the zune hd's browser is very dissapointing. Also i found the wifi antenna is very weak. Places were i can get 1 or 2 bars with my laptop it wont even get signal or just can't connect. But i love the interface and im sure apps will follow soon.

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