Creative Zen or Ipod Nano?

poshniallo

The title says it all, really. Tomorrow I'm working near a big electronics store (I live in the countryside) and I'd like to go buy one of these.

I'll be getting the 8gb one, whichever I choose. I'd be interested in others like Iriver or Meizu, but I live in Japan, and mp3 players tend to be the big names only.

So what do you reckon? I've never owned an mp3 player before, and I travel a lot for work, so I thought I could listen to music and occasionally watch videos, but I don't know much more about this topic than 'apple are the big boys'.

gneGne

The Sony A818 should be quality too. Just no radio though.. but superior audio quality.

The Cat

I've always liked creative. Apple stuff has too many restrictions for me - no radio, can't treat the machine like a USB stick without faffing around with it, stuff like that. I've got a 2GB zen stone plus at the moment, and its great. Bricked itself once when the laptop it was plugged into crashed, but that was a freak accident. Good interface, good sound, good look, good product support.

EggyToast

The strength of the iPod lies in iTunes. If the idea of using a music library application pisses you off, don't get an iPod. If you have a sizeable library and like using metadata to sort and listen to music in a certain way, iPod. If you simply like copying a bunch of files over and listening to albums, anything else will do, and the Zen will let you skip iTunes for that step.

Hakkekage

I have a Zen Vision W. It's not practical for carrying around since it's so huge and made primarily for video, but the Zen vision M is. Plus, I like the colors better than iPods.

The iPod looks trendier and is waaay more portable, though, but all the accessories also cost a fair bit of money (those handy iPod cases run for like, $30. I had a friend who just knitted herself one).

MC Mystery

I hate iPods, but I -love- iTunes and therefor, stay with the iPod brand.