Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

whats the difference?

Oct 27, 2005 12:54PM PDT

im thinking about buying an mp3 player, but im pretty clueless when it comes to whats good and whats not, so i was wondering if anyone could help me. im considering buying an apple ipod, but i heard that you have to run all your songs through the itunes software in order to load it on the ipod. is that true? and if it is, does the itunes software accept all the kinds of music files?

i was also considering buying a zen neeon mp3 player. does anyone know if it requires software like the ipod? and is it compatible with itunes?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
you have to, so use a zen product.
Oct 27, 2005 3:57PM PDT

zen products use windows media player instead of itunes. They also almost always have more features. A real quality zen product thatt is (in my opinion) better than the neeon would be the zen micro and the zen micro photo. you can see them at creative.com and right here on cnet. if you need any more help, please ask.

- Collapse -
Great choice.
Oct 28, 2005 6:52PM PDT

Please go for an mp3 player which has compatablilty of all the formats like mp3,wma, etc..

- Collapse -
Answers
Oct 29, 2005 5:35PM PDT

iPod uses ACC Or AAC I cant remember which abbreviation it is right now instead of WMA, for its player. It comes with a special program you ABSOLUTELY have to download in order to put songs on your iPod. Yes you have to run all your songs through iTunes but when you download iTunes it automatically puts all the music on your computer in it and sets itself as your default player, and every song you put on your comp. after that automatically goes to iTunes. iTunes IS NOT compatible with the Zen Neeon, in order to use any ZEN product you ABSOLUTELY have to download Windows Media Player 10 because that is what it uses. Keep in mind though that these players (itunes & windows media player) automatically converts and puts all files in their correct format when you put it on your computer so you dont do anything manually really! In other words yes they accept all kinds of music files (mp3, AIFF, WMA, WAV, etc.) it just converts them to its players default files! Hope this helps!