Hey,

I've always been intrigued by the iPod but stayed away due to Sony's minidisc and the irreplaceable (allegedly) battery in the Pod, but now I've grown extremely wearisome of Sony's pathetic software, its conversion method, and just plain tired of 120mb of music on each disc. Also, upon hearing that the iPod's battery can in fact be replaced, I am practically sold. Creative's tech support told me that the Zen's battery is actually built right into the unit and can only be replaced by qualified technicians; this, added to the fact that it's a bigger unit and generally not as slick as the iPod, has eliminated it from the equation.

Canadian MSRP for the 10Gb model is only $459, which is very reasonable and I am all set to buy one. I have one question, though: can the iPod be used as a hard drive to back up other data, and does Windows XP recognize it as a USB device without the need to install any software? Is the interface drag and drop? This is very important to me and is the main reason why I am doing away with minidiscs. Lastly, are the earphones any good, or do I have to replace them? I am not really an audiophile but do enjoy solid bass and notice a qualitative difference between MP3s encoded at 128kbps and 256.

Thanks :cool: