Creative Zen 16 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
by Creative
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List Price: Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Creative Zen 16 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
Customer Review: A Wonderful Invention & Worthy Investment
Summary: 5 Stars
You can check out my other reviews to find out how much a sucker I am for a good MP3 player. As I travel extensively, it's extremely important to me to have a top-of-the-line player (and I'm not necessarily a fan or critic of the iPod, I just haven't taken a great liking to one yet), and the Creative line has had far more hits than they have misses. While I've had mixed results with the Creative Vision W (most of them software glitches than seemed unending), I've had nothing but solid performance out of this next incarnation of the Zen player.
While I'd definitely love this player to be available with 30GB of memory (mostly for the portability of videos), I really can't complain about the offer of 16GB. I do keep my player nearly at capacity most of the time, and, once this little treat gets to under 1GB of available memory, I do experience some similar glitches that I've had with the previous Zen and (moreso) with the Vision W: namely, it either locks up or shuts down completely. When I turn it on again, it keeps locking up until I reset the little system (keep a paperclip handy if you're as anal as I am!), but then it works fine.
For the most part, the video quality is excellent for film / TV transfers. Sequences with much action and quick cuts may come through a bit pixelated, but it's not all that bad. It's certainly very 'watchable,' and the portability is terrific. I'm not entirely certain what file transfers the Zen software requires (not much of a software geek myself); I have noticed that the .avi files need to be converted to a format that meets the operating needs of the player. Again, not a big complaint b/c the software is provided by Creative, and, as long as you have about 10 minutes or so, it'll easily convert an hour of video to something 'loadable' by the player.
As for battery time, the package boasts 30+ hrs of available battery life for listening to music and 5+ hrs for video. Not entirely certain how accurate that may be on the video side, but I've noticed that -- after about ten hours of continuous play -- the battery indicator dips halfway ... so I'd honestly be surprised if I could get 30 hrs of uninterrupted battery life.
Otherwise, FM radio presets are great. 32 available slots. More than enough for most local markets. No AM, but what's new? Photos are crisp and clean on the screen. Creative has really done an admirable service by making these portable players available as external drives to tote pics and small data files around as needed. Bravo!
If I could offer any suggestion (and it's honestly a minor one), it would be that the tiny player offer a modest speaker so that headphones wouldn't always be necessary. I'm not certain how complex a speaker could be at that size, but given the fact the most cell phones offer some type of speakerphone I would think that the technology would be available. It wouldn't be the greatest sound in the world, but it would offer something.
While I'll never use this as much as my Creative Vision W, this is one terrific player and a definite investment for MP player freaks like me!
Customer Review: Excellent music media player
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this 16GB media player because it was big enough to hold all of my music, plus leave extra room for videos. It turns out that I don't really use the video playback all that much. If I was commuting on a train or bus, maybe, otherwise I keep a couple of TV shows on it for demo purposes.
Here, I'll list my answers or corrections to what I've read when researching this item.
Power Management is very well thought out. People have said that the backlight doesn't go out, which wastes power. Actually, when you turn the lock switch on, the screen does go completely off after a decent period of time. It will stay on in a very dim backlit mode long enough for you to completely read a scrolling title, but it is smart about conserving battery power.
Additionally, it has a smart power up routine. It seems that when you turn it off, it actually goes to a very low power, sleep mode for a while before going into a complete power off mode. At least this is my observation since you can turn it off in the car, walk into the gym, change and get to the machines before turning it on. When you do switch it on, it immediately starts playing from where you left off in the car. I think this is a very nice touch, especially if you've ever used a player that always takes 10-30 seconds to boot even if you turned it off 1 second ago.
I love the bookmark abilities. It will hold 10 bookmarks and since I play a lot of podcasts and netcasts on it, I love being able to bookmark my spot in a few podcasts and always go back to where I left off. Before this feature, I hated switching from a podcast to music because I'd never find the right spot in the podcast to resume from.
Fast forward and rewind is also very podcast friendly. If you hold the button long enough, it accelerates the fast forward speed so you start skipping minutes instead of seconds going through a long podcast.
Navigation is very easy. It even lets you search for songs by typing in a word in the title.
Sychronization with Windows Media Player is very simple. I even have search playlists in Media Player, and they transfer over well.
The overall design is wonderful to use. The horizontal, landscape type of use makes it easy to use and easy to hold. The screen fits better this way and the size of the unit is perfect. It gives you a huge screen on a device that still fits in an Altoids Tin, which is a great way to get laughs when using it.
IT HAS A STANDARD USB CONNECTOR!!! This one feature made the choice simple for me. I was just about to buy a Sansa since they're a great choice too, but the ability to plug in a standard USB cable at home, at work, and at other houses made the difference! I don't care what other features a company can build into their special connectors, every device should allow me to use any USB cable to charge and browse the device. I buy my cell phones and other devices based on the support of standard USB connectors.
Overall, I strongly reccomend this device.
Customer Review: nice MP3 player, works with Vista, but get the largest size you can afford!
Summary: 4 Stars
I originally ordered the 8 GB, thinking that with the SD expansion slot, it would be sufficient. But I returned it for the 16 GB, because the SD integration is like nonexistant. It's a nice feature and handy for storing data, but I liked the interface on the player so much that I hated to lose it by putting any of my songs, pictures, or videos on the card. Thus, I needed more room on the player.
Like for instance, when you have pics in the main memory, you can see little thumbnails of all of them and when you cursor over one, it gets a little bit bigger. In the SD card, it's just a list. When you watch videos in the main memory, you can pause and navigate away and do something else, and when you come back it's still where you paused it. Not so with the SD card.
So other than that giant caveat, I will say I think this is a great MP3 player. The UI is slick, intuitive, and pleasant to use. I have no trouble with any music files (and I have every format known to man on my computer) or video formats- plays avi without conversation (if it's 320x240- if not, it has to convert to that size). Works perfectly with Amazon Unbox too, and it's even okay with the notoriously annoying and generally sucky WMP 11.
There's a bunch of little details I think are great, like the aforementioned photo interface. Also, when you fast forward in a video, the longer you hold down the arrow forward key, the faster it moves through the video, which is awesome if you're watching a whole movie and want to move forward half an hour or whatever. It's a little thing, but it made me happy.
I know some people can't conceive of watching videos on a player with a 2.5" screen, but I'm cool with it. I've watched several full length movies and TV shows and they look decent for such a diminutive player. It's not the awesomely awesome iPod Touch, but then, it's not $400 either. And it has a radio, and syncs with your Outook calendar, tasks, and contacts, plus there's a voice recorder too. It's a lot for the money, in my opinion.
Appearance wise, it's very cool. Truly the size of a credit card, albeit it a bit thicker of course. Still very thin though! Super lightweight, very nice all around, and the constructions feels reasonably sturdy. I don't love the color choice (by which I mean, you can get it in any color you want as long as it's black), but other than that it's pleasing to my "I love shiny pretty things" side and also to my "I love gadgets" side. Got a case and screen protector for it asap, and I'd recommend anyone else do the same.
I know some people are concerned about it working with Vista. Well, I can't vouch for anyone else, but it works great with my laptop that runs Vista. No problems at all, at least after the first few days of use.
So all in all, 4 stars- it's not perfect, but I'm more than content with the value and the product.
Customer Review: Freezing Issues please read for help
Summary: 3 Stars
As of 12/26/2007
Upgraded Firmware on website.
Upgraded all software on website.
PROS:
Good display - Nicely menus - Conversion software - Cheap - Music Good Quality - Pictures seemed fine.
CONS:
Button on-off seems weak like it will fall off in a few months.
Video Problems - Freezing - Must have everything convert using the software to put into the player's format (wmv) prior to use.
Found the problem for freezing in following.
If you convert any of following formats you could get a freezing issue no matter what you do when using the device so pay attention to what I tried.
How I tested I took a standard FLASH-FLV file which after converted plays fine on every player after converted.
Formats Tried:
AVI - .AVI unknown codec version - worked find perfectly played even a large video converted fine.
Xvid - Mpeg-4 codec - .AVI - seemed unsupported
MOV - Quicktime - Converts and plays fine sometimes player gets out of sync with display but plays everytime.
Iphone - Video Mpeg-4 codec - .MP4 - Converts worked perfectly even syncs voice to video perfectly
WMV V.7 - I tried it worked on it was extremely jerky on video quality looked awful and the SOUND squeaked yes! squeaked!!!
WMV Unknown version Froze hard after about 15 seconds hard lock video.
Solution find formats Mpeg-4(Iphone), MOV over other codec before allowing the zen software to convert.
Believe me, I know what I am talking about.
Strange thing the conversion software converts every video into some WMV codec and yet it can't import WMV without problems every version of WMV codec I tried failed to play correctly after importing.
It also locked up on me after about 10 days of use. I was pushing back and forth between a menu. When it locked up so bad player wouldn't even shut off with buttons, simply pushed a reset button in the pinhole at the bottom got me out of the locked up.
Also other reviews are claiming that the player has a bad SD memory card setup, I however found this not to be the case the only problem I had with SD memory card situation is that when you load the files directly from the card it doesn't convert them to players usable formats.
Also the software that came with the player had a problem judging size of files. I had 6 gigs of music videos and it said the player was full even though after converting my videos down it was less than 300 megs worth of space. I had over 3 gigs left on the player and it said it was full and conversion just ended mid stream. Creative could eventually fix this in a patch since it isn't hardware related.
Customer Review: Nice player
Summary: 4 Stars
I use Windows 2000, and that operating system is not supported whatsoever by this product. You MUST HAVE XP or VISTA to make any practical use of this product! Perhaps there is a statement to this effect somewhere in the product description, but I didn't see it and I was a bit bugged by the revelation. I plan to install a second hard drive in my computer and load XP on it just so I can use my ZEN. I have loaded many MP3s on my ZEN using a friend's computer and this thing works great. The sound is much improved by getting some better earphones for it. I bought some Creative EP-630 earphones and I think these are an excellent choice. Considering that you can spend $300 for earphones if you want to, the EP-630s are an excellent bargain. If you want to get a leather case for your ZEN, be sure to consider the one from PCMICROSTORE. Amazon goofed (I think) by putting this case in the "Apparel" catagory. All of the other ZEN accessories are listed under "electronics" and it took a little effort to find this case/accessory kit. Check out my review of this product if you're interested. I highly recommend it if you're a leather-case person. Getting back to the ZEN, the functionality is virtually identical to an iPod, and there is no difference in the sound quality if you use the same data rate and earphones. That little wheel gadget on the iPod is very nice and is the only reason I can think of to buy one instead of a ZEN. The ZEN will not destroy the files on its host computer like an iPod will if you're not careful. That alone is reason enough to choose just about any mp3 player over an iPod in my opinion, but most people buy whatever their TV tells them to. The ZEN is very flexible in terms of its storage and retrieval options, and I found it very intuitive and easy to use. The display is large and bright enough, and the buttons are spaced conveniently and are large enough for my chubby fingers. One of those wheel things would be a big improvement, but apparently those are proprietary to Apple products. That's too bad. As far as I can tell so far, the ZEN is functionally equivilent to an iPod nano, sounds every bit as good, is considerably less expensive, and is more "open" in terms of available accessories and media compatibility. If you're trying to choose between a ZEN or an iPod, that decision was an easy one for me.
PCMICROSTORE Brand Creative Lab Zen Small Wonder 4gb 8gb 16gb Premium Leather Case Cover with Video Stand and Swivel Belt Clip - Bundle with 12v Rapid Premium Car Charger and Home Travel Wall Charger
Creative EP-630 - Headphones ( in-ear ear-bud ) - black