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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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Creative Zen 16 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
Customer Review: Creative Zen
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased the Zen 16GB player to replace my hard-drive based Cowon iAudio (30GB). The iAudio has great sound and a decent video screen, but twice in 2 years the headphone jack became disconnected from the circuit board, so instead of spending another $75 for repairs it was time to replace.
LOOKS: The Zen is tiny! Easily a smaller footprint than a credit card, but thicker - as you would expect of something with electronics and a battery. The screen takes up the bulk the the face, there is only room for the buttons on the right edge. The finish is a very nice, shiny black plastic that has a nice feel to it.
PERFORMANCE: You need to load the software that comes with the Zen to manage transfers from the desktop to the Zen. I prefer to drag-and-drop files, but the Zen was not recognized without the software. Transfers seemed slower than with my iAudio, but acceptable. Once on the Zen, data cannot be accessed as if using the desktop file explorer. It is very itunes-like - choose by album, artist, play list, etc. My work-around was to make all my non-album collections into Zen play lists via the Creative software on the desktop. Battery life is good, I haven't run any stress-test to determine range, but so far so good.
The sound is good, with a number of preset equalizer settings as well as a customizable one and bass boost. The volume has a range higher than I'll ever need, and is easily controlled by the 4 way buttons on the face. Video is created by running the Creative converter and runs smoothly on the vibrant screen.
SUMMARY: This is a nice little mp3/video player at a good price. I've enjoyed it for the month I've had it. Immediately buy a screen protector and a case to protect the gloss finish of the Zen. I got a 3rd party silicone case with a belt clip and it does the job nicely.
Customer Review: The Zen is a solid piece of gear.
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm really happy with the purchase of my Zen. It's the third Creative product I've bought and I'm glad to have stuck with the company. I find the buttons on it to be easy to find and I like how the performs much better than any other device with touch sensitive controls. Although touch sensitive controls are much slicker, I find myself annoyed by the sudden increases in volume or some other button fiasco while trying to reach into your pocket maneuvering past your phone, keys, etc... I've had the unit lock up on me a couple of times but once the reset button was used it came right back to life. I'm not sure what the cause was, no I have not installed any firmware updates. The audio on the unit is great. I use it both with a pair of Ultimate Ears noise isolating buds and a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort II head phones. The quality from both is exceptional.
The screen for the unit is very bright and the colors are fantastic. I have not yet watched any videos and will have to do some experimenting this week. Pictures look great on it tho. The one draw back that I'd like mention is in relation to the SD expansion capability. It's very convenient and reliable. But the unit does not allow you to move files from the internal HDD and the removable media. A minor minus in a gadget that is over all great!! I'm glad I bought it. The Zen looks great and is definitely very slick, with or with out a skin. I do have a skin on it just to ensure anything co-located with it in my pocket doesn't damage it's finish. So far so good. If your doing research on the unit and not some folks are peeved a little with the fact that there is no hole in the silicone skins to access the reset button, I didn't find it to be a big deal. The skin flips off and back on with minimal drama. Just make sure you have a tiny safety pin stashed somewhere to reset the unit.
Customer Review: Not the greatest...
Summary: 3 Stars
I just bought my Creative Zen about a month ago, and it's not a bad mp3 player. Nice size, attractive design, good font choice, plays well, good battery life, etc. Decent player.
One of the major flaws of the Zen is that it organizes everything by how your songs are tagged. I would prefer if it went by the file name itself, since that's how I have my music organized on my computer (I consistently name my files as "Artist - Track", but I've never paid much attention to how the files are tagged). It's not a huge deal though; as long as I can find the song I'm looking for, that's good enough.
However, it's NOT okay that I'm only able to shuffle my music within an album, not within an artist. For example, say I'm in the mood to listen to only Ben Folds. You would think that the Zen would allow you to shuffle all the songs where the artist is tagged as Ben Folds, right? It doesn't work like that though. If I want to listen to Ben Folds, I have to choose whether I want to shuffle within Whatever and Ever Amen, or within Songs For Silverman, etc. It's not going to let me hear "Trusted" followed by "Selfless, Cold, and Composed" because those two songs are from different albums. That's unacceptable to me. The only solution I can come up with is to re-tag all my music so that every file's album name is tagged as "Album". That way, all the tracks for an artist would be listed under the same album name, thus allowing me to shuffle within a specific artist. What a colossal waste of time that would be though, considering the size of my music library.
I think it's pretty common for people to want to shuffle their music within a certain artist every once in a while. The fact that the Zen can't do this is a major drawback, and I'm regretting having bought this player for that reason alone.
Customer Review: If you buy it you will have to deal with...
Summary: 3 Stars
FIRST. The battery is the worst. Don't expect much from the battery. It last for me 1 or 2 days on my way to and back from school. It can be half when you turn it off and you turn it on the next day and it wont turn on because the battery is death. You need to constantly charge it because if you forget trust me you wont have battery the next day. I think my old played was way much better on that part. Because of this the clock will never be right and I am tired of changing the time every the time. The battery wont last for a long trip.
SECOND. The videos are very fast to transfer. But before the transfer occurs you have to convert the video to a different format and it takes FOREVERRRRRRRR to convert. Pictures and music are relatively fast. Videos are not excellent. The quality is good but the sound gets disturbed few times on different videos at the exact second of the video every the time you play it. Not on all videos but some and I don't want to re transfer it again after waiting so long for the format conversion. ANNOYING...
THIRD. The screen scratches so easily.
FORTH. The headphones it comes with are the worst and so big that hurts your ear.
FIFTH. Expensive. I made a comparison between this and the Ipod Touch and found that the Ipod touch is so much cheaper for what it can do. The Zen is relatively expensive compared to other players.
SIX. It Freezes sometimes, not to much but it happens and you have to reset it and find a paper clip to push the button. If you cant find one then wait until you get one and by the way, once it freezes you can not turn it off so the weak battery will die.
Besides my six complaints is a good player. the battery is the worst trust me I have to say it again.
Customer Review: Great Decision
Summary: 5 Stars
I needed a new MP3 player to replace my stolen iPod. I didn't want another iPod, as I hate trying to deal with the scroll wheel while driving, and it sucked trying to make it work with Linux. The Creative Zen is much more driving friendly, especially protected by the silicon case and screen protector. Transferring music isn't quite as easy as advertised for Linux. The proprietary Microsoft MTP (Music Transfer Protocol) is required to be used to transfer music. There are workarounds for Linux, like mounting hacks or using Gnomad2, but the advertised "Drag and Drop- like a USB drive" isn't quite correct. It is drag and drop, once you get around MTP- something that happens in Windows automatically. Also, the Zen doesn't do a very good job of recognizing music files placed on it without it's software. You can get them on there, but some/most aren't recognized (for me, no AAC recognition) and none of the album art is seen. However, it does work fine if you use the Creative software. Maybe it was just the way I did it, but I ended up having to boot into Windows to get all my music on there (now that I think about it, Gnomad2 might work better, but I gave up before then. It has a crappy interface).
All in all, it is a very good player. I am extremely happy with my purchase, especially now that I got all my music on there. I focused solely on problems I had, and everything else imagionable about this player is positive. Music playback is great, I like the interface, the controls are very well thought out, the "Album of the Day" button is the best idea I've ever seen on a player, and movie playback is great (once movies are converted into the correct format- which you will have to do and requires Creative's software to do it). I would definitely buy again.