Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver)
by Creative
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver)
Customer Review: Zen X-Fi Boasts Great Sound And Display For A Great Value
Summary: 5 Stars
The Good:
* Amazing sound quality
* Smooth video playback
* Sharp display
* Navigation Shortcuts
* Upgraded earbuds
The Bad:
* Display is always on
* Tedious network setup
* Wireless stream drains battery quickly
* Windows 7 support limited to Creative Central only
Overall:
Background: I have used the following mp3 players prior to purchasing the Creative Zen X-Fi: Sandisk Sansa M-230, SanDisk Sansa Clip 2 GB MP3 Player (Black), Apple iPod shuffle 1 GB Silver (2nd Generation) OLD MODEL , and SanDisk Sansa Fuze 4 GB Video MP3 Player (Black) (I have used product links for the ones that I have also reviewed).
Setup: Following the quick start guide, I installed the software from the mini-CD which included Creative Central, Creative Zen X-Fi Video Converter, and Audible Manager (for audio books). The installation prompts you to register the software and your player after connecting the player. The screen asked for the serial number but didn't give any instructions where to find it. There are a lot of numbers on the device, and I guessed at one. The screen took it, so I assumed it was correct. However when I went to register for chat service, I found that this number was invalid. Still without guidance, I rotated the package around until I found yet another number with S/N next to it on the side of the packaging. It shouldn't be this hard, but at least you only have to do it once. Finally, I setup wireless networking, and I was glad that this is also something that you only have to do once. I have a 128 WEP encrypted network with a hidden SSID. I had to key in both my SSID and the 26 character hex network key in order to connect. The interface for doing this on the X-Fi is similar to a standard cellphone, and it is brutal. Creative should add network setup as a feature from within Creative Central to give a better user experience.
Music Transfer: After leaving the device to charge, I came back to transfer music using Creative Central. I have used Windows Media Player and iTunes in the past, but this software isn't too hard to learn. The help screen gives instructions for how to transfer music that are easy to follow. I selected music album by album from the artist view and used the "Transfer" menu to queue them up for transfer. I liked that you can add items (at the artist, album, or song level) to a transfer queue rather than having to drag and drop to a sync list. However my favorite feature on this is the ability to rip a CD to your computer and transfer to the X-Fi in one command. The only knock I have on Creative Central is that it will not allow the same song by the same artist to be transferred to the player from multiple CDs. This seems like an odd limitation because it is unreasonable to expect a live version of a song to have a different name. This is a minor nit that can be worked around, but I thought it worth mentioning.
Video Transfer: All of my videos of interest are from Amazon, and I was pleased that I was able to transfer these to my X-Fi using the Amazon Unbox software. Unbox was able to detect the X-Fi, and it was a simple matter of clicking the transfer button after downloading the portable version of the videos to my computer. I don't anticipate making heavy use of this, but it was nice for it to be so easy.
Audiobook Transfer: Audible (the online audio book download site) supports the X-Fi directly from their software. I was able to easily select The Unabridged Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and transfer both part I and II to my X-Fi with no problem.
Music Playback: I am not what anyone would consider an audiophile, but I am flat out impressed with the music playback on the X-Fi. I listened to the demo on Creative's site, and it piqued my interest in trying out this feature. The difference is subtle in some instances, but it is much more obvious in others. A perfect example is on the lead track from Guns 'N Roses Chinese Democracy. I had always thought that this song had a long, dull opening; however, that's because I wasn't hearing all that was there. There is a Chinese dialog that I had never heard before. Chinese Democracy is a great album for demonstrating the difference that X-Fi makes because there is a lot of variety in instrumentation.
Video Playback: Video playback is very good. I watched the pilot episode of Community that I got from Amazon's video on demand service. The video transferred over from Unbox was not exactly the right size for the X-Fi screen, and it was like watching a letterbox version of a movie on an old narrow screen TV. This probably took 10-15% of the real estate, but I was able to see the picture well enough. I consider video transfer a nice to have, and I do not expect to make heavy use of this. One final thing of note is that the videos from Amazon cannot be processed by Creative Central or Creative Zen X-Fi Video Converter due to copy protection.
Navigation: One of the features that I really like on my Sansa Fuze was the navigation wheel, and I wondered what it would be like switching to the X-Fi that is button based. It would have been awful with 16 Gb of media, but Creative added a nice feature for navigation. If you press the left button, it takes you over to the alphabet, and you can skip to the beginning of each letter within the artist, album, or other menu.
In the Music menu, I like the "DJ" feature. It has an "Album of the Day" option that will choose something from your collection to play. I use this from time to time if I don't have something specific in mind when I turn the player on. There are some additional features of the "DJ", but you need to build up a usage pattern for them to be meaningful.
Wireless Functionality: I enabled the Creative Media Server on my computer. I used this to stream a CD that was on my computer that I had not transferred to my X-Fi. While sound quality was good, this was (as you might expect) quite a drain on the battery. A 35 minute album took about one third of the battery level.
As for the chat functionality, I cannot imagine anyone making use of this. As mentioned in the setup, the interface for entering text is like a cellphone, but there is no T-9 or Word option for easing data entry. Sending more than one or two words would make me pull my hair out.
Conclusion: The Creative Zen X-Fi is a feature packed mp3 player with great sound quality and a great display. It is easy to setup and use. You may wonder why you should choose this player over the non-wireless 8 Gb player. Here are the keys that set this apart for the price difference: an additional 8 Gb of storage and upgraded earbuds. If you consider the earbuds alone, their price is greater than the price difference in the 8 Gb player and the 16 Gb. If you have any questions that I have not addressed, please feel free to ask in the comments section below.
Customer Review: A worthy alternative.
Summary: 4 Stars
I've owned some of the best there is: Zune HD 16 GB Video MP3 Player (Black), Apple iPod touch 8 GB (3rd Generation) NEWEST MODEL, and now this one. I can safely say that one is really not "better" than the other - it's all a matter of what you intend to do with the device. When you boil it down to its core, you need to find out exactly what you want - and then get that device, even if it's not necessarily the most 'popular' of them all.
I'd been using my Blackberry Storm as a media player. For the record I only needed such a device to funnel audio out to my car as my current car does not have iPod or other inputs, nor does it have USB or flash inputs. That only leaves me with Line In - opens up the possibilities, limits the coolness. I don't watch videos on the go except on my netbook, so I don't need a small video player. I don't use it as a picture device; the Storm can handle that. Same for a voice recorder. I only need it for music. The problem with the iPod Touch is that it's essentially a toy: a device that you can play with all day and lets you do whatever you want without having to carry multiple devices; yet it doesn't really do any one thing all that well. The Zune HD is a music and video player, and it excels in music management, but it suffers from (A) a price that's a bit iffy for the size, and (B) proprietary connectors and software that are turnoffs for someone on the move like myself, not to mention (C) issues with Wi-Fi that I've spoken to in my other review.
Enter the Creative Zen X-Fi. On Black Friday I decided to buy a media player, and it was going to be one of the aforementioned three. I settled on the X-Fi because it seemed to offer everything I needed: A way to get a bunch of music portable and accessible with a reasonable price point, in an attractive form factor. It's already more than proven it's up to the task, being able to continuously play music on a 10 hour drive and still have more than 3/4ths power remaining. The audio quality is comparable to what I would get playing the music from an MP3 CD, which is about what I expected to get. It also has a built-in speaker, and others have commented that the speaker quality sucks. I don't agree. If X-Fi is on, the speaker sounds quite robust to be so small (which makes you wonder why they can't use the same technology in cell phone speakers). It's not going to rock a party, but it's more than sufficient to have sitting by your desk to play some music without earphones. I did have some issues which I will speak to, but for now I'm satisfied with the device on the whole. I find it to be worth the price I paid.
=- What the Zen X-Fi Does RIGHT -=
- Small form factor, easy to carry, easy to obscure
- Attractive design
- Most attractive packaging I've ever seen
- Uses standard mini USB to communicate, sync and charge
- Support for connecting to media servers wirelessly
- Mass Storage and software sync support - you can drag and drop files or use WMP, WMC, TVersity, etc. to sync your files
- Native support in Windows 7; it will show up in Devices and Printers as a Zen X-Fi, no external driver needed, with full connectivity
- Audio quality is quite superior to the iPod Touch in my opinion. Zune HD is higher on the scale, but does not have the external speaker
- Lots of memory AND an SD card slot to go even higher
=- What the Zen X-Fi Does WRONG -=
- The included earbuds look fantastic but sound horrific. I mean, they sound worse than the built-in speaker. That's sad.
- No apparent support for shuffle play within a genre. For example, if I select a genre, it won't allow me to play songs in random order, only alphabetically.
- No backlight. The front interface seems to scream for it, yet it is not here.
- Button placement is rather haphazard. Play/Pause is on the bottom right - no problems there, but then navigation buttons are an odd array of 9 metal buttons with no markings to tell you what they do or how to use them. When you navigate you're using the center crosshair buttons, and if you're in the dark, you have to "feel" it out. Very annoying. Also, when trying to type something in, you have to use these same navigation buttons, and instead of a cellphone-like manner, they're...I can't describe it. Trust me that it's uncomfortable.
- Navigation buttons are a tad bit hard to press. I don't know why they didn't make them clear acrylic like the other four music buttons.
- Album art won't show up unless you sync with software (i.e. you can't drag and drop). This is a bit troubling, since the artist/song information doesn't change either way. That the device is not smart enough to go get it at the time you drag and drop it, seems like a very small thing that was overlooked. For the record, I drag and drop because it's faster than sync, plus I'm not then held hostage to that software if I need to make changes to my musical makeup.
- Videos require sync (you can use Windows 7, doesn't have to be Creative's software, but still), even though their native formats (WMV, MP4, MPG) are supported by the device. Why can't I just drag and drop them?? The sync takes 5 times as long to complete! I mean I love that it's got so many formats it supports and all, but it really should support drag and drop all the way around. Seriously. I don't even use the feature and this is the primary reason why - too much hassle.
- No included wall charger. At all. You have to charge on a computer or buy a charger. I *think* a mini USB charger like the one for the BlackBerry Pearl might work, but I've never tried it.
So...do I recommend it? At its current price it is definitely a solid product...but it does have issues. For someone who only needs to be able to play music it's light years ahead of the competition. IF you're the kind of person who is a 24-hour device head, get the iPod Touch. If you're the kind of person who wants to sync his media with his computer and his 360, get the Zune HD. The Creative Zen X-Fi is a 5 star music player, a 4 star device, and that's what this review is trying to tell you.
Customer Review: Design flaws and terrible support
Summary: 3 Stars
A few updates almost 1 year later (11/09):
One of the buttons on the player simply stopped working making turning the volume up impossible. Fortunately, I was (barely) under warranty and after shipping off my defective player and waiting several weeks, I was sent what I presume is a new player. A week later, the left speaker on my headphones stopped working. I am waiting for instructions on replacing this item.
These 2 problems point out some fundamental design issues with the device, I believe. I fully expect the buttons on the new unit to have the same problem -- they are just flimsy. Note, I take very good care of the player and don't use it for anything much more strenuous than a long dog walk.
I have also started using the player to listen to podcasts and to my huge disappointment, battery life plummets to just over 3 hours at mid volume when listening to them. I'm not sure if it's the screen that can't be turned off when listening to "zencasts" or the way the podcasts are encoded, but 3 hours is hideously bad performance.
All of my frustrations with customer support are exactly the same 1 year later.
Now that apple has introduced an FM tuner on the nano, my next player will definitely be an ipod. My wife got her Ipod classic a year before my Zen and she has had zero problems.
[Original review]
Overall I've been fairly pleased with the player after a couple weeks of use. That said, I'm pleased mainly because my goal was to put a collection of music on the player once, update it sporadically and use the FM tuner to keep abreast of the day's news. Anyone looking for a sophisticated experience should look on. Some specifics:
+: Player interface intuitive enough to figure out, great screen, FM tuner is decent (reception not quite as good as I thought given others' comments), great storage bang for the buck, small size makes it easy to take around, the external speaker is very useful if you have media you need to share with others.
-:
o Customer service needs an overhaul. I could not get the player to dock on my main computer (still can't) and both the phone support and email support was a joke. Everyone is clearly in Asia (which I have *no* issue with if they actually understand enough to be helpful, but they don't) and they have all been trained to do little more than read from a script. None of their suggestions ran any deeper than what was already on their "support" pages. There is no way to escalate a problem. Problems are not followed up by the same person, so each time you call/email, a different person gives a non-answer. If I wasn't determined to make this player work (I salvaged an old laptop and jumped through many hoops), I would have given up. I'm a trained software engineer who has run large support organizations and if I ran teams like Creative ran theirs, I would have been fired.
o There are some pretty significant firmware issues that numerous people have pointed out in the forums, but there is no indication from Creative if/when they will be fixed. The biggest issue IMO is battery life. The claims on the website are not realistic at all, but I imagine they would be a lot closer if the screen turned off when you didn't press a button for some period of time. Instead, the only way to make the screen black is to lock the player. This is not terribly practical because every time you want to adjust volume, change stations, etc, you have to unlock, make your adjustments and relock. Even my 5 year old Palm Pilot handles this job better.
o The software on the PC side is weak. Creative Centrale (the main tool to manage your player) crashes constantly (bugs too numerous to enumerate), doesn't integrate with other tools nicely (you have to use a different program to put podcasts on your player, for instance) and simply doesn't have either the elegance of things like Itunes nor the features.
o As others have pointed out, the wireless features are just a toy. I went through the hassle of setting up texting, but the interface is so clumsy, I can't imagine using it. And while I bought it knowing the limitations, the features I think might be useful (e.g. transfer music/podacsts to your player via wireless) are not supported.
Customer Review: Promises A Lot But Delivers Disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
I used to have a couple of creative MUVO players from years ago. They were great and worked extremely well as USB drive/MP3 Players. One of them was even accidentally washed in the laundry but still worked perfectly fine years after that.
Unfortunately for this unit, I'm not nearly as impressed. It promises a lot and sounds incredibly cool, but there are too many points where it fails to deliver.
I've used a Sony Walkman 8GB player for a couple of years and it has been fantastic. I was looking to buy the new model but it starts at $300 and stil won't come out for another couple of months. I've never been much of an IPod fan, however, I bought one after this unit failed me and I've been extremely happy with the IPod and IPod software.
So anyway, I'm no stranger to MP3 players. I'll try to draw comparisons for you where I can.
1. The unit would crash and need to be reset. This is the BIGGEST problem because if it's not 100% stable, it's worthless.
2. The software does not function well and lacks a lot of necessary features. The first problem I ran into was trying to put songs into albums. This was much easier and more flexible with the IPod software. It lets you add source folders, but it will not see the contents. For some reason, it can see a few songs or maybe 1 or 2 albums, but just can't seem to see the other 10gb of stuff in that folder.
The software is a real hassle. It doesn't work properly, hard to manage and impossible to organize in some key ways, and lacks some basic necessary features.
3. The sound is not bad but not crystal clear. I would prefer a better equalizer than the Xi-Fi feature. I don't know if it uses more battery power for sound enhancement but it seemed to zap some of the battery life when I left it on.
Basically all it does is increase the presence and bass. The equalizer can be customized which is something my IPod doesn't allow. However, the EQ is hard to dial in. They should have simply added a slider for the presence.
The headphones seem to be pretty good and stick in your ears very well, unlike the headphones that came equipped with my IPod. Unfortunately, they pretty much block out all sound so if you're jogging and a car is honking at you, you're pretty much mashed potatoes.
Sound quality is extremely important in an audio device like this, so I would say it's a pretty big deal.
4. One of the coolest things about my Sony Walkman is that I could directly copy folders to my device, then I could browse those folders from the device. That was extremely cool and much easier than fooling with playlists, albums, etc...
You can copy folders to the Zen Xi-Fi, however, you cannot browse them from the device. In fact, it either sticks them in messed up "unknown" albums or ignores them all together. Worthless feature.
5. You cannot really create a playlist from the device. You can create "On The Go" playlists on an IPod, but on this device you cannot. It lets you create a playlist on the fly, but adds all the songs from an album.
6. I didn't have a chance to really play with the wireless feature much because the unit crashed so often and I sent it back after just a few days. What I did get to use of it was rather disappointing. It's really not nearly as cool as they make it sound.
7. The little buttons are annoying, and for the most part, only 5 of the 9 even serve any function. I would prefer the old Zen style navigation pad.
8. You can assign shortcuts, however, it's useless for what it does.
There are a few other things that vexed me about this product. It was a huge let down because I was always fond of Creative Labs products and expected at least a stable, flexible device.
I've got a bad taste in my mouth now and probably won't bother trying them out later when they've worked out some of the bugs - if they ever care to get around to it.
For all the cool things this the Zen Xi-Fi potentially could be, at the price point it's offered, it's just a huge disappointment.
There is a LOT of potential in this device, but potential is worthless if the company doesn't make it a priority to tap that potential. So far, Creative doesn't seem to be responding or offering any upgrades to the software or device to fix the problems.
Customer Review: Great MP3 player with some flaws.
Summary: 4 Stars
Appearance:
Sleek and simple. The front is a very nice black consumed mostly by a gorgeous screen. Too bad the back and edges are a plastic that scratches very easily. The player is very light and fits nicely in the hand.
Audio:
Simply put, this is the best sounding MP3 player I have used (compared to Ipod, Insignia, Zen: M, and even Sony players). The superior quality audio is what makes this MP3 player my favorite on the market.
X-Fi:
This player has two X-Fi sound enhancement features crystallization (which is meant to enhance music to match CD quality) and expand (which is meant to create a surround sound effect when using headphones).
I personally felt that the crystallization feature did an excellent job at bringing out the instrumentals in my music without taking away from the lead vocals. However, the biggest improvements are noticeable on tracks with low bit rates (most of my music is 64kbs WMA). On tracks with higher bit rates (128kbs WMA / 256 kbs MP3 and up) there is a minimal improvement at best from the crystallization feature.
The expand feature works by increasing volume in one ear while decreasing volume in the other (for example - I`m making up these percentages - if drums are supposed to be at 100% volume in the left ear and 0% volume in the right ear, this feature will adjust the drums to 90% volume in the left ear and 25% volume in the right ear). I feel that the expand distorts the audio.
Thus, I would recommend keeping the expand feature off, and the crystallization feature on and even at max if used with tracks at low bit rates.
Nonetheless, I feel that the quality of sound on this MP3 player is unbeatable with or without the X-fi feature turned on.
Video:
The 2.5" screen is bright and the colors are brilliant, making this seemingly a perfect video player. However, with the Zen X-fi it is not as simple as it was with the Zen Vision: M. Almost all DIVX, XVID, and WMV files that are supposedly supported by this player would experience errors after transferring. Videos would simply not play at all, play with audio and video out of sync, or - really weird - play perfectly until interrupted to fast forward, rewind, or pause, then the audio would start over from the beginning while the video play from the appropriate place or vice versa.
As of the October firmware update, my issues have not been fixed. In fact, files that would once play audio and video out of sync are now experiencing the really weird error I mentioned.
Fortunately this video issue is generally overcome-able. I found the best thing to do is to convert all videos using Windows Media Player first (which will convert to the most compatible format and then transfer to the Zen X-fi). Unfortunately, this process is long, and although it does generate a file that provides smooth playback for most videos, it is unsuccessful for maybe 15% videos (same errors mentioned above).
The earphones:
The included earphones sound really great, noticeably better then my Sony MDR-EX51LP fonotopia earphones. However, they have a big flaw in terms of durability associated with the flexibility of the wire immediately following the 3.5mm plug (I am already on my second pair). I WOULD SERIOUSLY RECOMMEND wrapping electrical tape around about an inch of the cord starting immediately after the 3.5mm plug, to prevent any problems.
Extras:
The good: FM radio with 32 presets with decent reception, useful microphone despite not-so-good recording quality, surprisingly loud and decent sounding speaker (which I have used a lot more then I ever expected to).
The bad: The wi-fi is battery consuming and has very few features. Files on SD memory cards are in separate folders from those on the players memory.
Summary:
The Zen X-fi is a good looking, incredible sounding MP3 player. Despite a few notable flaws, I would highly recommend it.