Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver)
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 X-Fi 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver)
Customer Review: The Creative Zen X-Fi will give the Nano a Run For Its Money.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Creative Zen X-Fi, what an amazing little player. The Zen X-Fi has nice features such as FM radio, voice recording, SD card expandability, an external speaker, and premium earphones. The X-Fi also has wireless chat, but this needs to be improved with future updates as it is clumsy and not very intuitive. The interface itself is VERY intuitive. You can pick up the player and pretty much know how to use it!
Sound quality wise, the X-Fi sounds GREAT. And this is just with the earphones, not with the X-Fi feature turned on. In fact, I felt that the X-Fi actually muffled the sound a bit--it did not improve sound quality in my opinion. The $60 noise-isolating EP-830 earphones are sufficient for one of the best sounding MP3 players out of the box, way better audio quality than a typical iPod's.
Design wise, I thought this was a nice little improvement over last year's original Creative Zen. Creative Labs made the player less toy-like with the metallic paint on the back and the "chrome" surrounding the player. The only thing that bothered me was the nine main buttons--you only need four of them to navigate the player! The corner buttons are only there to help you move diagonally when you are typing using the chat function or for quicker scrolling down your music library. The player is about 1 mm thicker than the original Zen, which had the thickness of a CD case. Still pretty thin and light, though.
The screen itself is the most impressive thing on the player. IT HAS 16.7 MILLION COLORS! The Nano, for comparison, has 262,000. Pictures come out clean and crisp. Videos are bright and colorful.
So how do you get everything into the player? Keep in mind that the software that comes with this player is OPTIONAL. For music and pictures, you can just drag and drop files into the player. I use Windows Media Player 11, and it gives me no troubles. For video, you will probably need to download Creative's Video Converter, which will convert pretty much any video file into a MP4 file that is compatible with the player. I converted a few videos, and I liked how the videos had decent quality and only used up a little space. One 20 minute episode took around a few hundred megabytes.
Now for the cons. First off, as with the previous Zen, the new X-Fi still does not have SD card integration. This means that if you were to purchase, say, an 8GB SD card (which I did,) you would only be able to access the files you put into the memory stick from a specified "Memory Card" section--it does not integrate into your player's pre-existing library. But I guess that if you aren't big on expanding memory, then this should not be a problem. Another drawback is the online chat function. I have not yet tried this out extensively, but chatting seems rather clumsy. The keypad is arranged similarly to a phone's, but instead of designating each of the NINE buttons to three or four letters, the buttons act as a directional pad for you to navigate across and diagonally along the keypad on the screen.
So to sum it up, despite some minor setbacks, the X-Fi's great price, awesome design, and plethora of extra features sealed the deal for me. In this day and age, the iPod has a lot more legit competitors who seem to improve every year. Creative Labs has come a long way with their MP3 players, and I feel that this one is a true alternative that will do its job and save you money. Hope this review helped! If you need to see some specs or technical stuff about the player, check out Creative Lab's website for more info!
UPDATE: I transferred some videos into my 8gb SD card (simple drag and drop,) and I have to say that playing files from the "Memory Card" section exceeded my initial expectations. Contrary to what some people have said about video playback, you CAN pause, fast forward, and rewind the videos in the SD card. I recommend purchasing an SD card primarily as extra memory for all your videos. My 16gb X-Fi now has 24gb of memory, all for about an additional $20!
Customer Review: Great sound, nice upgrade to the Creative Zen: bass lovers will love this.
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this because I was jealous of my wife's Creative Zen 8 GB player.
But really, I bought this because of the promised X-Fi sound quality. I have an X-Fi audio card for my desktop PC and I really love the enhanced MP3 sound quality and was hoping for more of the same in a portable unit. The Creative Zen X-Fi does not disappoint, straight out of the box I found the sound to be full of the bass tones I love so much. The X-Fi settings add some nice quality to my tones and vibrate my little eardrums with heavy beats. With the included headphones the bass was almost overwhelming for me, but with my Bose Triport IE's I found the sound to be very satisfying.
So lets get down to brass tacks here. So far here's what I love:
*) The new iPhoney sleek look is very nice, an improvement I think.
*) The buttons have a nice tactile feel. With very little practice I can easily find the play button and volume adjustment without looking. Visually its a little harder to figure out which button is where.
*) Even better, the buttons never get pressed unintentionally. This is a big plus since I use it for working out and yard work where I'm often bending over; my clix was constantly getting paused or fast forwarded unintentionally which has been a constant source of annoyance!
*) I found it virtually effortless to hook this up to my PC, connect to my existing MediaMonkey library and download all of my songs and playlists.
*) Great sound for bass lovers. X-fi crystallizer makes for a crisper quality if thats what you like.
*) Wi-fi connection, hooked up to my network easily and I was browsing the Creative Media Center in minutes.
*) Very lightweight compared to most of my other players.
*) User Interface: If you are familiar with Creative players then you will find the buttons easy to understand and use. I find the basic menu system easy to understand and navigate. Lots of nice background images to choose from.
*) Easy firmware update, I downloaded the latest firmware from Creative website and easily installed it.
*) Decent headphones included -- possibly the best I've ever seen packaged with an MP3 player.
*) Lightweight, easy to carry, seems to be pretty rugged construction, fits nicely in a pocket.
*) Nice battery life: compared to my Clix 2 (4 ish hours) or my iPod Touch (about same!) this thing lasts forever at about 10ish hours.
*) Big bold colorful screen, which I find easy to read even in daylight.
*) I love the way it pops right back to where I left off even after a power off, it comes right back to the Now Playing screen and resumes my playlist. Most of my other players don't do this very well so its a plus when it works the way I think it should.
And the things that are not so great:
*) Well, as is the "case" with many non-Apple players, accessories are not easy to come by. This seems to be a bit thicker than its predecessor so I don't think the old Zen cases are going to fit very well. Also, the power button has been moved to the back of the player which will mean you need a special case to be able to access the power button. As of this writing, I can't find a single X-Fi leather case out there, not even from Creative. -- Update: I just ordered a leather case direct from Creative, hoping its a good one! Update: Found an i-nique case which is very nice, with the only problem being hard to access that power button on the back... still waiting for the perfect case!
Thats about it, I highly recommend this player as a heck of a lot of MP3 player for the price (I paid more for my 8GB Clix 2 and a lot more for my 16B Touch!). In many ways I like it better than the Clix 2 although the Clix does have the crispest sound I've ever heard from a player. The Touch of course is a wonderful unit but it is bigger, heavier and more expensive.
Customer Review: A great player with a few problems.
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this player as an early Christmas gift a few months ago and I love it. I wanted to get something other than an iPod, and this is a great player, despite a few problems.
The sound on the player is great. The sound quality is much better than an iPod's. The X-fi part of the player is a nice bonus. Some people say that it makes the music sound worse, but with the proper firmware upgrades it makes the music sound better. The crystalizer makes the music crisper and sounds great, while the expand function seems to dull the sound a bit. The volume can go up high; at volume level 5/25 it is plenty loud enough with most headphones.
I like the controls on the player also. There are 13 buttons, but I have no difficulty navigating menus at all. There is a play/pause, back button, contextual menu (like the right-click function on a computer mouse), and a shortcut button which will take you to any screen you assign it to, such as the "now playing" screen I use for mine. The nine navigation buttons in the center are easy to use. The center button is the enter key, and you have left, right, up, and down to go through the menus. The left corner keys are used to go to the very top or bottom of a list, and the right side ones allow you to scroll through a list by letter. The extra buttons actually make it easier to do what you want to do and I don't find at difficult at all to navigate any menus; I actually find almost as easy as an iPod to use.
The video quality on the player is very good. The only problem is that you have to convert videos into THE supported format used by the player using the included software, and this is irritating. The software only converts certain video file types, but common ones all work, and the videos can be in any resolution. On the player the only complaint I have about the video is that you cannot easily seek to any point you want in the video; you can do it but it's painfully slow. This seeking problem also is a problem when playing audio files. A 1 and 1/2 hour movie will be about 500 MB which is pretty reasonable.
As for some of the other features:
Online features are incredibly slow and are mainly a gimmick.
The FM radio is a great feature but signal strength could be better.
An SD card slot allows you to expand memory but is not integrated, so you can't copy files from the card to the player.
Menus on the player are customizable, and you can make wallpapers using photos you have. Screen brightness can be changed and at 10% I'm able to get around 12 hours of music out of the battery (with the X-fi on). The only way to turn the screen off is to put the player on hold, which is annoying. The X-fi and equalizer drain the battery fast but are worth it.
Bundled headphones are of very good quality ($50 value)
Creative Central is a horrible piece of software. Use Media Monkey instead to transfer your files. Dragging and dropping also works.
Many people have complained that the player crashes a lot. Mine has only done so once, and that was because I unplugged it while it was syncing files. Make sure you have the latest firmware updates.
The player accepts common audio formats such as MP3, WMA, and AAC. Only the MP3s can be in VBR and the AACs must be unprotected. Your iTunes purchases won't work on the player unless they are the "Plus" versions.
The screen is fragile so buy a case for the player. I recommend a leather case from Loreve.
In general a great player. The sound is superior to an iPod's and the player is packed with extras which make it well worth the money. But the bad software makes syncing files a challenge, and the interface is not as user-friendly as an iPod. In any case I like the player much better than my old Nano.
Customer Review: Solid audio/video player with minor details to fix
Summary: 5 Stars
Pros:
- Ideal screen size and colors
- Speaker
- FM Radio
- Microphone (recorder)
- SD Slot (up to 16 GB SDHC card)
- WiFi for MSN/Yahoo Chat and Media content
- X-Fi: Enhance low quality music
- High quality in-ear earphones
- Great value for the Price!
Cons:
- No button backlight
- Fingerprint magnet screen
- Creative Centrale. Not a great software for video (AllToAVI is a good free alternative)
- No wall adapter included
- No pouch (or skin) included
- 2 inches USB cable (useful if you have a laptop)
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I bought the 16GB model from about a month, and this is my experience so far.
Videos: You've to convert them up to 320x240 pixels (MPEG, DivX, XviD or WMV). I use AllToAVI (it's free) to convert the videos (Creative Centrale doesn't work very well).
Music: Low quality music (128 kbps or less) improves a lot with the X-Fi feature, but higher quality songs sounds kinda strident (so you can turn the X-Fi off if that's the case). The speaker and earphones volume is very good.
Earphones: The in-ear earphones have 3 different sizes, I use the smaller ones. Sound nice and don't cause discomfort like normal earphones.
Photos: Work nicely. It could be improved adding more flexible rotation. You can rate photos.
SD Slot: The SD slot is great (although not integrated to the main libary) and you can transfer your JPG photos from your camera to the player for example, if you have to.
WiFi: Chat for MSN/Yahoo. Writing text is kinda slow but not impossible (it should have a feature to add common phrases in order to save time writing). You can use TVersity to stream video (of any size) from your computer or watch live TV (Google it for more info)
Radio: Works well with strong FM radios and with the earphones (antenna) pluged in. You can set names to radio stations.
Voice Recorder: It works well with interviews for example. If you want to record distant sounds, the ambient sounds can interfere.
Battery Life: With music only, the battery last a lot.. I've not measured the time (X-Fi reduces the duration). I've not tested watching a whole movie, but the WiFi (chating) drains the battery some more than watching videos (I noticed that one time I chatted some time with the device).
Is a nice little player in my opinion. Has a lot of features for a great price, music and videos sound and look great. The WiFi could be improved for the chat (a browser could be added but only for WAP in my opinion). The buttons are kinda hard to press but later you can handle it (maybe a problem for thick fingers?). The back of the player is of a kinda weird and slippery plastic... but not a big deal
In other thoughts, I have an older Zen Micro (5GB, B&W Screen).. and I still prefer that touchpad to control the interface. Is great to have the wall adapter of that player that also works with the ZEN X-Fi, and also the pouch. I recommend to buy the silicon case (it should be a included in the original package!) and the screen protector to avoid fingerprints and scratches over the screen and buttons.
I would give this player 4.5/5 but Amazon only let me put 4 or 5 stars, so 5 it is since is more close to it.
Customer Review: Nice
Summary: 4 Stars
I didn't give this product a fifth star because of the seemingly inherent problems with flash memory. Let me explain...
I owned a Creative Zen vision M: 30GB before it finally went dead on me. A number of times I got the "blue screen of death" and had to reset the unit. I did spend a number of hours troubleshooting that device to avoid having to re-load all of my music all the while holding my breath. From every review/forum thread/help support communication I've ever read, it seems every problem I've ever had was due to the flash memory 'platform'.
In deciding to buy a device that uses flash memory, like any other platform, you take the bad with the good. That said, I do get some 'flickering' of my screen on my X-fi when songs are selected. I can live with that. I just hope I don't have the same problem I did with my vision M, and I'm certain I prefer it over a hard-drive platform with lots of moving parts to break.
So why did I chose another creative product? Well, simply put, you get more for your money. This particular unit comes with expandable memory. I went from a 30GB device down to a 16GB device and still have ALL my music on it (2500 songs). I'm happy knowing I can expand. Expandable memory was the one advantage of Sansa products...and Creative edged them off my list by adding that capability to the X-fi. Ipod? Well, yes, there are a million accessories. But they have no radio tuner... Want one? add another $[...]. I also hate proprietary formats, so until they loose that I'll never buy an Ipod. Scratch them from the list. Zune? I thought hard about that one too. But there seemed to be more hard drive space than I'd ever use, and they charged accordingly. It came down to value.
The sound on the X-fi is in fact much better than my Vision M. I attribute this less to the Crystalizer or Expand software additions than I do to the earbuds that come with the unit. They are by far the most comfortable and best sounding earbuds I've ever owned. The external speaker doesn't sound great, but hey, at least it has one! - Scratch the Zune off the list for sure!
The four corner buttons are basically useless (unless the firmware updates to add functionality) and I think I'd prefer the 'rocker' switch of the regular Zen products, but I can ignore the buttons and hope for that update to make them useful some day.
Finally, I'm glad Creative went to a simpler interface software for this unit. I got used to the Visions' media explorer software and it took a little while to get used to 'Creative Centrale', but that would be an issue with any new player. Creative Centrale is easy to use. The menus on the device have been simplified (and are customizable! Finally I can get rid of stuff I never use!). It's really nice for those of us who don't need a million functions and can just enjoy listening to our music without going into an ADD induced trance.
After a lot of research, and swearing I'd try a different product, I came back to Creative because frankly, they are the best bang for the buck. Glad I did.