Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver)
by Creative
|
List Price: Category: Network Media Player See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
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: great at everything except playing music
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this player after reading many reviews claiming it was one of the best if not the very best mp3 players out there -- in particular with respect to sound quality.
Unfortunately, my experience says otherwise. My unit has an unfortunate sibilance / harshness problem around 1-3k that just drives me crazy. I have tried a couple different sets of headphones and the issue is still there. I don't consider myself a super audiophile, but I was expecting more. My old 3G ipod did not have this problem.
I don't know if this is a problem my individual player or the design, but it's kind of a deal killer for me.
That aside, the features are pretty cool, and most everything works.
+ The video playback is excellent
- The UI is just okay. The buttons are pretty small. The corner buttons of the keypad are a waste
- I don't know what to make of the wifi feature. When I'm home and have access to my wifi, I turn the stereo on. It would be neat if it could work from just any old hotspot, but that's just not the case.
- The software that comes with the unit... meh. I tried out various alternatives, and chose MediaMonkey, which works pretty well for me. In particular, I wanted software that would manage a lot of podcasts for me.
- The video converter software works okay, but is crazy slow. It also crashes on one of my computers but not another. I have switched to using the mplayer/mencoder (linux freeware, but windows binaries available), and it is only slightly faster, but much more flexible (you have to be willing to hit the command line to make best use of mencoder, but it will encode whole DVDs, for example)
+ it's small and light
+ battery life is admirable. I plug the unit in to sync my podcasts and that pretty much takes care of my charging needs for day to day use
+ picture browsing is cool
- The SD card slot is good, but the integration with your music library is not there. Actually, it's just handled totally separately, and even browsing to the SD card stops whatever was playing from your normal library. Annoying. I use the SD card to hold DVDs I've converted, so this limitation is not too annoying because my 8GB card can only hold 25 movies or so, anyway
So, in summary. It's not an Apple product, which is nice. Size and battery are nice. Screen: also nice. It's got lots of features and the video is good, which is also nice. No problem playing any of the music I threw at it. The UI is just okay. Wi-Fi, only useful if you're at home running their media server. Finally, the sound: very disappointing.
Customer Review: Great Product, Horrible Software Problems
Summary: 3 Stars
Pros:
Sound quality is superb
Included headphones is high quality
Easy to use interface
Many different features
Great looking screen (which is great for video)
Cons:
- Extremely disappointing and frustrating software compatibility issues
- Extra, useless buttons
- Most video files require transcoding
- Some features are more gimmick than practical
- Interface is not as smooth as it could be
Summary:
The player itself is great. It has great sound quality, the interface is very sleek and very customizable, and the included ear buds retail for around $30-$40, much better than the included earbuds of say an iPod. The screen is great for video viewing also.
The main problem is the compatibility of Windows Media Player. Although many people will say that Windows Media Player will support the Creative Zen X-Fi just fine, I have a very frustrating experience with it. I'm the kind of guy who likes to maintain all his album information and likes control of what stays and what goes on my music, and I prefer to sync my music rather than go through the major trouble of manually keeping track of my music. I have a pretty large selection, so manually syncing the Zen to my computer is almost impossible. The problem is whenever I try to sync, 50of the time my Zen would crash. Now, this problem is prevalent not only in the X-Fi, but also prevalent in the older cousin Creative Zen. I absolutely believe that Creative just dropped the ball here, now that not one but TWO products have the same issues. I looked all over the Creative support website, and there are absolutely no mention of this problem at all. I'd have to constantly reset my player after syncing them.
Conclusion:
The product itself is great, but the software issues (as well as the useless bundled software) creates a major headache for me. Syncing my music has become the most frustrating experience for me, and it seems like Windows Media Player CHOOSES when to sync and when to crash my player. I honestly blame Creative for not making the effort to fix this issue. My recommendation? If you want a great MP3 player and you're old school who doesn't care about automatic syncing, then definitely give this player equal consideration with other MP3 players. However, if you want great control of your music library without the tediousness of managing it manually, then stay away. Had I known there were these issues with Windows Media Player, I'd definitely take that into major consideration.
Customer Review: Great Hardware; What a Shame It's Ruined By Software
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased this device for my husband as a gift. Below is his review:
Having owned several mp3 players over the years, the Creative Zen player holds a very special place in my heart. My first (large capacity) mp3 player was a Creative Zen and it was one of the first devices available on the market, around the turn of the century, to hold 40GB of space. Back then we didn't have splashy effects, album art, or much of anything else other than a mono-tone green screen with text on it!
I never particularly cared for the Creative software but that didn't matter much because the player would appear as a drive in Windows and you could just sync files using any software you like (or write your own script to do it).
Step forward many years; when I had the opportunity to get a modern Creative Zen X-Fi player to replace my 5th Gen iPod (the iPod still works fine, I just hate iTunes and grow tired of having to install QuickTime and all the garbage that apple puts on every machine along with iTunes). From a visual perspective, the X-Fi is astonishingly attractive! It's sleek, beautiful, easy to navigate, and it's an all around well built peice of hardware. The PC software (to move files to the device), on the other hand, is so unacceptible that it essentially ruins the player. Creative still bundles a program for syncing, however it's really just a new skin for Windows Media Player. The Creative Software/WMP routinely crashes, stops responding, and freezes up.
Because the Zen is totally closed up now, you can't even use anything else to sync music to the player. Your only option when the software locks up is to manually drag and drop files onto the player in Windows, which results in loss of album art and tag data. As bad as this is the ultimate killer is the lack of any kind of auto sync feature. The PC software will not automatically sync new music to your player! This results in you having to go one by one through all your music trying to figure out if its on your player or not!
For me, the lack of an auto-sync feature is a deal breaker. I just don't have time to dig through thousands of songs to try to manually determine which ones are on my player and which ones need to be synced. Its such a shame, since the player itself is so magnificent. If only Creative Labs had spent some of the time that they dedicated to engineering such a great player into creating a useable PC interface instead of sub-contracting that to Windows Media Player!
What a shame....
Customer Review: Excellent sound and versatility
Summary: 5 Stars
I was thinking of buying an Apple iPod, as the new ones are pretty, but I heartily object to Apple's treating me like a thief (mp3 names scrambled) and not letting me use the player as storage as well. Also, the idea of an SD slot seemed extremely useful. I've had good luck with Creative sound cards and read many positive reviews here, so I decided to buy this little gadget.
While not an audiophile, I do a lot of music production and studio work and have to say I prefer the sound from the Creative Zen X-Fi to my friend's iPod for the same headphones and sound file. It seems less fuzzy somehow- I think they must be doing something with the EQ?
My issues are as follows:
-Creative Centrale is not very good software. It keeps track of my iTunes library very well in terms of tracks, but it's terrible for importing playlists.
-Creating and editing a playlist on the device is difficult to figure out.
-I wish I could play all the songs by one artist. Will see if firmware upgrades ever do that.
I admit I haven't tried anything with video or pictures. Charging is the same as any other USB device, and I'm really glad I don't need to use a proprietary connector (like Apple uses) or dock to charge it from my computer- my camera cable or cell phone cable both work for this, since they're all mini-to-USB. Have not tried the voice recording.
I managed to crash it once (no batteries plus connecting it to a non-charging source), but rebooting as it tells me to on the Creative support site fixed the problem. The speaker's sound quality was a nice surprise. As for the controls, they weren't difficult after reading through the quickstart guide once. I'm also pleased by the ability to delete files from the device without connecting it to a computer. However, I couldn't get the device to work with Linux. I don't think most users would even contemplate that, though.
I hear that the SD card content is not integrated into the player's library, which means I'll have to store my less-used movies and music there when it comes time. But the functionality is amazing, the sound quality lovely and crisp, and the ability to manage my own files means this one's a keeper and I recommend it to all who want to be 'power users' of their portable devices.
Customer Review: Nice player after some adaptation on my part.
Summary: 4 Stars
After more than a year with an Apple iPod, having to deal with the iTunes software was more than I could stand, so I chose this MP3 player among the many models on the market. My very first impression after receiving the player was disappointment. You have to admit, the ergonomics of the iPod can't be beat. I just love the simplistic interface. Selecting songs, changing the volume, etc. are all just super smooth. The Creative Zen has a ton of different buttons that require a little oomph to press, I have to constantly remember which buttons do what (I'm always hitting the rightmost column to change the volume, when it's the center buttons that do that, no wait, maybe it's the other way...)
However, now that I have used the player for a month, I am adapting to its ways and am happy with my purchase. One thing I am impressed with is the sound quality. I would not have expected there to be much difference between this one and the iPod, but the sound quality in the Creative Zen is noticeably better (same earphones). The earphones that come with it COMPLETELY cut off all outside sound, so I've been using the iPod earphones because I like to play at a low volume and still be able to somewhat hear what's going on around me (no surprises!)
Another thing that has helped me to like this player better is that I discovered by accident (hitting the wrong buttons at the wrong time again) is that the play button acts on the current menu selection. So, when I used to want to play a particular artists album, I would have to (starting from the main menu) (a) select "Music", (b) navigate to and click on "Artists", (c) navigate down to the artist I want and click, (d) navigate to the album I want and click, (e) click to start the first song, (f) click on "Play". Finally, geez. A downside of this approach is that I can only play one album at a time. I may have 3 albums for an artist and only one song on each, so this leads to a lot of menu picking. What a pain! Now, when I get to step (c), instead of clicking on the artist name (center button), I just hit the special "Play" button and all of that artists songs starts. Much better! Now all I have to do is remember to hit "Play" and not instintively the center menu button. Doh!