Creative Zen 4 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 4 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
Customer Review: I'm loving this device more each day!
Summary: 5 Stars
I had been researching for months before deciding on the Creative ZEN. My first player was a Sandisk Sansa e140. For a 1st player it was okay, but my main gripe was that it had no resume feature or bookmarks, amongst other defects. Anyway, it was okay for a beginner device.
About three months ago I decided it was time for a change, since I knew Sandisk, I bought a Sansa e260 4gig: it was nice, but, still no bookmark and the thing was just not built right, seemed like it would break in two weeks...I returned it and after one month of looking at reviews on dedicated gadget websites and Youtube video reviews and looking and trying mp3 players at stores, I finally decided and ordered the Creative ZEN.
Half a year ago,I subscribed to a "Rhapsody to Go" subscription for my son(at 14.99 a month), and I was looking for an mp3 player that would be compatible, the ZEN was not on Rhapsody's "Accepted Players" list.
Still...I decided on the Creative ZEN
I receive my Creative 4GB ZEN 3 days after ordering...Amazon quick!
I looked at the packaging, not too impressive. Charged it up and after a couple of hours (with half a charge because I couldn't wait anymore) I began to experiment.
You can operate all functions practically without reading the manual, it has a very intuitive interface.
I was very pleased with the look and feel of the player.It has a nice weight to it, light enough for a shirt pocket, yet still has the weight of a quality product.
The screen gets smudged up quickly, but it's a non issue. I love the interface and how the pictures and videos look. The volume is loud enough, it may not be the most top quality sound, but it's an MP3 player the size of a credit card...what would you expect?
I was very happy for the first two days using my new toy...I loaded, photos, videos...I had a family video and a short Hendrix concert video. No problem, excellent playback. I even charged it using my Razor V3 cell phone charger! Cool!
Anyway, last night I go in the Rhapsody site and plug in my ZEN and find that it shows on the
I click on authorize device...BINGO! Device is authorized!
I have loaded this thing with tons of stuff from "Rhapsody to GO"...up to this point I had second thoughts about this player, but the fact that it works with Rhapsody to GO was the biggest selling point for me...
Rhapsody needs to update their site and show that this device is Rhapsody to Go compatible.
PROS:
1) you can set 10 bookmarks
2) Beautiful interface menu display
3) Good sound quality
4) Small and slim (pocket friendly)
5) Resume feature
6) Many options including selection of a "personal shortcut key"
7) Easy to operate and to load files to
8) Lots of features at a very reasonable price
9) Works with Rhapsody to Go...also has free Zencasts and other goodies
from their website.
10) It uses a regular USB connection (not propietary), so you can plug into a razor V3 charge (for example) and if you lose your USB connector, you don't need to panic because you can buy one of these anywhere for just a few dollars.
11) SD slot (does not integrate fully, but works for me...I put in my card from my Panasonic FZ7 camera and was able to see the pics I took, cool enough for me. Besides, 4GIG is enough for me, I don't need to carry my entire music library with me. (not yet)
12) Records off the air very well
13) FM radio reception sounds great
14) Videos and picures look vibrant adn very colorful
15) You can view playlists by album covers if you want
16) Digital and Analog clock
17) Many more features I still haven't even discovered yet
CONS:
1) Sound quality could be improved (a firmware upgrade would do it)
2) No carrying pouch included
3) Doesn't make coffee
4) Does not work as a can opener
5) Cannot be used as a fax machine
I will update later on, after giving this baby a full tryout.
So far, I'm lovin' it!
If you read the whole thing...I guess you should be considering to buy this gadget.
Biggest bang for the buck I could find anyway!
Customer Review: I found my Zen! Beauty and power in a small package.
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had my new Zen for a month now and all I can say is that I'm in love.
I originally planned to get a larger capacity Creative Zen V (which I also highly rate), but this new Zen caught my eye. The 4GB capacity, larger vivid LCD screen, the ability to play videos, and an SD expansion slot - and still a small slender player - it's everything I was looking for.
Now that I've used it for a month, I can say that this player is indeed a wonderful device to own. It sounds great, it looks great, and everything functions the way it should. This slender player indeed packs a punch.
What I enjoy about the Zen:
1. What a looker! This is a gorgeous, slim, trim black beauty. It's also nice to the touch.
2. Vivid sharp 2.5 in. color screen. Photos and videos come up brilliant. The display is set at 50% brightness by default and looks perfect. I've actually lowered the brightness to 20% without losing quality and still see everything fine.
3. Sounds great! I keep my EQ set on acoustic - it's my perfect zen setting that makes my ears happy, but I can choose from several other settings as well. The sound really shines when I put on quality set of over-the-head earphones.
4. Having a SD slot is less worry about running out of space. I currently have a 2GB Sansdisk SD in my Zen and haven't had to use it yet.
5. I truly enjoy that I can use several different programs to manage my media files or load my Zen. However, I found Creative's software that comes with the Zen works great and is my preferred media manager by choice. The software can rip, convert, burn, and manage media files easily (both music and video). The only thing I've never too crazy about their software is their album art and tag management...I usually end up going to Media Monkey to take care of that.
6. It's slim, small and lightweight making it easy to tuck away. My previous Zen V spoiled me with it's small size, but the credit card sized Zen is just as easy to keep. (I tried to "upgrade" to a 30GB Zune but the sheer size of it made it impractical for me in my daily activities. My hubby is keeping that one and he loves it.)
What I'm not so crazy about this Zen:
1. The navigation - I feel like this could have been done better. The large square button functions both as the directional input and volume at different times. Although this is not hard to use, your thumb does a lot of traveling especially because of the "back" button which is on the upper left of the navigation area. Not perfect, but not a huge detraction for this player.
2. It collects fingerprints way too easy and they don't like to wipe off nice, like it usually does with the Zen V. I'm constantly cleaning it with a soft lens cloth. While slightly inconvenient, it's also not a huge detraction for this player.
(UPDATE: Now that someone showed me how to shut off the screen while playing music by using the lock feature, I can no longer complain about the screen staying on all time. I removed item no. 3.)
None of the above complaints alter my favorable view of the Zen.
I truly found my Zen with Creative's gorgeous Zen. I'll gladly buy it again if I had to.
Update 5/19/2008:
1. It grieves me to report that my lovely Zen now suffers the white screen of death. Despite updating the firmware, resetting, or other tricks reported on the Internet, the problem has not been resolved. It looks like I'm going to have to return my unit to Creative. Now I get to report on their customer service.
2. Another problem I found with my Zen is when I was watching videos that are longer than a few minutes. The voice/soundtrack would lag out of sync of the movie I was watching for more than a few seconds. It got worse if I fast forwarded or rewound it.
Customer Review: Very satisfied.
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this player off of a third party retailer on amazon. I recieved it 3 days after ordering, and paid about $90 for it, which was very reasonable in my opinion. This player is everything it is cracked up to be and more.
Pros :
Very clear, bright screen. I have mine on 20% brightness and it is just fine
Easy installation of software
Flawless conversion of non-supported video formats.
Expandable with an SD card, which are cheap as dirt nowadays.
Music quality is excellent.
Video playback is stunning, for such a small screen.
Can use content from iTunes (it even has a button on its management software that says "Get music from itunes")
Back will not scratch easily as it is hard plastic.
YOU CAN DELETE STUFF FROM THE PLAYER WITHOUT CONNECTING IT TO THE SOFTWARE!!!!!! I love this feature, because the software used to put music on the player organizes the music by author name, so I got a few extra and unwanted songs from my computer by accident. I was elated to find out that I could just delete them from the player, rather than having to hook it up, find the song, and delete it.
Radio is crystal clear and automatically scans for stations that are coming in well, then sets them as your presets, with the push of one button.
Price. Try to find another player that has 4 GB plus expandability, video capacity, a great screen, and a good interface for under 100 dollars brand new.
Menu configurability. You have the ability to configure the main menu, to a degree. Things that are normally submenus can be placed directly on the main menu, and you can choose to hide things on the main menu that you do not wish to use a lot, such as the recorder.
Neutral (These things neither add nor detract from the overall user experience)
Menu system could be better, and is somewhat comparable to the ipod system, where there is a main menu set and then sub menus, sub-sub menus, etc. It is easy to get back to the main menu with a few pushes of the back button. Configurability is a nice touch. Also, it is easy to create playlists, and navigation is a breeze, as you can sort by album, artist, or just go to all songs, press the right arrow once to go to the alphabetical movement mode (pressing down goes from beginning of A to beginning of B, etc.)So this is almost a pro, but not quite.
Recorder doesn't have the greatest quality, but you can easily tell what you were saying i when you play it back, and i didn't buy this for the recorder anyway. It is basically just an added bonus for me.
Cons:
Earphone jack placement is terrible, for me at least. It is in the upper right hand corner, where I like to put my hand to hold it, and it is right in the way of the way I would prefer to hold it.
Media software is a bit annoying in that media from other sources is displayed under the artists name in a folder, which can lead to confusion when you open the folder and see the album name, and the name is the same album that is under seven different artists as well. This is only awkward if you have albums with a medly of artists, however.
Conclusion:
The amount of bang for your buck you get out of this player is incomparable to any other I have seen. I would say that if you have your heart set on an ipod, you are going to be looking for flaws in this player, and small things are going to bother you. However, as someone who has used ipods and found itunes to be irritating at times, and found ipods to be highly overrated, this is the player for you. If you have your heart set onn an ipod, drop the extra 50 bucks on a nono, third gen. But you'll be missing out on a lot.
Customer Review: Creative Zen for Podcasts
Summary: 5 Stars
I mainly use my Zen for Podcasts. Overall, it does an excellent job and I thoroughly enjoy it for this purpose. I previously had a Samsung touch screen MP3 player. The controls on this device were extremely frustrating because of the lack of tactile feedback and the poor design of the navigation scheme. The navigation scheme on the Zen, in contrast, is very intuitive. However, I do have some concerns with the Zen for Podcasting:
(1) I am having trouble getting the book marking feature to work. I would like to be able to pause a Podcast, listen to music (or perhaps a "lighter" Podcast) for a while, and then jump back to where I left off in the Podcast. I can't figure out how to do this.
(2) When I pause the Zen for even a relatively brief time it will shut down, thus requiring a re-boot. This is inconvenient as I find that it is often necessary to pause listening to a Podcast, and I enjoy many Podcasts so much that I don't want to miss even a single word. (When the Zen shuts off by itself during a pause, it is not easy to get it to re-start in the Podcast where it left off at the time of shutdown, so you don't want to make the mistake of having this happen.)
(3) The text description of the Podcast is shown more completely than was the situation with my Samsung MP3 player, which is a huge advantage. If the text description is long, the Zen will scroll the text across the screen (right to left). However, the scroll speed is too slow. If I need to jump through the descriptions of the various Podcasts on my player to find one of interest, it is irritating to have to wait for the scrolling to finish showing the entire description. In fact, the screen dims after a short period of time to save battery life. (The time to dim can be set in the configuration system.) Often, the screen will dim before the scrolling is finished. I can't read the text on the dimmed screen, adding to the frustration level. This problem could be solved if there was a way to set the Zen to display all of the MP3 metadata on a single screen during the process of clicking through all of the Podcasts. This would allow the user to quickly identify the details of a particular Podcast. I'm sure that Creative could update the firmware to serve this function. In fact, I would love for MP3 manufacturers to provide an option for a full metadata display. At the moment, there isn't a universal scheme for populating the metadata fields for Podcasts. Therefore, what any individual MP3 player displays from the metadata is variable (and sometimes inadequate.
(4) As noted by many reviewers, boot time on this device is a bit too slow. Also, shut-down is not instantaneous. Since I need to shut down the unit every time I want to pause (e.g., if my wife wants to ask a question), I find the delay for boot-up and shut-down to be irritating. You should realize that the player will start-up in your Podcast exactly where the shut-down occurred, which obviously is a necessity if you are going to use shut-down to pause. As noted, if you let the Zen shut itself down during a pause, you may have difficulty getting back to the exact spot where you paused when the you re-boot.
So, in sum, this is a superb MP3 player for Podcasts. However, it isn't perfect. Bookmarking may work, but I haven't figured out how to use this feature yet. And, having to shut-down and re-boot constantly is an irritation.
Finally, battery life is pretty darn good: I routinly take my Zen on transcontinental air flights and I find the battery lasts all of the way in one direction. But don't forget to re-charge at your destination! You may not make it back on the same charge.
Customer Review: Great Value
Summary: 5 Stars
The Creative Zen was my choice for an iPod replacement. I have had terrible luck with iPods, so i figured after the third on it was time for a new brand. I bought an set of Creative brand speakers years ago and loved the sound, and had a computer with a Creative sound card, and that was the beast part of the machine.
I looked at the Zen cautiously at first, it is a fairly new product, in its first generation. After reading other reviews, i decided to pick it up based mostly on previous experience with Creative products as well as the set of features that this player has.
This particular model is a 4GB, which means it has ample storage for your favorite tunes. And at only $90, it is a great price as well. It includes a voice recorder (something unheard of on iPod products), the ability to change your background screen (a little thing, but nice anyway),a radio tuner, and lastly the SD Card slot on the top of the product. This allows you to have virtually endless storage so long as you are OK with buying SD Cards. The voice recorder is nice, and so is the radio, they both perform exactly as expected.
The player itself has a simple enough face; a square button in the center for menu selection, housed by a larger square which is used for the up/down selection in menus and the previous/next track in the now playing screen. There is a rocker above this for going back through the menus on the left, and a context sensitive menu button on the right, allowing you to do a large number of screens depending on the screen you are on; anything from adding to a playlist or selecting the play mode. The rocker on the bottom of the face is a button that you can set the functionality of yourself (out of the box it is set for Album of the Day) and the other side is the play pause button.
The interface of the product is easily navigated, and the number of options is great. A number of EQ setting are good for novice audiophiles, but the custom 5 channel EQ is great for getting exactly the sound you want.
I only have a few gripes overall, but most are cosmetic anyway. First, the screen is easily scratched like most devices like this, so you need to be extra careful. The buttons feel kind of cheap, but I have had no problems with them. The bundled software is easy to use, however the fact the this player does not support podcasts with out conversion is a little tough for me to swallow as a newly converted iPod user. For some reason, the player has a tendency to put all of songs on an album in alphabetical order, as oppose to the track order on the album, but that is probably just a small button push or click away from being fixed.
My biggest issue is that thwe SD Card is not integrated into the rest of the functionality of the device. You need to go to the option for Memory Card in the menu to look at the music there, and listen to it from this screen. This would be fine, but the player does not allow you to navigate menus or anything while listening music from the SD. You cannot add the music to playlists, nor will the player shuffle through the music in the flash memory and the SD. This could be fixed with a firmware upgrade, and lets hope it is.
All in all, a wonderful product, a good price, and a great brand. High recomended.