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Customer Reviews
nice device
A remarkable device for the price if you are on a budget. The zen is easily recognizable by linux which is very flexible. The os on the device is very simple and accessible no manual needed. The software that is provided helps you to convert your videos so they are compatible with the zen. It even syncs up with Windows media which the zune can not do . Overall it is a good mp3 player.Mac user+MP3+XNJB=Working Zen
I bought this unit to cokmplement a Creative Zen Nano Plus 1GB that was a great pocket MP3 player hampered only by limited memory capacity. I figured that it would do OK with the PowerBook, since I saw that CNET listed the Zen as "Mac compatible." To make a long story short, it isn't. I connected it up to a 3GHz Pentium 4 running Windows XP, installed the software, and was rewarded with a system that has a love/hate realtionship with the Zen. (Sometimes it works, sometimes it won't see the Zen player.) Yesterday (7/1/2008) I was at Low End Mac, looking at this and that when I saw an article on the new SanDisk Sansa Clip 4GB player, when the author mentioned a software fix for the Creative Zen. (http://www.wentnet.com/projects/xnjb/) XNJB provides a multiple window interface to view what's already on the Zen player, upload MP3s from your computer, etc. Why is this important to me? I have an old G3 and a newer G4 Mac PowerBook that have very different iTunes MP3 collections, ripped from my music CD collection that I'd like to mix up. In the iPod/iTunes world, you must choose one computer's MP3/AAC library, making it necessary to load other MP3s on a CD/DVD or external HDD. So, I can shuffle between The Who, Louis Armstrong, Dan Tyminski, Barefoot Natives, etc. As for the Zen package, I don't use the supplied much-too-short USB cord; the one that came with a digital camera does the job. This unit doesn't come with an AC adpater, but I found an adequate Belkin F8Z121 wall charger that also charges iPods. Otherwise, it's a fine unit, though the FM radio tuner in this Zen doesn't log as many stations as the Zen Nano Plus did. I have a 4G 20GB iPod just for music and don't really need video playback, so this works out better than an iPod Nano for now.The Creative Zen has HORRIFIC AAC support, and I can only hope it is better for other file types
After my numerous attempts to transfer 4GB of my library to this player, I have concluded that this is quite possibly the worst MP3 player I have ever used. It is no wonder that Creative is not only stagnant in popularity but also ceding market share to Sandisk and Microsoft. I understand the fanboy will inevitably tell me that X file type works fine on the Zen and that I brought this horrible experience on myself by using AAC. But if Creative is going to implement AAC support and advertise it, then they sure as hell should make every effort to insure that AAC support is as good as its support for other files. First, the only way I've found to make album art show on every track is if I only transfer a small group of tracks at a time. If I transfer anymore then, say, 100 tracks, all of the files will be album artless. Countless times now, I have left Zen Media Explorer alone to transfer files to the player, only to come back a few minutes later finding that either: 1. Zen Media Explorer crashed 2. the Zen decided to go to sleep, where only a reset can get it going again 3. or some random error (0x80048007) halts the entire transfer and I have to start again. And if I am lucky enough to get a transfer through "without issue," then there's a damn good chance that I'll encounter issues when I start using the player, including: 1. the Zen does not get out of docked mode and I have to reset it 2. some of the tracks were corrupted during transfer and I get garbled music 3. and even once, the interface was corrupted with the letter "a" getting replaced by "¶" (weird, I know) and all "w's" were half a line below all the other letters. Only a reset and cleanup fixed this. I should probably note that this smorgasbord of problems is not just an isolated instance. In fact, I am already on my second player that was sent as a replacement, and there has been no difference. I don't even see why the reset button is a tiny, hard-to-access pinhole seeing how it is pathetically the most used button on my player. It's too bad, I was dying to give this product a second chance because I love the interface, features, and potential for memory expansion. Instead, the great hardware of this product is marred by its horrible software and firmware, and for that, I will never, ever recommend Creative MP3 players to anyone I know. Maybe only people I hate...Zen is Great
What can I say? This is my first MP3 player and it is really impressive what this thing can do. I have found it to be very intuitive to learn how to operate. I got a FM broadcaster for my car and now I can listen to my whole collection of music wherever I go in the car. The battery has a great life, but it makes a big difference whether you keep the screen active while you are listing to music vs. lock out the buttons and turn off the screen. The player will go a lot longer between charges with the screen turned off. I have about 550 songs and that took up about 2.5GB of the 4GB storage. I like that I can expand the storage with a memory card if I ever need to do that. I don't find the stoarge space to be a limitation due to this reason.Excellen Music Player
Great musicplayer and a great alternative to iPod...i wanted something different and something that doesn't play itunes exclusively. Zen performs and has options to play pictures and videos. I am really happy with the purchase.Keyword : creative
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