Creative Zen user reviews
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User reviews6
Kit Scotney 18 August 2011
Good: works fine for a time
Bad: dies and you can't recover it again
Comment: Warning - don't buy creative!! My experience with 4 different players has been awful. The creative zen products work fine for a time and then - BAM! they crash and you can never get them working again and have to replace them. I have owned 4 creative players in 2 years and all of them have crashed and i've lost my entire music library. Thankfully the stores know about the problem and issue you immediately with a new on - but good customer service doesn't make up for a shoddy product. My 4th player has just crashed and I've bought an iPod - thank god - and now creative won't give me a refund..................
adrianmol 6 January 2010
Good: Sound quality, ergonomics, easy to load up songs & Videos, battery life, not tied in to iTunes
Bad: Anything stored on the SD card is searched via a seperate menu
Comment: I've had a 16gb Zen for 2 years and my wife has also has one. Seems to work perfectly once I realised how not to leave it switched on (A dead Zen is usually a dead battery). The sound quality is very good and so are the headphones. I play 256 mbit MP3's or WMA files. The battery life is great, 3 hours at an airport then a 4 hour flight is no problem.
When connected to my PC I can sync using Windows Media Player, or the Zen software or Media Monkey the latter being my preferred choice. I can also drag and drop files using explorer.
The downside is that the user interface is not as slick as an iPod although Apple had to pay damages to Creative for ripping off some of their U I. I put videos and certain types of music on the SD card because I can't search the SD card from the main music library, it is in a separate library. Playlists work well. Watching videos is surprisingly good.
I am a bit of a HiFi geek and I rip my old Vinyl using an external Creative Blaster usb sound card. The tracks go onto my laptop and I copy them up to the Zen or the SD Card. I can listen to Pink Floyd and Led Zep with the sound quality that web download sites can only dream of. Most of my MP3's are ripped from my CD collection. The Zen is a great music player it is not vehicle to get the user to pay to download music from the WWW.
The Zen seems to be rugged and has survived accidental several falls and a few wet motorcycling holidays.
capri_stylee 13 November 2009
Good: Looks, Sound quality, Controls, Video looks great
Bad: Tendancy to freeze, Customers support virtually non-existant
Comment: I got a Zen in Jan 2009, it was great, I was in love. Things went well for the first 6 monts, then it froze and no amount of patches, resets or formatting could fix it, Argos replaced it no problem. I've had the replacement 8 weeks, its started doing the same...
Its a great piece of kit, and excellent value for money, when it works.
Northern_Eagle 18 October 2009
Good: Brilliant audio quality, The fact that its not an iPod, Great price and capacity
Bad: Occasionally crashes, the headphones that came with it broke within weeks
Comment: Possibly the best MP3 player ever - fantastic audio quality, 32GB EXPANDABLE memory, great looking, feature packed. iPod beater? Don't insult it, the Zen outclasses iPod in every possible aspect, includes a video format converter, damnit its nigh on perfect. Apart from the occasionally buggy firmware and poorly manufactured earphones, don't try wrapping them around the Zen, the connector will split resulting
Simon N 16 March 2009
Good: Sound & Video Quality, Size, Features
Bad: Scratches very easily
Comment: This is a very good player with no major concerns apart from the the fact that the screen scratches too easy. The sound and video quality is excellent. The headphones supplied with the mp3 player are ok but they aren't the best. If you buy this player I would recommend that you purchase a protective case for it. I have the leather case for it and works very well. The Zen doesn't come with a mains adapter so you have to charge it via pc's usb port. I am very happy with my player and wouldn't swap it for anything else. Some people have problems with them locking up during use. This maybe a firmware issue. I have never had this problem. There isn't much of a range of colour (only comes in black). I like the colour it comes in. Overall a great player and i would recommend it to anyone.
Matig 5 June 2008
Good: Flash Memory, Light weight, Storage space
Bad: Sound Quality, No AC Adaptor, Menus, Overall size, Headphones
Comment: Quite a little monster.
The sound is good. Volume limited at certain schemes - for H&S reasons I suppose? Having just come out of a Sony NW 3000, it lacks punch. I often use my MP3 on my home amp & car stereo, unlike the Sony which had different settings for listening thru headphones and another for amps, you are forced to increase the volume of your amp for you to pick up this device.
Some will like the overall size of the product, but I have found it a little fiddly. a few more inches, may be lengthwise would have done for me.
You only recharge thru USB. Bad for those on the move.
To add to it, battery life around 6 hours of continous play not the 9.5 hours.
Menus don't always straight foward.
Had to change headphones for Genius.