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Overall Rating
4 Star Review
Reviewed by: mambo66
Updated:04-02-08
Duration of ownership:6 Months
Strengths: great large display. I know it only does 320x240 but let's face it, you are probably not going to watch it right in front of your eyes 3 inches away. compare to a nano video, it's much easier on the eye and consider that you have to hold it up when you are watching it, it's much easier to hold than other players. Over all, easy on the eye and slim to place in your pockets.
Weaknesses: Unlike most other reviewers, I own this unit now for 6 months. At the 4 months mark the player battery stops charging. I also use this player mostly for video and on several occasions the video managed to crash the software forcing me to reboot by pressing the reset button at the bottom of the player. I purchase the unit right after Christmas so I don't know if it's because it's so new they haven't optimize the hardware yet, since I did do a firmware update right after my first crash. I sent it back to creative to get it fixed but had to pay for shipping and the replaced unit seem to actually respond much faster. I haven't crash the unit since then. I also wish that I didn't have to convert so many clips though, it took a lot of time to but since every other player does anyway, there's no complaining here.
Overall Evaluation: Great valude, good performance, just not the most stable unit however. Creative, work out the bugs please and put a back stand on this unit so I don't have to hold it up trying to watch a movie.
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Overall Rating
5 Star Review
Reviewed by: bigtreepu
Updated:04-09-08
Duration of ownership:2 Days
Strengths: small,compact, flash drive storage, somewhat integrated expandable SD card, long battery life, awesome screen, easy to navigate, great sound from creative. Also able to use many types of music service
Weaknesses: no FM recording. SD card implementation could/should have been more integrated.
Overall Evaluation: Just to be clear, this player CANNOT do everything the Vision:m could do. No FM recording, no TV out, resolution limited to 320X240, Vision:M could output to TV with 640X480. Just clearing things up, for any vision:m users looking to upgrade. Unlike an IPOD where you're locked into paying $1 per song, this personal media player can do subscription services, as well as the pay per song services. Also more compatibility w/video than IPOD. Be smart, don't be a sheep and buy an IPOD.
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Overall Rating
4 Star Review
Reviewed by: seeker1321
Updated:03-26-08
Duration of ownership:2 Months
Strengths: Flash memory, small size, amazing screen quality, expandable sd memory, great battery life, fm radio, etc.
Weaknesses: No SD integration with system memory, all videos have to be converted to be played.
Overall Evaluation: Don't get me wrong I think the Zen is a great mp3 player, the problem is I got spoiled by what it replaced, the ZVM. For music only I would choose it as one of the best on the market, but when taking the video into account I feel it is a little lacking, in can only play video at 320 by 240 resolution, so anything a larger size must be converting before it can be played, where as the ZVM would play anything and had Video out. Some would argue that the Zen and the ZVM are completely different classes of mp3 player and I would agree completely except for the fact that Creative forced the issue, by replacing the ZVM with the Zen. Bottom line if you are looking for a great mp3 player that has amazing sound quality a beautiful screen for playing video files ( I usually keep an episode of CSI: Miami on my Zen just to show off the color), like all the extras like FM radio, voice recorder, and want to be able to avoid being locked down by Itunes, then I would highly recommend the Creative Zen.
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Overall Rating
5 Star Review
Reviewed by: eightyhertz
Updated:03-11-08
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: Good audio quality and codec support, SD card expansion slot, FM Tuner and mic
Weaknesses: SD card not integrated with main memory, main memory does not appear as USB storage (No mass storage class (MSC) support)
Overall Evaluation: In my opinion, this is the best value for money player currently on the market. This player has a multitude of features: thin and lightweight, Brilliant high-res display, good audio quality, SD/SDHC card expansion slot, FM Tuner, microphone recording.Using the Sigmatel STMP3700 chipset, audio quality is good and many file formats are supported: MJPEG, Windows Media, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4SP, Divx 4-5, and Xvid. As mentioned by another reviewer, the only small drawbacks are that the SD card is not integrated with main memory. Media files on the card do not appear in the media library. You have to access a separate menu for that. However, the SD card has mass storage class (MSC) support and can be set to appear as a flash drive when plugged to the PC.The main memory also does not appear as USB storage (no (MSC) support).The supplied Creative video converter software might not be the best, I recommend iriverter (iriver converter, google for it) to convert most video to 320x240 mpeg4 avis.
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Overall Rating
5 Star Review
Reviewed by: anupbhargava
Updated:02-25-08
Duration of ownership:10 Days
Strengths: Very good sound quality, good 16 GB internal built-in storage, can be added by inserting additional sd card
Weaknesses: Wall adapter and protective screen should be part of the package. Otherwise NONE.
Overall Evaluation: I would recommend this over Apple Ipod, which is very expensive. Quality-wise , it matches ipod with less cost. Additionally 16 GB avaialable and additional can be added as sd card.
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Overall Rating
5 Star Review
Reviewed by: datruesurfer
Updated:02-24-08
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: Plug-n-Play, larger screen, form factor and design, FM Radio, Microphone.
Weaknesses: Media on the SD Card doesn't integrate into the library, Video needs to be downscaled to 320x240, navigation through the menu's takes some getting used to.
Overall Evaluation: This is an impressive little device. Its small enough, stores my entire media collection without a problem. Transfering media onto this device is a big plus over the iPod. I can plug this thing into ANY Windows based computer and its ready to transfer media with a simple drag-n-drop. You also get things like an FM radio and a microphone which you cant get with an iPod.Just about all the weaknesses I mentioned are small and can easily be fixed by Creative with a firmware update.
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Overall Rating
5 Star Review
Reviewed by: kfleischer
Updated:01-18-08
Duration of ownership:1 Months
Strengths: ease of use, drag and drop transfer.
Weaknesses: none yet
Overall Evaluation: I love this little player. My kids both have the Zen vision M, which we also love. When I went looking for a player for myself I immediately looked to creative. Unfortunately, they stopped making hard drive players and I got worried. I shouldn't have been concerned. I got the 16gb player and so far it's holding everything I've thrown into it. A bunch of movies and alot of my kids' music collection (it mostly matches my tastes.) I got a high speed sd card to hold extra movies and though I haven't needed to use it, it works well with the player. I would recommend this to anyone. I would recommend a hard case for it- I got one off of ebay and it works well.
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Overall Rating
4 Star Review
Reviewed by: lparent
Updated:12-27-07
Duration of ownership:6 Days
Strengths: Excellent screen quality, excellent sound quality, sd card support, small size, FM tuner with plenty of presets
Weaknesses: Headphones uncomfortable, video file conversion is slow, USB cable is too short
Overall Evaluation: Overall I am very happy with this player. The sound and video quality are both excellent. Menu navigation is intuitive and file loading is very fast and easy. Video scaling could be a bit more flexible as everything has to be scaled to 320:240 size. I would prefer that SD content be integrated with the player's main memory but maybe this will happen with future firmware updates. I bought a wall charger so I wouldn't have to charge through my computer.
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Overall Rating
5 Star Review
Reviewed by: tjford
Updated:12-26-07
Duration of ownership:1 Weeks
Strengths: Compact size, extensible storage, excellent display
Weaknesses: Feels a little flimsy, or at least not exactly solid. Earphones only so-so
Overall Evaluation: This is an excellent device and, in my opinion, superior in most ways to the more popular Apple line of products. I expect to see Creative start to steal some of Apple
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Overall Rating
4 Star Review
Reviewed by: Magendanz
Updated:12-26-07
Duration of ownership:1 Months
Strengths: 1. Extensible memory.2. Excellent codec support with new SigmaTel 3700 chipset.3. Good selection of accessories.
Weaknesses: 1. There's no mass storage class (MSC) support for the main memory.2. The SD card has MSC support, but it's not integrated with the main media library.
Overall Evaluation: I have a Meizu M6 and iPod Nano, and this new Creative Zen beats them both handily. Primarily, I love the extensibility and VC-1 (MP) support, which allows me to insert 8GB SD cards containing over 50 movies that I've transcoded with Microsoft Expression Encoder. Frankly, you can't beat that kind of selection for keeping the kids entertained in the back seat. The most frustrating aspect of the device is the awkward separation between main memory and the memory card. Any contents of the memory card are browsed in a separate area of the user interface and are not indexed like main memory (so you can't view by artist, album, etc.).
