From Creative I had previously read little, and the products were usually not noticeably more favorable than those made by Apple. But while browsing various price search engines, I discovered the very favorable offer from 199 at Amazon.com (20.12.2007)
Bought, waited 1 day taken in reception and then
=== === Unwrapped
The ZEN came in a small box with a transparent plastic front. He stood at:
* The usual, useless earphones
* An extremely short USB cable
* The Driver CD
* Various manuals
The basic equipment level, with the short USB cable is already really a small impudence. Insignificantly shorter namely the players themselves ...
=== Specifications (Short Version) ===
* Dimensions: 55mm x 83mm x 12mm
* 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32GB
* Slot for SD / SDHC card to increase the memory capacity up to 48GB
* Battery life with 25 hours of audio playback or 5 hours of video playback
* Audio formats supported: AAC (.M4A), MP3, WMA, WAVE and Audible
* Video formats: WMV and DivX / XviD (320 x 240, 30fps)
* 2.5-inch color display
* FM radio
* Microphone
* Viewing photos with 16.7 million colors
* Weight: 65g
=== === Feel and appearance
The player is wide and thin, fits comfortably in your hand. The back feels so nice not like the Liquidmetal back from Sansa e2 * 0, but the workmanship leaves nothing to be desired.
At the front sits the large 2.5 "display. Next to it, and without gradation are the navigation keys. In total, there are 9 of them. Do not panic, fewer keys (iPod) need not necessarily be better. More on that later.
The keys have a clear and pleasant tactile feedback and look very stable.
Are the USB port, the Hold / Power knob and the headphone jack on the right-hand edge.
The upper edge is provided with a tiny hole for the microphone input, next to the left is the SD card slot, which is equipped with a dummy of house of (dust).
On the bottom there is another, microscopically small hole. With a sharp needle you can perform a reset here if the player is no longer time to react. That's never happened to me, the service always worked smoothly.
=== === Operation
If you push the Hold knob 2 seconds down, the player turns on. In middle position, the keys are released, they are pushed off. One, I think, very reasonable combination of power and hold button.
After nearly 10 seconds turn (or 1 second from the standby, which is between 10 and 120 minutes active optional), you will find yourself either in the main menu or the last played song.
First, a great feature: The Options menu all startup items and sub-menu can arbitrarily change or delete. Those who place no value on the microphone, for example, or on the "genres" in the music menu, which can easily remove these menu items.
The main menu is very clear, very chic and can be provided with its own wallpaper.
Per directional pad to scroll through the items back and forth, the center selection key brings one to the next submenu. The corresponding counterpart, the "Back" button at the top left.
First, a great feature of Zen:
One of the nine buttons (top right) works as a kind of shortcut menu. No matter where you are on the player just: Pressing this button will pop up a menu, which allows you to adjust to the entry previously selected different things.
An Example:
It is currently listening to a song and is in playback menu. If you press now called key come the following options:
Select * Position
* Set Bookmark
* View Details
Search * other songs from artist
* Remove
* Save as playlist
* Playback mode (repeat, loop, ...)
* Title Buy
The latter feature is very unnecessary, but can - as already mentioned - be removed from the context menu.
Here are the individual entries:
* Microphone: Self-explanatory. Here one comes to the Capture menu. A useful level right shows the input volume. The recording length is actually unlimited. Is saved in WAV format.
* Photos: Here you can watch either on your PC Create slide shows, normal pictures or a favorite choice. The slideshow can apply effects.
* Music: Here you get into the music menu. In the next sub-menu options appear
* Current Title (jumps directly to the most recently played or currently playing song)
* Playlists (jumps to the created on the computer and on the player playlists)
* Albums (lists the complete music collection by album on)
* Artists (lists by artist on)
* Genre (lists by genre on)
* All titles (list by title name on)
* Recordings (lists the microphone recordings on)
* Bookmarks (lists the possibly set bookmarks on)
* DJ (to a to a submenu, which contains the popular favorite selections: album of the day, random mode, popular, rarely performed, high rated, yet to be assessed)
Etc. The following lists of albums, artists can be at 16GB storage course. I myself have no less than 412 different artists on my ZEN. Here Creative but an ingenious concept has developed to eliminate the long list scrolling: If you press in the list selection the right control key, you get into an ABC list on the right side of the screen. Here you can now select the first letter quickly, only to end up at the corresponding first entry in the list. This function does not filter, so it does not exclude other letters. You can jump only to a selected letter.
If you as usual just want to scroll down, is also not a problem. While holding the control key (up or down) increases gradually the scroll speed.
While playing songs one controls the volume using the buttons "up" and "down" can and "left" between songs back and forth and the Play / Pause button control with "right" playback.
In addition to the already presented 8 buttons (5-reticle, Play / Pause, context menu, back), there is a ninth key, whose function in the Options menu is freely programmable. A fantastic feature!
* Videos: Self-explanatory. Similar in construction to the Music menu.
* Radio: access to the radio. 12 presets can be stored directly to a fully automated and instantaneous throughput. Otherwise, there's a good manual tuning operation. The radio quality is fine. No significant peak performance, but no disturbing noise. Unfortunately there is no possibility of receiving the radio.
* Tools: Diary and Organizer. Thanks to modern cell phones completely useless.
* Memory card: Here you get access to the memory card. The memory card can only be read as a tree structure, thus behaves like a removable storage device. The data stored on their songs and videos can not be adopted in the Music Library of the player. Here Creative has clearly goofed. There is no conceivable reason not to fully integrate the SD slot in the player. Competitors do it without problems.
There remains the possibility of taking the SD card as a memory card for large, eh not einsortierbare videos. It is also quite possible that Creative still nachbessert with a firmware update.
* System: Here hides the options menu with extensive settings. I raise here only peculiarities out:
- The equalizer is extensive, has 8 presets and provides a manual setting. The results are presented with the appropriate headphones good to very good.
- As already mentioned, there is a freely configurable key
- There is a password protection option for private content
- There is a Sleep Timer
=== === Display quality
The picture of Zen seems clear and bright, crisp and absolutely free of streaks at videos. Longer videos can be viewed without any problems. If you tilt the player to the left or right, hardly occur Contrast weaknesses. Only in the forward and backward tilting the image is faded quickly.
The mirroring of the display moves at normal levels.
=== === Music quality
With my Sennheiser CX300, the sound is generally good to very good. Compared with iPod Nano and the Creative ZEN Sandisk Sansa can win, only the upper class made by Cowon is likely to have to offer something more. The ZEN provides a clear sound, if necessary, decent bass. There are no distracting background noise. I as a frequent listener but not Audiophile am completely satisfied Only the lack of support for OGG and FLAC formats is likely to interfere with one or the other. When headphone recommendation probably is almost anything between 20 to 100.
=== === Software and transmission
The Creative software to convert the video and dubbing of all formats is relatively well thought out. The conversion of the video takes a little long, but is efficient. The dubbing works well as long as you have tagged his songs reasonable. The player reads namely initially by ID3 tags, not by folder structures. Thus the vast majority of users should get along quite well, with 16GB music but can also be partially consuming to provide each song with correct information.
Because lack of information about the artist, song title or album name, the song appeared NOT as an entry on the player. Instead of "unknown" to appear under, it does not appear. Again, a firmware error, which is hopefully ironed out soon.
I recommend to transfer music files easily managed and comprehensive freeware music software such as MediaMonkey (a kind of better iTunes) or Foobar. This involves the tagging and play extremely fast and comfortable.
The player is recognized as a removable disk, so it can be filled in Windows Explorer simply.
Videos must be transferred in WMV or AVI (DivX / Xvid) and the size of 320x240. The Creative software does the conversion reliable, but does not affect the speed and quality to be desired.
We recommend SUPER 2008 (necessarily the latest version take wg. Vista SP1 compatibility), eRightSoft a freeware from the house.
=== === Miscellaneous
- The battery life is at normal music use (ie with occasional menu search and 50% brightness) about 18-23 hours, so well off at the reference time of 25 hours. That's for today's players in order, but not necessarily a milestone. The large display prevents better rankings.
- The battery is replaceable not by his own hand. Although, of course, higher follow-up costs, it is clearly to mind: Modern lithium-ion batteries are robust and almost always live longer than the rest of the player. How to extend the life of these batteries yourself is in any good multimedia website.
- Instead of the supplied short USB cable can of course also be used any other USB cable.
- The Creative Support on the phone is the first 6 months free and extremely competent. I found out through several phone calls.
== == CONCLUSION
Creatives ZEN puts a new benchmark for MP3 players with flash memory. 32GB in a tiny device really are a reference. However, the 16GB version is convincing in comparison with other players. A really well thought out menu management and control, intelligent additional functions and extensive compared to the iPod or Sansa control panel leaves nothing to be desired. Creative has managed to enter the growing capacity of the small musical companion and the appropriate management options along the way.
Also the display sets new standards in the flash memory area. Great colors, large and smooth video and a respectable battery life of 5 hours, make for an enjoyable pastime.
Additional functions such as the radio and the microphone complete the great package.
Where there is light, there is shadow. This keeps the new ZEN fortunately limited. One could almost say that there is only one error in creative new flagship, which can be possibly buying decision for one or the other but. The above-described lack of integration mechanism for SD memory cards can be excused with nothing and in urgent need of a firmware update. With the new SDHC cards can namely to increase the memory of the player for less money to nearly double.
Who, like me, is not necessarily dependent on good SD support or on the memory card's large video grabs, all for the greater obstacles have been cleared from the track. Therefore, the ZEN gets an A
= FULL buy rating =
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