Creative Zen 8 GB Portable Media Player (Black) by Creative
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Digital camera reviews of Creative Zen 8 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
Digital camera Review: A Great Little Player/Viewer
Summary: 4 Stars
I have just spent what I imagine will be the first of many happy hours with my Creative Zen 8GB Media Player. I am very pleased. It was fully charge in about 3-4 hours, and while it was charging I fiddled with the software. All worked as advertised. I prefer using Windows Media Player 11.something to sync songs. You can add full size 5meg photos but shinking them will save you space and they look just fine at 640x480. Sound is good...as good as my Cowan, but not as many sound sceme options. The fact that you can sync your Outlook calendar with the Zen may come in handy...or not. So...I am satisfied with my purchase. Of course there is never enough memory, but for the price...this is enough. I cannot report any negatives about this productDigital camera Review: A Huge Hit!
Summary: 5 Stars
I gave a Creative Zen 8 GB to my granddaughter for her recent birthday. It was a huge hit! Her friends say it is the best they have seen.Digital camera Review: A few annoyances
Summary: 3 Stars
I have now had the Creative Zen for about a month.
What I like about the Zen:
(1)its looks (very stylish and "with the times")
(2)the screen (clear!)
(3)the sound (crisp)
(4)the size (perfect).
(5)the alarm (it turns the player on automatically at your set time) .. but no snooze.
(6)the ability to drap & drop
However, there are two annoyances that I have found with it that make me give it only 3 stars -- an "average" rating.
(1) it does not have resume play. So when the Zen turns off, so does the place you were at in your music. ESPECIALLY if you are in shuffle. It turns back on a completely different song, in a random place. I don't like this, because when I'm in my car, when I leave and come back, I want to continue listening to what was just on, more like a CD.
(2) it tends to freeze A LOT when importing music and syncing. I have had to push the restart button at least 50% of the time I am loading new content. It doesn't get rid of anything when it has to be restarted, but it's a pain to have it constantly freeze and then have to restart it.
Because of these two issues, I am not sure if I would recommend the Zen to anyone.
I have now had the Zen for a year and a half. I still don't really like it. Here are the additional pluses and minuses (none of my original pros and cons have changed)
pro:
(1) you can change the wallpaper to whatever you want -- nice customization
(2) good size - have never had any problems carrying it or pushing the buttons
(3) has a real radio -- not streaming.
cons:
(1) VERY difficult to import music on to it. It will put everything on there whether it's already on there or not...so I end up with TONS of duplicates. I have solved this by backing it up, completely erasing it, then going through my music list and re-syncing EVERYTHING back on to it. It's a real pain.
(2) The software it comes with to sync sucks. And I have found no software that will allow you to update files while ON the player. Again, I end up taking it all off and putting it ALL onto my computer, fixing the tracks or updating them, then reloading everything back on. I have found only Media Monkey to work the best...but I still can't really do anything with the tracks that are actually on the player.
(3) Battery life is awful. When you turn it off it really doesn't turn off for a while -- it's like hibernating, so it's sucking energy even when you're not using it
(4) When the battery is drained, it's impossible to charge it in the car.
(5) Also when the battery is drained, sometimes I have to reset it to get it to even charge.
(6) If a track does not have an album, it will not play and don't show up on the song list. So those songs you don't know what album they came from - -- you need to make up an album or you'll never find it on the Zen.
(7) The way it stores album art is weird. I will have it all good on my computer, transfer it, then on the Zen it's something completely different. I have yet to figure out why it does that. But in order to change the album art, you have to do it when the song is on the computer, as - again - I have yet to find a program that will let you do it while the song is on the Zen.
Digital camera Review: A little ZEN gem!
Summary: 5 Stars
I received my 8GB Zen Media Player about an hour ago. I immediately connected it to my computer and got on the Internet. I did N-O-T use the CD provided. My one-year-old Dell PC runs Vista. I went into my OverDrive program and synced an audiobook I have there. I then went into my Amazon Unbox program and synced a few videos from there. Finally, I went into my Windows Media Player 11 and synced over some music and old-time radio plays. When I went into the Zen, I found all of them. I also found some free audiobook excerpts from Audible and some free music. Now, I will be able to manage the ZEN's contents thru the Windows Media Player, etc. I plan to use an SD card to store videos in the future. I am glad that the "buttons" on this player are harder to push than the ones on my three-year-old ZEN Micro. Those cause changes if you just breathe on them! The new ZEN does require two-handed operation, however (one hand works for my iPod Nano, ZEN Micro, and Kindle).
I still have the new ZEN connected to my computer to finish the charging process (it was a little over 50% charged when I received it). I registered this player at the Creative Internet site. I also checked to see if I have the latest firmware. I do. I should have checked the firmware at the beginning, however!
My experiences in a nutshell:
Creative devices: B+
Creative CD software: D-
It is now January of 09. I am still a happy
ZEN-owning retiree.
Audiobooks are delightful mind candy!!
Digital camera Review: A little buggy.... but I not enough to chuck it.
Summary: 3 Stars
I have had this player for almost a year. This is my second one as my first one would not work properly adding music and was replaced by Creative... not a great start.
For playing music, it works great. It has great sound and shuffles nicely. It also is nicely sized and the big screen is great. Video playback is good too, but I rarely use it for that.
Now for the "bugs"
-I have to do a hard reset a LEAST a couple times a week when it won't turn on, or turns on and I get a white screen. the hard reset is a HUGE nuisance because it is SO TINY that only an earring or pin will fit in there, and I don't wear earrings.
-Sometimes when you do a search by album or artist, it will say "No tracks in this category" ...but you know that there ARE tracks in that category and if you go into "all tracks," they are indeed there.
-Only works with wma... not mp3 so you have to covert everything. this is a HUGE nuisance for me because I use and LOVE Rhapsody-to-go and many of their stuff is now in mp3 format for the ipod people and now I have to download everything to my computer and then use the creative software to convert and put it onto the player, rather than just drag music onto the player with rhapsody like my daughter does with speed and ease with her Samsung t10.
If pressed, I don't think I would get this one again (I think I would get a Samsung t10 as it has never had even had 1 issue and works fantastic with Rhapsody), but I imagine that ALL mp3 players have SOME issues, so I'm happy with this one since I know the issues it has and how to work around them.