Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB MP3 Player (Blue) by Creative
|
Our Price: $199.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Network Media Player See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB MP3 Player (Blue)
Digital camera Review: Extraordinary Buy!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this MP3 player! I have had this jewel for 4 months. The sound is terrific for such a small device. Even the included earbuds are great. One problem I have with earbuds is they are usually too big my ears... so I went to the local hearing aid store and had some custom earmolds made that fit onto the buds --now the sound is really terrific because it is going directly into my ear without any background noise. And since the molds fit into my ear canals, the buds will never "fall" out; if I ever have to replace the earbuds, the customs come off and will go onto the new ones easily (most earbuds are about the same size). Storage? --1GB is perfect size! You can store a ton of music on this baby--it takes forever to listen to it all! I have 35 Christmas CDs--loaded them all and still had room for more. Christmas is over, with drag and drop, exchanging genre was a snap! Bought each of my teenagers one for Christmas and they are thrilled! Love the replaceable batteries. Recharging is great if you are near a recharger when the batts go out--but that's not a problem with this jewel. (Who needs iPod with all of its proprietary issues!) I don't think it will, but even if it has to be replaced in a couple of years for whatever reason, I didn't spend a fortune to begin with, so it was money well spent. I would definitely buy another one. Creative has always made good products, so I am really glad I got this one. But first and foremost--the sound is awesome!! [...]Digital camera Review: Extremely useful and good place to start
Summary: 5 Stars
I use my Nano to listen while riding the public transit. It's perfect! I did not get it for the radio but I have used it once and it's not bad either. I love the fact that it uses AAA batteries that are widely available. This is a great little player and I'm thinking of getting another for my wife.Digital camera Review: Fantastic MP3 player
Summary: 5 Stars
After buying the defective San Disk Sansa MP3 player we decided to give this mp3 player a try and it's GREAT! so far it's easy to use and we haven't run into ANY problems.Digital camera Review: Far exceeds expectations for the price
Summary: 4 Stars
I have three of these and have used them heavily for at least three or four years. I use one for listening to music while running 10-15 hours a week, one for listening to podcasts while walking to work, walking dogs, or doing errands, and one for listening to music in bed. I've dropped them countless times, used them in rain, and had tree branches fling them from my hand, and they still work (ok, one has finally developed a short and sometimes switches off, but this is to be expected of a small, electronic device that gets hard use for a couple of years). I do keep them in the little rubber protective cases that come with them to give them extra bounce when you drop them on concrete.
Using the unit an hour or more a day, a rechargeable AAA battery will last most of a week. (Rechargeable batteries last 5-10 years.) Unlike players with a built-in battery, you don't have to stop using the player in order to plug it in when the battery dies; all you need is a spare battery. I do not think I would consider buying an MP3 player with a built-in battery.
You can transfer the files using Windows Explorer. You cannot create playlists but can create file folders that act as playlists. The player allows you to skip or repeat folders. It plays your folders & files within them in alphabetical order or, if you wish, in random order. This is much simpler than messing around with playlists. I never installed any special software. I have never experienced any bugginess or system hangups when working with Windows. You can use the player as a flash drive to simply transfer any type of files between computers. I'm very happy to be able to simply copy files without being forced to use some crappy software. If you are particular about the order in which tracks play, you may have to rename the files. My MP3 filenames usually start with the track number, so within an album folder, they play in the original order. I put podcast files in numbered folders so they play in order by date.
The unit sounds great and has enough power. I've used them extensively with Shure E3cs, which are not the most efficient phones, and they sound fantastic. You should throw away the headphones that come with the player and get something better (not necessarily something as expensive as the Shures--most of the time I have used Sony sport headphones).
The FM tuner is barely adequate, not strong enough if you don't have a good signal. I didn't use it in the suburbs because I couldn't get the NPR or classical stations clearly enough. Now that I live in a city, I use the tuner more regularly and it is fine. There are 30 presets.
The controls are small and limited--you have to do a lot of awkward scrolling to move between functions such as the radio and MP3s. The display is small. I can't use it anymore without reading glasses. I don't use the lock, for instance, because it's too inconvenient to navigate to and from. The player is easy enough to pause if you're listening to MP3s but if you're listening to the radio and someone starts talking to you, you simply have to pull out your earphones because you can't mute the player or quickly turn it off.
The player has a digital recorder. It would make a very small voice recorder but probably not very convenient because the controls are limited. I haven't used it seriously. You can also record from the FM tuner but it's not worth it because it sounds terrible, even at the highest MP3 encoding resolution. You could make much better recordings using from an input to your computer. Someone said they lost this function with a firmware update, but I don't think it's a loss considering the poor recording quality.
When I listen to podcasts, I'm always backing up to hear the part I missed when I started worrying about how many work assignments I'm late on or walked in front of a car. You can change a default setting so that it plays audibly while reversing, and it speeds up as you hold up the button so that you can move quite quickly through an hour-length track. The one negative is that once you end a track, you can't reverse from the end of the track but have to go back to the beginning and then fast forward, which is annoying if you missed only the last minute of an hour program.
I use fairly high quality MP3s that average at least 160 kbs and can get at least ten albums worth into the player. This is a great price for a one-gig player that is durable, versatile, and small.
Digital camera Review: Far superior to iPod
Summary: 5 Stars
In terms of functionality, battery flexibility and reliability, and the freedom to use without spyware type aplications ..ahem, iTunes, nothing is better. Zen Nano is the best bang for your buck