Creative Zen X-Fi 32 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver) by Creative
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Digital camera reviews of Creative Zen X-Fi 32 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver)
Digital camera Review: Decent price & well constructed but needs interface/software improvements
Summary: 3 Stars
I've had several months to play with this unit and I use it daily. I was pleased initially with it's construction quality and I really the external speaker. I had purchased a 4G Zen only months earlier and decided to upgrade to the X-Fi for it's capacity and extras.
The build of unit is very nice, I haven't used a screen protector and it seems quite resistant to scratching as I have no marks on my faceplate yet. I use a small Nintendo gameboy sock like cover to put this in. The speaker has allowed me to easily share crazy videos from the internet with others that I'm always talking about. This is so much easier than having to plug in external speakers. There's never any distortion even when maxed out or the clip is very loud.
Well, the extras aren't very usable. I don't have home wi-fi so I haven't experimented with accessing content on my computer. I tried the chat and it is completely unusable at this time due to the cumbersome way you have to enter text. With 13 buttons on the face, there should be an easier way to handle chat. I can't really give a decent opinion on the X-Fi audio enhancement since I listen to a lot of non-music content and I'm not an audiophile anyway. I don't really notice the difference either way. Maybe if I ran the effects through my stereo I'd be more impressed with the X-Fi 3D enhancement.
Early on hard resets were common with it freezing but firmware upgrades have eliminated that annoyance. I still have occasionally problems where the Zen plays my SD data weird, won't list all the files or claims there is no SD card. I've found that ejecting the card and re-inserting it solves the trouble. It often seems to coincide with my car's A/C being on so there may be some temperature conflicts going on that make the contacts of the SD card poor at times.
I've only recently begun finding the interesting world of podcasts. I had been trying to find a way to play podcasts on the Zen X-Fi easily. Mp3 podcasts have to loaded into the Zen music folder to play. This of course means it mixed in with your music shuffle. That's no good. I had been simply playing podcasts off an SD card on both my old and new Zen. But if you back out for any reason to change brightness or turn the device off, you lose your place in the track unlike when it's playing from the Zen library. If it's on the device, it resumes where you left off and in the case of music, it keeps playing while you roam the menus. The use of the marketing term Zencast wasn't obvious to me that this is how Creative handled podcasts. I didn't install the software until several weeks ago. The Zencast store and software just sounded like another proprietary way to sell me stuff by the item or month. I now have it monitoring and downloading my favorite podcasts since it will take the xml file from anywhere. But it doesn't have a way to handle mp3 podcasts you may already have on your computer. If you let Zencast transfer the podcasts as audio only, it dumps the files into your music folder on the Zen causing the shuffle problems I noted above. It also can load the podcasts as video files onto your Zen as avi files that are simply slide shows of the podcast picture, it's description or topics and some nice backgrounds graphics. I like the video slide show especially where there are specific notes in the podcasts but there are no shortcuts available to turn off the screen for video podcasts. It would be nice to have more battery time by shutting off the screen of having a timeout available.
The battery time seems generous depending on the brightness levels. I have a job that has me in my car all night and I turn the video podcasts brightness down to 20 or 30 percent. I'm not watching it, I just need to be able to see if I paused it correctly or where the seek bar has gone. I frequently pause the playback until I return to my car and rarely run out of juice during a 7+ hour shift. When I crank it up to 70 percent or above to show people video clips, battery time starts to run out within several hours.
The Zen software will convert various video clips into a format that is compatible with the Zen X-Fi. And although it's fast, it doesn't handle popular flv clips that are common on YouTube or many many other video sites. Creative is also very elusive as to what formats and settings you could convert your clips to and simply drag onto the Zen without using the transfer software. The transfer software is quick in conversion but very sluggish in scanning folders for clips and not very intuitive for how to get the media from your hard drive onto your Zen. I've settled on converting my clips into Xvid format since the Zen can handle them without conversion.
The unit could also use some navigation improvement. I would appreciate being able to skip at programmable levels, say 1,3 or 5 minutes. Holding the seek button takes some time before it goes into fast skip and then it's hard to keep it from going too far.
Overall, improvements could be done through software and firmware upgrades but since the same quibbles have existed for some time among different Zens, I won't hold my breath.
I do think I've paid a reasonable price for the capacity and abilities on the Zen X-Fi. I am pleased overall with the X-Fi and can only hope that they hire some interface genius and get some of those Nokia like phone tricks built into their Zen software/firmware.
Digital camera Review: Delighted Buyer
Summary: 4 Stars
Zen X-Fi mp3 player is the cat's meow. It works!!! If sync problems occur, it easily recovers by punching the reset button (other players I had did not have a reset). The battery life is extreamly long between charges. It has the ability to add more capacity using SDHC flash memory (functional external memory interface, but could be vastly improved). I do not use the Creative software. I have been using the Windows Media Player.
Some have complained about the nine button cluster used to navigate the menus. I found it to be confusing at first. But after working with it a short while, it became second nature to work the buttons to achieve desired results.
If music quality (execellent), small size, and player functionality are the most important to you, consider this player. I was disappointed by another brand twice (had to return them to Amazon). I am delighted with this purchase and recommend the leather carry case as a must have item.
Digital camera Review: Dont buy anything Creative, until you read this
Summary: 1 Stars
I have mostly great things to say about creative's MP3 players. I have 2 and am completely satisfied with both.
HOWEVER:
Because of the poor support from the company I can't recommend them to any one. You may think that this wouldn't matter much to you...read on. I bought a $250 Creative Zen player. I loved it and still do, so when my battery stopped charging, I didnt want to scrap it. I had used it almost every day and I was happy at the lifespan of the battery. So I contacted creative to have my battery replaced since the user cannot do so. To my surprise Creative told me that I should get a new player because the cost (which they never revealed to me) is the same as buying a new player. I exclaimed that Creative was no longer making 60GB players and I really just wanted my battery changed. They offered me a link to their refurbished products page. I did some quick research and found that Apple still supports even 1st generation Ipods. So I sent this to them, with no response.
Bottom line:
Creative just doesn't care about it's customers, just the bottom line. So I can imagine if a creative player had some hardware issue or malfunction, and you had to contact customer support, you may just get the sales team again instead. I won't tell you what to buy, just to look else where.
Digital camera Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
A pure, powerful, easy to use mp3 player. I'm not interested in surfing the web, playing a game, taking a photograph, etc, with one device. In otherwords, if you are not interested in a 'jack of all trades, master of none' type of mp3 player, but prefer to have a top-notch mp3 player in addition to your top notch devices, this is the one to have.Digital camera Review: Excellent player, but no fifth star until they bring back analog interface
Summary: 4 Stars
First, an introduction: Recently I've owned and used and liked an iPod 4th gen 80gb, zune 80, iPod 5th gen 80gb, creative zen vision: m 30gb AND 60gb versions (the holy grail to so many mp3 player fans), and I am a power user with a music library of 35gb, all tagged using the free Media Monkey software. I know what I'm talking about. (If you're curious, the two ipods were returned, the ZVM30 was given to my cousin when I got the 60, the ZVM60 was destroyed in iraq and so was the Zune80)
Looks extremely sexy, definitely on the iPod and Zune level of sexiness.
It's ridiculously lightweight and weighs just a bit more than a nano and about half as much as a harddrive bearing zune or ipod.
Video transfer/conversion does not apply to me, so I will not be reviewing it.
IM chat gimmick is worthless, move along.
wifi connect works and is easy to set up, but there is no link to shoutcast or icecast directories. Instead, creative "media box" will show up with internet access, but has a very limited selection of podcast streams, and almost no streaming music.
Streaming music from a local wireless network is very cool, but chews up the otherwise good battery life, limiting its usefulness.
SD card support is hardly seamless, and has a limited set of browsing functions, but this may be nitpicking as most players don't bother to include ANY expandable memory.
x-fi sounds "different" but not unanimously "better", and uses more battery, not really a selling feature then
The headphones are awesome and while they're compared as worse than the zune 80's included headphones, the zen's fit more comfortably (to me) and sound just as good.
The built in speaker is very cool and sounds surprisingly good for its size, there is never any distortion even at maximum volume (distortion is what makes speakerphones and other bad+loud audio sources sound so horrible). It is perfect for showing a song to a friend or friends or playing a little background music in a quiet room.
No line out, but using the headphone jack at full volume sounds just fine on my car stereo and home stereo, with no distortion.
Software:
A lot of people complain about the Creative software but you really never need to use it except for video transfer. I use Media Monkey to sync my music and it works flawlessly. Everyone has Windows Media Player and that syncs just fine with the player. It's an MTP device and that means that a lot of different programs can sync with it. So except for video issues, you really have no reason in the world to complain about the creative software.
Buttons:
The nine button grid is 4 directions and a center "select" button, and on many menus and lists the diagonal four buttons act as home/end and pageup/down, but on many screens they are useless. If they were customizable they could be very powerful! Faster seeking, view toggles, many possibilities, if they were customizable. Firmware update maybe?
I have long fingers and big hands and the player is comfortable to hold, but the buttons are small and indistinct, you have to concentrate a little to be sure you press the correct one if you are fishing for the next/prev track or the volume up/down buttons in your pocket. The pause button is unmissable though, and that is most important.
The zen vision:m's vertical slider with side to side rocking and touchpad tap for select was really perfect for an audio player, and I find myself missing it a lot (but I don't miss that player's poor battery life, large size or ogreish looks)
A disappointment: On no screen are the grid buttons used to refer to a specific function on a grid on the screen (which would have opened some very quick and intuitive menu options), they are ALWAYS arrow buttons with a center select, and sometimes other use diagonal buttons.
Creative have dropped the ball a little by adding four new buttons and not using them to their full potential. The most notable example is that the IM chat function could have used a cell-phone style text entry, but instead uses a very obtuse method that keeps the buttons as arrow keys. Once you've moved past the chat function and removed it from the main menu, you'll then notice that on the 'now playing' screen, the most common and important screen, the four diagonal buttons don't do anything at all. :(
The customizable shortcut button is still here and still awesome, easily settable by simply holding it down. It comes preset to the x-fi settings screen, which should have been integrated into the EQ screen anyway. Mine is set to jump to 'now playing', perfect for changing volume or next/prev track quickly from any menu, and then you can press back to return to wherever you were.
The menu button (or "right click" button as I call it) shows the list of options for most screens, but the list sometimes runs off the top and bottom by just a few lines and could have been scaled down to fit them all. Would have been nice to enable the 'diagonal' buttons to be shortcuts for some of the common menu items, while the menu is open.
The Interface (the most important part of any mp3 player):
It may sound like I'm pointing out a lot of flaws in the device's usability, but let me assure you it really is fantastic to use. The device interface is the same as the venerable ZVM, and is powerful, attractive, and simple. The 'right click' menus offer a lot of functionality while being intuitive to any computer user; rather than hide a cluttered pile of settings in the main menu settings screen, many settings are accessed from the screen they're related to. I'm a big fan of the ZVM interface and am glad they didn't change it. On the Zen the graphics have been given quite a boost since the ZVM days, and the gui really is pretty.
Useful things the Zen players do that ipod and zune do NOT under any circumstances support:
- [zune] sync with 3rd party software
- 'now playing' playlist access
- creation/saving of playlists on the fly
- ability to add a track to the 'now playing' list allows you to build a playlist and not interrupt currently playing track, great for playing music for others
- bookmark track positions (great for podcasts, audiobooks, long music mixes)
- switch between view of albums, artists, or track in the music menus
- rearrange items when you customize the main menu
- "dj" menu with options like "play popular" and "play highly rated"
- delete actual tracks from within the player
- record voice
- hide photos/video easily, obviously to hide porn when showing off your player to your mom
- actual usb port, no proprietary connector
- built in speaker
- wifi network access
I see this player is squaring off against the ipod and zune, and is already going above and beyond them both, feature by feature.
PS:
Nitpicks:
- no rapid way to seek in a track
- no "go to album" or "go to genre" for a track, only "go to artist"
- pageup/down buttons stop working when you move "right" to the list of letter shortcuts on a long list, and they don't work on the 'right click' menu
- speaker should have been put on the left side, your hand ends up covering it up sometimes, when you hold it right handedly