Zen V Plus 8GB Black/red Carry Music Video Clips & Photos Eng/fr by Creative
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List Price: Category: Network Media Player See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Zen V Plus 8GB Black/red Carry Music Video Clips & Photos Eng/fr
Digital camera Review: I Love It!
Summary: 4 Stars
I liked my Zen Plus 4G so much that I decided to get my daughter the 8G for her birthday. I'm very happy with this product. I've had several mp3 players and this is the best yet.Digital camera Review: Outstanding portable recorder... with one major flaw.
Summary: 4 Stars
If you have old tapes and records you would like to be able to archive, put into your computer or other MP3 player, and/or burn CD copies of, this is the the portable media player/ recorder for you...but it has one MAJOR flaw*
A line in jack (odd 2.5mm, but adaptable) is a very rare thing on a portable media player/ recorder, and this has one...add to that it's VU meters and it's close to perfect for making digital copies of any audio source including your old analog recordings. That's right it actually has a line in jack AND VU meters..how sweet is that? With an adapter ( Audio Adapter - Rca - Mini-phone Stereo 3.5 Mm (m) ) you can jack it right in to your stereo system..with the included 2.5mm to 3.5mm cable you can jack into anything with a standard stereo 3.5mm headphone/ output jack.
Recoding is encoded at 128 or 160Kbps WMA..ok so it.s not high end top notch audio, but it's just fine for cassettes,LPs, 45s, radio, and yes even your old 8-track cartridges. 320 Kbps would have been better, but 160 is adequate.
It also has a built in mono microphone that makes decent sounding recordings.
..and yes it'll play your audio and video files, and display pictures too... just like everything else, bla, bla ,bla. Nothing new there.
Audio output is not very loud, but it does have a real user adjustable five band equalizer.
Battery life is about 9-12 hrs...Uh... battery..battery...WHERE'S THE BATTERY?
* THE BATTERY IS NOT USER REPLACEABLE. IMHO that's inexcusable. When it goes dead on you and you're away from home you're sunk. Likewise when it'll no longer hold a charge. The only way to replace the battery is to literally pry the case apart or have it replaced by a technician!
As a recorder I'd give it an 8/10.
As a portable media player I'd give it 2/10 because of the battery issue alone...where it not for that I'd say 7/10.. sounds good for what it is, but I wish it had more output power.
Digital camera Review: Pleasantly Surprised
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this as a replacement for my trusty Rio Carbon(s) which died for the 2nd time (not sure if you can even get refurbs anymore). I basically use the player for International travel and in the car for podcasts so it is not in constant use but I would guess it is getting used about 20 hours a month.
The capacity is about right for my usage and its solid state so you don't have the stability issues as I did with the disk based carbon. So far I've had a lot of little pleasant surprises like the lanyard that allows me to hang this around my neck and listen to it while sleeping on the plane. Another pleasant surprise was that the software seems to work with the IE proxy settings so I can download news at work through the firewall when I'm overseas which I really enjoy. Its also nice and small which makes it convenient for travel, outdoor walks, etc.
The screen is big enough to watch an episode of nightly news but I wouldn't plan on much more than that. Its hard to hold in place for a long period (because of the small size) and the video quality at this screen size is so so. The audio quality is good but I confess that I'm not really an audiophile.
I was also pleasantly surprised that the software was pretty good. I've lived through more than a few creative sound blaster driver disasters so I was worried about this. It actually works well. It is kind of clumsy in the windows vs itunes-monolith way but there's really only two programs that you end up using (an explorer extension and a podcast client). The podcast is a big improvement over public domain software like ipodder in that it takes care of some of the tagging inconsistencies that used to drive me crazy on the Rio. The pod/vidcasts will always end up in the same place on the player menu so you can find them. The only complaint that I have so far is the way the UI triggers video conversion is really poorly handled (but it does work).
Finally the biggest downside is the documentation. Its basically useless. I will probably be spending the next few months discovering the features on my own.
All in all I am very happy with this player. It is easily exceeding my expectations and the best part is that I didn't have to join the Apple fanboys club to have a quality MP3 player!
Digital camera Review: Pretty good product
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall this is a nice piece of equipment. Its small durable and holds a lot of tunes for its size. Easy to use, easy to figure out and the software is easy to install. Apologize apparently easy is the only word I know for the moment to describe but hey its simple and to the point. The bad thing I would say is that it cost almost as much as a 30 Gig. But hey its small durable and can still hold a nice amount of tunes...GOOD BUYDigital camera Review: Quite Nice!
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had this thing for a few days, and so far I rather like it. It isn't perfect, of course. My main issue is that it won't automatically sort by only artist (you have to then go through album), or by folder. But using playlists pretty much fixes that. Also, I haven't been able to make any videos convert to its format yet, they're always stopped by some sort of error.
Otherwise this is a great little music player. It has a couple distinct advantages over the iPod (my previous mp3 player). First, you don't need ANY software at all to use it. With Windows XP it just installs itself once you plug it in, and you can drag and drop mp3 files to it with Windows Explorer. The software that comes with it is useful to make playlists and convert videos, but it isn't necessary to play mp3s.
Also, the joystick is nice. I find the iPod's touchpad very annoying, because it's so easy to accidentally touch (normally this suddenly raises the volume) that you ALWAYS need to keep the player on locked mode. This means that when you want to change a song you can't just reach into your pocket and push a button; you have to unlock, then carefully push forward without accidentally changing the volume (usually this involves having to take it out of the pocket), then lock again. Very annoying. The joystick on the Zen V Plus is a much better idea for a portable device. The joystick and buttons aren't too easily pushed, so lock mode is usually unnecessary.
Also, this player has a sound recorder with built-in mic, and an FM radio! Very nice.
The menus of this player are very easy to navigate, and (unlike a few players) it has buttons for volume so you don't need to go through menus to change it. It also has alot of storage space for the price.
In any case, having owned several different mp3 players (iPod, Sansa and BenQ), this is my favourite so far!