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Creative Zen (4 GB)

Creative Zen (4 GB)

Rohan Naravane, Jan 23, 2008 1609 hrs IST

This will probably make you think again about the Nano!

A well-sized, good quality screen, A fast and visually appealing User Interface, Speedy data transfers, Extras like Voice Recorder, FM Radio and an SD Card slot, Good battery life, Good media management software.

Bundled ear-phones could have been better.

Ever since the iPod mini and the successive Nano player arrived in the market, many manufacturers were determined to defeat this digital audio device - either by emulating its abilities, or by bringing innovativeness to their own products, or both. Touted as "iPod killers", these players did create a fierce competition for Apple's flagship product, but none of them managed to overthrow Apple from its throne. These were the thoughts that ran through my mind when the Creative Zen made its way into the test labs. It looked pretty neat on paper, but is it "the" media player that will end the iPod reign, I thought? Let us find out

Bundle - Creative ZEN - Ear-phone - USB 2.0 cable - Quick Start Leaflets - Installation CD

<__PAGETITLE__About__/PAGETITLE__> Specifications Sheet

<__PAGETITLE__Specifications Sheet__/PAGETITLE__> Design and Construction The Creative Zen comes in just one (although elegant) color, Black. The player is pretty catchy in appearance. The Zen is also popularly known as the "Credit Card" player because its footprint exactly matches that of a standard-sized credit card.

Even though it does not match the super-slimness of the iPod Nano, it's pretty thin. In fact, I liked the ergonomics of this player better than many others. It'll be quite comfortable to take this player with you for a jog.

Front: Almost 70-percent of its front is covered by the sufficiently large LCD screen. Its screen is just half inches larger than the iPod Nano (it's comparable to the iPod Classic screen size). The screen portrays text and video pretty clearly. The colors are also displayed quite vividly. It's sufficiently bright too. The 5-way navigation keys and 4 other function keys are located next to the screen. The front is covered by a transparent plastic surface (found on many devices these days) which is prone to fingerprints.

Bottom: The bottom right corner has the reset hole, in order to restart the player in an event the Operating System hangs.

Right side: Here lies the mini-USB port, the on-off/hold switch, and a standard 3.5mm ear-phone jack.

Top: The top comprises of the SD card slot and the microphone grille located next to it.

The card slot can be used to bump-up the storage capacity of the player or to view existing media on the card. A host of SD and SDHC cards are supported by the player (the highest till date being 8 GB). microSD and miniSD cards can also be used in conjunction with their respective adapters.

<__PAGETITLE__Design and Construction__/PAGETITLE__> Back: The back of the player sports a circular groove with the model name written over it and the internal capacity printed below.

The overall construction of the Creative Zen is sturdy. The player could sustain a couple of drops before it succumbs to the abuse. The buttons aren't exactly feather-touch types, but they're pretty tactile to navigate around with. I somewhat missed the touch-scrolling mechanism which let me zoom through a long list of songs, but I did manage to make less accidental maneuvers with traditional buttons than I did with the touch-based solutions. Like the iPod Nano, I somewhat missed a dedicated set of volume buttons on this one too. But thankfully, the shortcut menu lets you change volume in just 2 clicks, irrespective of wherever you are (in the User Interface, I mean). <__PAGETITLE__Design and Construction (Contd.)__/PAGETITLE__> User Interface The Creative Zen uses a patented User Interface; which claims to offer users with a visually stunning experience. And stunning it was! The UI is very catchy in appearance and snappy in its operation. It's quite simple to use; I got the hang of it within a few minutes. It handles the media pretty well. For e.g. high-resolution photos don't take time to load under the full-screen mode. Songs are categorized neatly. It supports displaying album art (if available). It also includes a basic organizer where one can view the calendar or even sync tasks and contacts from the Creative Sync Manager software. With respect to sound shaping, it has 8 preset equalization settings and an option for a custom setting too. Now the specifications of the Zen claim that it can mostly play DivX and XviD files. But during my testing, I found that it does support those formats only if they are encoded up to a certain resolution. And since most of the movie rips that we get are encoded at a higher resolution, they couldn't be played on the Zen directly without any transcoding. Thus, you'll need to convert most of your video files before using them with this player (this is the case with most portable media players in the market). <__PAGETITLE__UI__/PAGETITLE__> Bundled Software Unlike Apple's compulsion to use the iTunes software to transfer media, the Creative Zen supports the usual drag-n-drop method as well as via its own media management software. Called the "Zen Media Explorer", this nifty application integrates itself into Windows Explorer.

It has a streamlined interface. It can be used to add and browse through media, create play-lists, synchronize Microsoft Outlook's organizer data on to the player, Rip Audio CDs, and to convert and optimize any video to be played through the Zen player. The video converter is pretty simple to use as well. It took almost 40 minutes to convert a 350 MB video file into Zen's native WMV format under the best video quality mode. Thus, if one calculates, it will take well over an hour to convert a normal 700 MB DVD movie rip. It might take a little less time to convert under standard quality mode. But still, I found the conversion time to be a bit too long. <__PAGETITLE__Bundled Software__/PAGETITLE__> Performance Audio The audio quality was close to good; I believe that the bundled ear-phones were at fault.

This is surprising for a company that manufactures one of the better sounding ear-phones around, the EP 630. When I used the Zen with different sets of ear-phones, I did manage to get a better output. I can say that by using better quality ear-phones, one can easily get an audio quality comparable to the iPod Nano, if not better. Bottom line: It could have been better, if the stock ear-phones were replaced with good quality ones. Video The video quality was good too. The videos played pretty smoothly and with good clarity. I can thus comfortably state that this device can be used to watch videos, TV shows, or even movies on it. Comparatively speaking, I'm inclined to say that the iPod Nano's video quality was a wee bit better. My analysis is that although Zen's WMV video format is better than iPod's MP4 format, the Zen has a QVGA resolution in a bigger 2.5 inch display. While the Nano packs the same QVGA resolution in a smaller 2.0 inch display - thus giving out slightly better quality. Data Transfers: The Creative Zen acts as a USB Mass Storage Device. And with the SD card slot, it can even perform the duties of an SD card reader.

Data transfers are handled via the speedy, popular USB 2.0 interface. In my tests, I was able to copy 1.70 GB of video files in 5 and a half minutes. With respect to smaller audio files worth 536 MB, they got copied in a little over 3 minutes. Thus, I can conclude that overall, the Creative Zen's data transfer speeds were pretty good. Comparing it to the Nano, the speeds were a little bit better. <__PAGETITLE__Performance: Audio, Video__/PAGETITLE__> Battery Life I was pretty impressed with the battery life of this player as well. In my testing period, I watched almost 2 hours worth videos on it and listened to music for almost 4 hours, still the battery wasn't ready to give up! Conclusion The Creative Zen is selling for a street price of Rs. 8000 for the 4 GB version. The 8 GB version costs 11,000 bucks. It's definitely not a value-for-money item, but on the other hand, it's not overpriced as well. Comparatively speaking, the iPod Nano 4 GB sells for around Rs. 6500, but the Creative Zen has many advantages over the Nano. Sure it's a bit more expensive than the Nano, but all these advantages are worth the extra 1500 bucks. The Creative Zen is a very capable portable media player. Audiophiles should discard the bundled ear-phones and invest in a pair of good ones. Otherwise I'd definitely give it a thumbs up! Test Unit sourced from: Pink & White Consulting <__PAGETITLE__Battery, Conclusion__/PAGETITLE__>

  
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USER COMMENTS

Great for the price, I've got an 8gb zen with a 16gb memory card and i've got to say that I love it. I find it far less intrusive than an ipod (i-tunes is a load of ball bag). My only dislikes are that it can crash quite often (not much of a problem since you can just press reset without losing any information). Oh, and NEVER try and connect it to your hi-fi while its being connected to a charger otherwise it'l break (had to learn the hard way but bought another one soon as)

by sital singh, kolkatta, on Oct 06, 2009 01:50 PM, Report abuse   Reply

HI guys I believe the creative Zen have droped prices now 8GB version is cheaper than nano 4gb..so that makes a g8 buys..

by anant, bangalore, on Apr 21, 2008 03:17 PM, Report abuse   Reply

plz tell me the creative showroom in bangore so that i could get one..

by rahul singh, chennai, on Sep 24, 2009 12:23 PM, Report abuse

where can i get one in chennai...plz reply

by rahul singh, chennai, on Sep 24, 2009 12:20 PM, Report abuse   Reply

i m using it.....i also use ipod classic 120gb.....but zen is better than ipod....storage capacity can b more better....!!! 5/5 STARS FROM ME!

by Vijay Chaudhary, New Delhi, on Feb 20, 2009 04:48 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Can we see the video files or hear audio files stored on SD/SDHC card directly? What is the battery life? What is the price in Delhi?

by Ashutosh Vidyar, Bangalore, on May 31, 2009 10:05 PM, Report abuse

wow i like dz hw cn i compare this with da ipod

by yasas munasingh, colombo, on May 04, 2009 11:44 AM, Report abuse   Reply

what is the price of creative zen 4 gb in mumbai or thane plz help me...

by GAURAV, THANE, on May 02, 2009 03:21 AM, Report abuse   Reply

does any1 know where to buy it in guwahati

by Rohan, guwahati, on Dec 29, 2008 02:16 PM, Report abuse   Reply

i bought creative zen 4gb frm alfa mumbai fr Rs 4950 (no warranty). i have scanned thru the features and am quite happy with my purchase.

by deepak, mumbai, on Feb 03, 2008 03:48 PM, Report abuse   Reply

i bought it frm alfa @5300 in december withoput bill, no probs yet and am really happy with my ZEN

by dipen, mumbai, on Feb 24, 2008 02:13 PM, Report abuse

please give me the address & ph no of alfa mumbai

by arif, kottayam kerala, on Aug 13, 2008 01:23 PM, Report abuse

nice review..looking forward to buy one of these...but i need to know whether we can read ebooks in this

by Balaji, Trivandrum, on May 27, 2008 11:24 AM, Report abuse   Reply

guys....go for the COWON D2..!!!! the 50 hrs battery life, screen reso and touch screen, A-V quality, file formats, earphones.....plus i think theyve dropped the prices too...i gt mine from Croma abt 2 weeks back fr abt 11k..n im loving it baby!!!

by rohit, bombay, on Jan 24, 2008 12:31 PM, Report abuse   Reply

which 1s better frm diis 2---- ipod nano or creative zen

by adnan, mumbai, on Apr 02, 2008 05:38 PM, Report abuse

hii can u guys help me . i wanted 2 buy a portable player but im really confused which 1 to buy ipod nano or creative zen

by adnan, mumbai, on Mar 31, 2008 04:14 PM, Report abuse   Reply

review is just fine..........i do agree with it 1 of the cons 1 found out is.not normal charger.that is an ac . adpater charger i know we all have pcs n all but hey if im out on a trip for treking or something, then how's im gonna recharege the damm thing????? yes i can buy it seprately, but that is not the point, creative should have provided it as a stock option!!!

by rishabh, delhi, on Mar 22, 2008 02:47 AM, Report abuse   Reply

Also, the USB cable bundled is a rather short one. Of course, any other USB cable can be used, but why to give a short one in package? Also, External SD card is treated as different device. It does not get integrated with the library. May be Creative can come up with a firmware which has a function where one can integrate data on SD card with player's library... I bought this player a mnth back and its performing awesome. Agreed, bundled headphones r not good. I bought myself a new pair and then i understood the power of the player. Video is awesome. 4.5/5.

by Sandeep Kulkarn, Pune, on Mar 12, 2008 11:53 AM, Report abuse   Reply

Cons: Bundled ear-phones could have been better?? The bundle DOES contain a ear-phone set! Get real guys. Moderate!

by bidhan, Pune, on Jan 24, 2008 04:38 PM, Report abuse   Reply

Mr. Dumb Bidhan, the statment is abour quality. pls. learn to read the bidhan correctoly

by halla-bol, bomb-a-bay, on Feb 03, 2008 09:32 PM, Report abuse

This Product is available with COMPUTERWALA M-22 Hemkunt chambers, 89 Nehru Place, New Delhi -19 Ph. 9313353614, 9971779505

by HEENA, New Delhi, on Jan 25, 2008 08:43 PM, Report abuse   Reply

This player is available for RS 6500 on online shopping sites

by Prateek, Jabalpur, on Jan 24, 2008 12:30 AM, Report abuse   Reply

which shopping sites....can u plz mention the name??

by Nishant, Pune, on Jan 24, 2008 03:46 PM, Report abuse

Tech 2 reports price as 5800

by vijayshimla, Shimla 171001, on Jan 24, 2008 04:17 PM, Report abuse

You mention that the UI is stunning but have not put in a picture of that. Why?

by Danesh, Chennai, on Jan 23, 2008 10:19 PM, Report abuse   Reply

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