Creative Zen

Rhaka

Was dicking around looking for a new MP3 player, noticed Creative came out with a new one like a week ago. Looks pretty sweet, so since there's no dedicated Creative thread and I want people to tell me if it's awesome, here we go.



Creative Zen

4 gig: $149.99
8 gig: $199.99
16 gig: $249.99

Size: 55 x 83 x 11.3mm

Weight: 65g

LCD; 2.5" 16.7 million color TFT LCD 320 x 240 pixels

Battery life: 25h audio/5h video

Video Playback: MJPEG, WMV9, MPEG4-SP3, DivX3 4/5 and XviD3

Audio Playback: MP3, WMA, AAC4 (.m4A), WAV (ADPCM), Audible 2,3,4

Photo formats: JPEG (BMP/ GIF / PNG / TIFF)5

FM Tuner, Voice Recording and SD card support

Has standard issue pouches/armbands/keychain accesories.

Local H Jay

After my terrible experience with the Zen Micro I refuse to buy another Creative device.

Uncle_Balsamic

I love my Zen Vision: M

Doughnut

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Dublo7

This thing looks damn awesome.

Franko

what are the prices of the competition (Zune, ipod) in those memory sizes?

Rhaka

Don't know about the Zune (do they have flash players?), but the new 8 gig Ipods are $190 or something. Pretty on par.

I'm really digging the SD card support on these things. Flash-based + 16 gigs + however many albums I can't fit on those 16 gigs? Excellent.

Radikal_Dreamer

I've been nothing but happy on my Creative Zen Jukebox Xtra. I've had it for nearly 3 years and it's going strong. And, I've basically beat the piss out of it. I've accidentally dropped it many times (and this thing has a harddrive), I've left it in the car on hot as hell days, and on cold days (it got pretty frozen once and refused to turn on until it had warmed up a bit). It still works like a beauty.

Rami

Uncle_Balsamic wrote: »

I love my Zen Vision: M

Everything an equivalent iPod does, but cheaper and without the bullshit.

Brilliant.

AggroChan

Franko wrote: »

what are the prices of the competition (Zune, ipod) in those memory sizes?

Zune is 200$ for 30 Gigs :P
It doesn't support as many files types as the Zen though but I don't mind converting a bit.

Pureauthor

I currently have a Zen Micro. Because I'm cheap, I got it from my mother when she realized she wasn't using it anymore.

It works fine for me - of course, it being only 1 GB is a bit of a pain. But enh.

Kealoha

I've got a Zen Sleek Photo and have had it for a little more than a year. Nothing has gone wrong with it yet, it's fine.

So, at the very least, you know that Creative's MP3 players aren't guaranteed to have dumb problems. (I'm not saying any others are, but you never know)

Pureauthor

The fact that I own a Creative MP3 player shouldn't be very surprising - I'm Singaporean, after all. :P

Gorilla Salad

Doughnut wrote: »

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Same, though it's not really dead.

It just won't work unless I am on a bus. Does anyone know what the hell is wrong with it?

Pureauthor

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

Doughnut wrote: »

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Same, though it's not really dead.

It just won't work unless I am on a bus. Does anyone know what the hell is wrong with it?

Us Singaporeans love our buses. They're really efficient and punctual and all.

Gorilla Salad

Pureauthor wrote: »

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

Doughnut wrote: »

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Same, though it's not really dead.

It just won't work unless I am on a bus. Does anyone know what the hell is wrong with it?

Us Singaporeans love our buses. They're really efficient and punctual and all.

It will work for 1 song if I air guitar, too. Then it shuts off. Otherwise, it goes for a minute, and "I DO NOT NEED A MIC"dead

mrots

the only real problem with Creative's players (or at least my Vision M) is you can not find any accessories for them anywhere.

Pureauthor

I'm not too sure about the handling of MP3s as a whole, but having to turn on your computer everytime you want to charge the thing is annoying.

As well as having to remember to manually turn it off everytime you stop the charge.

Telemachus

Radikal_Dreamer wrote: »

I've been nothing but happy on my Creative Zen Jukebox Xtra. I've had it for nearly 3 years and it's going strong. And, I've basically beat the piss out of it. I've accidentally dropped it many times (and this thing has a harddrive), I've left it in the car on hot as hell days, and on cold days (it got pretty frozen once and refused to turn on until it had warmed up a bit). It still works like a beauty.

Ditto. Poor little guy's been dropped more than a white trash baby, but it's still kicking.

evilmrhenry

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

Doughnut wrote: »

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Same, though it's not really dead.

It just won't work unless I am on a bus. Does anyone know what the hell is wrong with it?

Sounds like a loose connection, which the bus bounces around enough to work. The only user-serviceable part in it is the battery, though. (Might be the battery connection. Check that.)

Gorilla Salad

evilmrhenry wrote: »

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

Doughnut wrote: »

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Same, though it's not really dead.

It just won't work unless I am on a bus. Does anyone know what the hell is wrong with it?

Sounds like a loose connection, which the bus bounces around enough to work. The only user-serviceable part in it is the battery, though. (Might be the battery connection. Check that.)

Checked the battery. Replaced battery. Still doesn't work. Also, I can't buy another one of those(Nano plus. They only sell em in Europe and Asia now.)

EDIT: I guess they do. Link: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=12720

Radikal_Dreamer

Telemachus wrote: »

Radikal_Dreamer wrote: »

I've been nothing but happy on my Creative Zen Jukebox Xtra. I've had it for nearly 3 years and it's going strong. And, I've basically beat the piss out of it. I've accidentally dropped it many times (and this thing has a harddrive), I've left it in the car on hot as hell days, and on cold days (it got pretty frozen once and refused to turn on until it had warmed up a bit). It still works like a beauty.

Ditto. Poor little guy's been dropped more than a white trash baby, but it's still kicking.

I mean, hell, I think more than half of the times I've dropped it has been on straight concrete. I thought for sure one time that the thing was going to be trashed, but lo and behold, it's great. Actually the only thing that happened to it once is that it stopped turning on, and i figured out because for some reason there was a space between the battery and the connector, so I put a tiny piece of paper in and it fixed it.

4rch3nemy

I have an iPod and when chix see me with it. They giggle and take off their clothes.

Yeah, that's the power of the iPod. Does your Zen do that with it's lowered prices and sleek black look? Doubt it.

The big thing is the lack of accessories for this bad boy though. I enjoy how my iPod is supported by nearly everything from toasters to car stereos to McDonald's (yeah, exaggeration olol............o) so that I can find accessories like skins, cases, and other things very easily.

Other than that, the zen looks like it'd be a solid purchase.

Gorilla Salad

I don't think Ipods could hold up to everything that happened to my Zen.

Dropped in 35 puddles, 46 separate concrete incidents, 12 concrete drops in a row, and twice being thrown into a wall.

Still works, kinda.

4rch3nemy

35 puddles? 46 seperate concrete incidents? 12 in a *row*?
WTF? How do you manage this? Big idiot, or biggest idiot? :P

My recent 80gb iPod video has had NO troubles at all and I've dropped it down a flight of stairs (you know when you drop something and go to catch it quickly, but end up making it worse.. hurling whatever it is you dropped very far?) and on some marble flooring.

However, don't ask me about my older 20gb iPod 3rd gen. Fucking sucked, it broke within 2 years but I got this one as a replacement since there were so many issues with it nonstop (had to break some arms at futureshop.. and I'm never going back there.. ever). So yeah, new iPods rule, old iPods suck.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

I love my Zen Vision M! Bought it used for $150 and it came with the entire run of Futurama on it!

Seriously though, I've dropped this thing a couple of times to my horror, but it keeps working. My only complaint is sometimes the touch pad is a little wonky, but all things considered, I can put up with that.

Fibretip

i adore my vision M also... unfortunately it's dead after a hard drive failure 4 months into it's life right now... but hopefully creative will send it back to me soon! (i think it was my pc's fault... i was using it as a removable hard drive, and one day my pc didn't give me the option to remove it... so i had to just pull the plug, and after that it wouldn't turn on again)

Gorilla Salad

4rch3nemy wrote: »

35 puddles? 46 seperate concrete incidents? 12 in a *row*?
WTF? How do you manage this? Big idiot, or biggest idiot? :P

My recent 80gb iPod video has had NO troubles at all and I've dropped it down a flight of stairs (you know when you drop something and go to catch it quickly, but end up making it worse.. hurling whatever it is you dropped very far?) and on some marble flooring.

However, don't ask me about my older 20gb iPod 3rd gen. Fucking sucked, it broke within 2 years but I got this one as a replacement since there were so many issues with it nonstop (had to break some arms at futureshop.. and I'm never going back there.. ever). So yeah, new iPods rule, old iPods suck.

Estimations with added hyperbole. But still, that thing survived so much. And now it's gone.

Dark_Side

I had a Micro and now a Vision M, both of them have treated me very well. Hands down my biggest complaint for the M is the gank charge system and the fact that you have literally go online to find any accessories for it. Most of the box stores only carry cases for them, which sucks.

My Vision M has had it's share of driver and licensing problems, almost 100% rhapsody and Microsoft's fault though as best I can tell. I did have it fritz out in the middle of a monsoon storm in AZ after a bolt of lightning hit real close to my car, but a simple reset fixed it right back up. Creative has for quite awhile been making players that offer more features than Ipod's for cheaper or competitive prices, and you're not stuck using one proprietary online music store.

evilmrhenry

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

evilmrhenry wrote: »

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

Doughnut wrote: »

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Same, though it's not really dead.

It just won't work unless I am on a bus. Does anyone know what the hell is wrong with it?

Sounds like a loose connection, which the bus bounces around enough to work. The only user-serviceable part in it is the battery, though. (Might be the battery connection. Check that.)

Checked the battery. Replaced battery. Still doesn't work. Also, I can't buy another one of those(Nano plus. They only sell em in Europe and Asia now.)

EDIT: I guess they do. Link: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=12720

When checking for a loose connection, you'll want to try running it while applying pressure to various parts of the device. You're looking for something like: "If I press down on it on this particular spot, it works". (What's happening is that you're physically holding a connection closed.)

If you can find a spot like that, the "right" way to fix it is to open it up, and re-solder the connection. The "re-what-er?" way is to use a bit of card stock or something to give constant pressure on the spot in question. With this method, at some point in the future, the device will no longer work (loose connections usually get looser over time), but this may give a few extra puddle-drops or wall-throws out of the device.

Anyway, this is usually fixable, but only for people that feel comfortable voiding warranties.

EDIT: BTW, does it not turn on at all, or just produce no sound? I think there was a manufacturing problem with the headphone jack on some models.

1600Points

I have a zen touch which is like 5 years old, although I like it I'm kind of annoyed I have to roll back my computer to Windows Media 9 to be able to pull the songs off of it.

alcoholic_engineer

I can also agree that those xtras are indestructible. I used one for 3 years when i was workin on construction sites: the number of times that it got dropped, coated in dust, vibration has led me to think that it is utterly spectacular.
It is 3 years old, and works just as well as the day i got it.

rayofash

Zen Vision M for the win!

Gorilla Salad

evilmrhenry wrote: »

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

evilmrhenry wrote: »

Gorilla Salad wrote: »

Doughnut wrote: »

My Zen Micro just died after four years of service, it never gave me any trouble at all.

Same, though it's not really dead.

It just won't work unless I am on a bus. Does anyone know what the hell is wrong with it?

Sounds like a loose connection, which the bus bounces around enough to work. The only user-serviceable part in it is the battery, though. (Might be the battery connection. Check that.)

Checked the battery. Replaced battery. Still doesn't work. Also, I can't buy another one of those(Nano plus. They only sell em in Europe and Asia now.)

EDIT: I guess they do. Link: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=12720

When checking for a loose connection, you'll want to try running it while applying pressure to various parts of the device. You're looking for something like: "If I press down on it on this particular spot, it works". (What's happening is that you're physically holding a connection closed.)

If you can find a spot like that, the "right" way to fix it is to open it up, and re-solder the connection. The "re-what-er?" way is to use a bit of card stock or something to give constant pressure on the spot in question. With this method, at some point in the future, the device will no longer work (loose connections usually get looser over time), but this may give a few extra puddle-drops or wall-throws out of the device.

Anyway, this is usually fixable, but only for people that feel comfortable voiding warranties.

EDIT: BTW, does it not turn on at all, or just produce no sound? I think there was a manufacturing problem with the headphone jack on some models.

No, I did the pressure thing. Doesn't work.

What happens is it shuts off randomly. I'll try a piece of aluminum between the battery or something.

Ultimanecat

If you look around, you may be able to find a Meizu Miniplayer 4GB for sub-$100.

On the plus side, it is cheap, looks pretty cool, is built rock-solid, and has incredible features for the price.

On the (possibly) minus side, it is unapologetically Chinese in origin and design (doesn't mean it can't be run in English, just that it, amongst other things, it has a game on it called Hua Rong Dao), and that many features are not straightforward to use or are not similar in implementation to the IPod or other players.

I have one and I love it. If you are willing to put up with quirky Chinese design, you can't do better for the price.