Customer Reviews
A champion in several music player categories 
2008-05-09
The Zen 32gb has the largest flash capacity currently available. (Bigger than Sony, Samsung and Toshiba in the same size and memory category), and it's small size and tactile controls for blind operation make it perfect for workouts. The 32gb is currently priced about the same as the Sony 16gb. The sound quality is audibly superior to the Sansa Fuze. If you want ear fatigue within 20 minutes, buy the Sansa Fuze. Album of the day feature is like random play with the benefit of being able to immediately listen to the rest of the songs by the same artist which I find useful. If you want to control it and get the best quality sound in the car letting the head unit decode the music, buy the alpine iDA-X200 (see my review). Biggest drawback is not being able to switch between MTP and UMS mode. You're stuck with MTP only. MTP is great because it allows playlists (which you can make in windows media player). UMS is great if you use a Mac or have a car stereo with a usb port (other than the Alpine iDA-X200) but you give up playlists. Some final thoughts, upgrade your firmware. If I didn't have a collection of wma music tracks, I would consider the iPod because you have a wider choice of accessories like compatible car stereos. Isn't it strange how the car stereo has become the accessory to mp3 player? With the iPod I would have to convert my wma tracks to mp3 which is like taking a picture through a screen door. I don't want to end on a sour note, this is a great player and perfect for my needs. (Except for listening to podcasts in the car see my iDA-X200 review)
Love Love Love It! 
2008-05-07
I love everything about it. It's exactly what I'd hoped it would be. The software interface is great too. I am loving all the video podcasts that one can subscribe to via the zencast website. My only ding is that the screen is not very bright and difficult to read/see in direct sunlight but that's probably true of most media players.
Not as Creative describes 
2008-05-06
I am writing this to inform people because I had no idea that the Zen cannot play Nero AAC. I am sure other people will be in this same situation. On Creative's web site they say it plays unprotected AAC format. It will not play Nero AAC which is unprotected. I do not think that Creative should be able to falsely misrepresent their product like this. It is very misleading. I have written to Creative's customer support. They responded back by saying my files had some kind of Digital Rights Management (which they do not). I wrote back again and they responded by giving me tips on how to use iTunes Plus which is irrelevant to what I am doing.
Originally, to get the music onto my PC, I used Exact Audio Copy and saved them directly as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compression). I used Foobar2000 with the free Nero Digital AAC codec 1.1.34.2 to convert these files to AAC. I know there is no DRM involved of any kind. AAC has better sound quality than MP3, but that is a whole different issue altogether. The fact is Creative is claiming that the Zen will play unprotected AAC files and it does not. I feel like Creative is getting away with this misrepresenting their product. They should not be able to do this.
Someone did make an app that changes some coding with the tag that make the Zen work with the Nero AAC files. You can find out more here [...]
When I turn off my player while it is playing a song, it will lock up. I do not think this is normal. If I pause the song, before I turn off the unit. It will not lock up.
Other than these things, the player is good. Great sound quality and a high resolution display. The custom EQ is very convenient to adjust the sound to how I want it.
Never worked 
2008-05-06
To Amazon's credit my Zen was shipped super quick. However when it came time to set it up, time/date,etc., it soon became apparent that the button used as Enter was non-functional. After searching futilely for a phone number to contact Creative Customer Service I settled for emailing my problem to them. After a day's wait someone person in India, who apparently didn't bother to read my entire email, basically told me that I should follow the instructions. I sent a reply explaining again that I had already done that and nothing worked. After waiting another day I got a message telling me that I seemed to have a problem. At that point I decided I was done with Creative. I sent the Zen back to Amazon (the refund was processed today) and after some more research bought an 80GB Zune which so far is working like a charm. If my experience is an example of what to expect from Creative Customer Service I probably will not buy from them anymore.
Small and impressive 2008-05-06
I use to have a Creative Nomad. I wanted something smaller. This unit is amazing, considering its size. One cool unexpected feature is that it can be charged with my 5 volt charger that I use for my Razor Cell Phone. So I only need to carry one small charger for two devices.
The only down side is that my music library for the Nomad would not transfer directly to the Zen, so all my settings were losts.
The other thing to realize is that there is no video output so you cant plug it into a tv to view photos or the menu. But if you want something small that holds a lot of music or photos, with no moving parts, it is the way to go.
do the buttons have backlights 2008-05-01
built-in FM tuner with 32 station presets * built-in voice recording microphone * high-speed USB interface (cable included) * SD/SDHC card slot (SD card not included) * 32GB music and video player *
Deeply Flawed Software 
2008-04-21
If you're like me and have thousands of mp3's that are not classified by album, then don't go near this player with a ten foot pole. The reason I say this is that when you attempt to browse songs by a particular artist or band, you can only view the songs by album - any song that does not have it's album tag filled in won't show up under that artist. Basically, if any track has no album info, it becomes invisible. Older Zen mp3 players had a "List all Tracks by Artist" option when you browsed a particular artist or band - selecting this option would show all the tracks by that artist in alphabetical order regardless of whether the album info was filled in for a track or not. The new Zen players do not have this option. I went to one artist on my player that I had 60 songs for, except none of the tracks had album info, and when I selected that artist the player told me their were no tracks by that artist on the player - totally and completely ridiculous.
Worse yet, all those tracks that have no album associated with them will not play in shuffle mode. I loaded the player with 1000 songs that had no album info and 10 songs that did have their album info, and put the player into shuffle mode. Shuffle mode then told me their were only 10 songs on the player, and proceeded to play those 10 songs (the ones with album info) over and over, while completely ignoring the other 1000 songs (the ones without album info). This has to be about the dumbest thing I've seen in any consumer product in years. I've seen complaints about how lame the shuffle play feature is on these players and how they seem to play the same songs over and over in shuffle mode - well this is the reason why. A large percentage of these users tracks are not even being recognized in shuffle mode.
If you keep all your mp3's tagged by album then you will be fine. If not, then don't go near this player.
More than expected 2008-04-16
This is my first mp3 player and when I first heard about the 32GB Zen I knew my wait was over. I needed a player that would hold my whole CD collection without compromese and was thinking about one of the hard drive versions from Creative(I won't buy Apple products as they are too proprietary. I was sold on the small size and the SSID memory (no moving parts!). When I got it home I had to learn how to load my albums aboard and that was rather time-consuming (I mean the loading not the learning. This technology is amazing; I keep looking that stack of 636 albums and the credit card sized Zen that they fit on and am amazed. I bought some noise isolating earbuds and put my target shooting earmuffs on and I am transported. In the future I'll buy a SD card to put photos and videos and podcasts on. The FM radio gets excellent reception and the voice recorder will come in handy I expect. I recommend this product whole-heartedly
Absolutely stunning gadget!! 2008-04-14
I've owned this wonderful little player for about a month now, and I am totally enamored with it. The direct competitor to this player is the new ipod nano, and honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would go for that player over this one. I see that at the moment, an 8 GB nano costs $189, whereas with the Zen you get 32 GB for $285! Hello?? Do the math?? Plus, as always, a Creative player has much better sound quality (they are a manufacturer of sound cards, after all...) and a crisp, brilliant screen that is larger in size (Zen's 2.5" to new ipod's 2"). Music videos look nice on it, and, my Zen also doubles as a portable art portfolio; I can show people my artwork and photography on it and it looks great. Also, as compared with ipods, it is incredibly sturdy. I already dropped it a couple of times (yeah, clumsy...)and it's perfectly fine! Whereas I have friends who have irreparably damaged their ipods by dropping them once. It's a perfect size, slips comfortably into any pocket, and has a nice, sturdy feel to it. Compared with older Creative models, it's also VERY pretty! Pretty-ness is the sole advantage ipods really had going for them before, but this new Zen is definitely on-par in terms of looks.
Also, the fellow who complained that this player is expensive compared with the larger hard-drive based Creative players - well, he's wrong to discount the importance of this being a flash player. The fact that this is a quite large capacity flash player IS a big deal. Main advantages of flash over hard drive: sturdier, much longer battery life, less prone to crash, less prone to damage if dropped, runs and loads faster. No moving parts, so it's overall more reliable and less prone to breakage. It's just a much superior technology overall.
To those who complain about the earphones that come with it: no matter what player you use, if you care about sound quality, then you don't use the earphones that come with the player!! I think Creative is good to simply include some spares and NOT charge you for what they think are good 'phones. Why? Because it should be up to the individual what kind of headphones they prefer. I've been using my Zen with Bang & Olufsen Form 2 headphones, and this combination sounds fantastic. Also, I rip my CD's to ~192 VBR; I don't hear too much difference in sound between 192 and 320, but I DO hear LOTS of difference between 128 and 192, so for me this seems to be the ideal happy medium between file size and sound quality. I would encourage everyone else to experiment and find their ideal bit rate, because Creative sound quality and good headphones won't help you if you rip to 128 bps!
A quick rundown of some pro's and con's in general:
1. As mentioned - great sound and beautiful clear screen. I don't find that I really need a case (I usually keep it in my pocket so there's nothing in there to scratch it), however, a screen protector is a MUST! I bought one with the player and put it on before doing anything else.
2. It's damn cute. Just looking at it makes me smile. :)
3. The software is fine, and I also like being able to simply transfer files just using folders.
4. The SD card slot is a GREAT idea. It would be nice if they integrate it better in the future, but even un-integrated it's very handy. I keep my videos on it and my music and pics on the player.
5. Really not expensive at all for a 32GB flash player!
6. Sturdy!!! I have dropped it without crying afterwards... :)
7. It seems to be very stable. So far I have had to reset it twice while it was docked, but this was due to my own error - both times I had tried to delete an album off the player that was set as "now playing" - so I think I confused it! But as long as I don't do anything silly like that, I haven't had to reset it.
8. Very long battery life. I've spent practically all day walking around listening to the Zen, and still have half a charge left at the end of the day. My ears get tired before it does!
9. This may not be important for all users, but is very important for me: displays foreign characters correctly. I have music on here that uses Scandinavian languages (with some funny characters) and also some music in Russian - I have had problems with other players displaying Cyrillic letters incorrectly, but not this one.
Not many con's, just a couple:
1. The cable is indeed short, but it doesn't seem problematic to me. The player is light enough to just hang off the usb port on the short cable with no problems.
2. The one major con for me - that it doesn't have a usb host function as its hard-drive based cousin seems to have. That would have been a nice feature, I hope they integrate it into the next model!
3. Indeed the screen is very hard to see in direct sunlight. But, this is another one of those not-very-important cons that I have learned to work around. If I am in direct sunlight I simply work the player while shading it with my hand or jacket, or I step into the shade. Mild annoyance, but really not that big a deal.
Anyway, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, obviously. I can't think of any other player on the market right now that even comes close to the quality of this one. And no, for all you cynics out there, I don't work for Creative, I'm just in love with my new toy ;)
Can't compare to the IPOD. 2008-04-09
Tried this, but I ended up exchanging it on a new IPOD classic. It's ok but features, style, and performance nothing beats the new IPODS. Coverflow baby!
