CREATIVE ZEN.....review

CREATIVE ZEN Portable media player- 2gb, 4gb, 8gb, 16gb, 32gb
[ credit card sized ]

More than 3 months with this gadget has given me an amazing
experience of music.
Before I had bought "My zen" , I was hell confused about its
claims especially against the renowned "ipod". But now having
this, I have realized it is really better than the stereotype "ipod".
Even many of my "ipod" friends have also acknowledged it.
Although, rejecting ipod and buying "zen" does'nt leave one's
pocket heavier. It costs just around 10$ cheaper than ipod. But
its certainly more than its worth, especially if you realize the sole
purpose of these kind of players i.e. music. Sound is certainly
better than ipod in "zen". Especially the bass is awesome [ the
best ever heard by me]. Bass makes you feel that the earphones
are precise woofers. Sound is certainly great, crystal clear and
loud enough.
Although sound lacks the great stereo-widening of Sony. But
overall sound feels better. Sony players lack that much pure bass
while zen looses on stereo-widening of sound in the earphones.
So for all Rock and death metal lovers, zen seems to be a better
choice and for pop and hip hop lovers Sony is better choice but
they wont be able to experience ever the pure bass of zen.
Also rival Sony players are costlier . The Apple Ipod certainly
looses on every aspects of sound quality.
The zen also features big (2.5 " ) brilliant LCD display . Its
display is best in its class with very high resolution. Photos and
videos look bright and vivid. Ipod nano (2") looses out to a
bigger screen. The outlook of the player is cool and elegant but
its front glossy side attracts very fine scratches. And the
navigation and other buttons look cheap as compared to famous
scroll wheel of Ipod which is certainly the coolest feature of the
Ipod. Navigation in Zen is slower than ipod.
The Ipod's great ultra sleek design is a delight although credit
card sized Zen is also very thin.
As far as design is concerned Zen looses on every
aspect whether its keys or the player's outlook, although both
are of almost same size except the fact that Ipod width is about
2/3 times of the Zen.
The best feature of Zen is yet to be disclosed, it connects with
PC without any driver or software. You just need windows XP
service pack 2 and just when you connect the zen to your PC, you
will find a small cute icon of zen in the task bar. It connects as a
portable media device. You can copy/ cut every thing right from
your windows explorer. Although a software CD by creative is
also provided for additional features like zen explorer, video
converter, to upgrade firmware etc. Even windows media player
and new winamp also detects Zen. While you can play songs in
the player by windows media player but you can do it with the
Winamp.
It synchronizes easily with both.
Album art is also synchronized by both automatically to the
player.
The battery life of the player is good, Although it doesn't
perform that well as claimed (25 hours of music) but the "lock
feature"which shuts down the screen can fetch you about 20
hours of music.
I was able to watch complete 2 movies(2:30 min each) with good
experience.
The video playback may last upto 6 hours [10 hours claimed].
Zen also features FM radio although connectivity isn't very good
indoors but sound quality is cool with max. 32 preset channels.
The acclaimed external memory card feature is over-hyped, the
player treats external memory card as an additional attachment
and the library of the player doesn't synchronize with the device.
You have to go to the memory card option in the main menu
separately and browse the music or video files in the card.
There are also some problems in the recognition of the external
card by the player.
The additional features like calender, contacts, equalizer are also
cool.
But it lack Ipod-games feature of the ipod..
It charges with the usb port., also standard Motorola phone
charger can be used. to charge it with the home electricity
supply.
Also it supports most audio,video and image formats [AAC,
MP3, WAV, MPEG, XVID, BMP, GIF, PNG, JPEG etc] unlike
the limited copyrighted formats of the ipod.
You will also be able to run some high resolution movies too
without conversion unlike the limited copyrighted formats of the
ipod.
So you better buy it if you wanna feel real music through your
earphones and are fed up with the "ipod-ipod" lingo.