Creative Zen 4 GB Portable Media Player Black

This credit card-sized ZEN has a stunning 2.5″ color screen and is perfect for music, videos and photos. Enjoy up to 4,000 MP3, WMA or AAC songs, watch up to 60 hours of videos and share hundreds of photos with your friends. Even expand your portable music, video or photo collection by adding additional content through the convenient SD memory slot.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars So far, so good.
I had previously owned the 8 GB version of this player and it was a total disaster. It seems that this 16 GB version is working well **so far**. Plays back movies perfectly well from Amazon’s Unboxed as well as all the music I can load into it. The earphones are a bit cheesy, you might want to spring for a few extra dollars and buy something a bit better, depending upon your own hearing and tastes. The software that comes with the player is a bit clunky, you can use Windows Media Player to transfer songs right to the player and use Amazon’s Unboxed software to transfer movies directly to the player.

3 Stars IPODs doesn’t have FM radio..
My fiance got this for me on my bday. I like it at first until it freezes on me several times. I had to reset after it happens and then it erases all my downloads. Downloading your stuff to this is slower than the IPOD. I still like it because the fact it has FM radio which I can switch to when all my downloads sounds boring. Pictures, music, movies, etc looks better than the IPOD I had. I just wish it doesn’t freezes a lot when I’m in a hurry for work….

5 Stars Zen 16 GIG – Linux User
I had a NANO with 2G and that just wasnt’ doing it for me, not enough space, but i loved the size of the device. I travel a bunch for work (Planes) and weight is an issue, so I need a device that is small.

Well the ZEN is all that and more, I paid 139 for the 16G version and I love it. I use it with Linux with ZERO issues. If you are thinking about using with Linux you will need Gnomad 2, at least to sync the device. Works great, I am sure there is other SW for linux but this works great. Already had it running since my GF has a JukeBox from Creative.

I am listening to it right now, and will be interested to see how long the battery lasts, the Ipod was OK, but getting worse over time, so I am looking forward to this, plus no stupid connector, just USB. Now I don’t have to carry another cord.

Great so far…

1 Star White Screen of Death- No firmware fix forthcoming
I wanted to like the Zen. In fact, I did like the bright screen, ability to use an sd card, etc. However, in the last year, it has slowly developed the dreaded “White Screen of Death”. At first, I was able to get my screen back by getting a song to play and then putting the unit into hold. Taking it out of hold would restore the screen. Lately, nothing works, I have tried everything- downgrading the firmware, upgrading the firmware, rebooting, resetting- nothing works. It’s basically a brick, it’s out of warranty, and I can’t afford to replace it. Conventional Internet wisdom is that it is caused by a hardware conflict. I don’t care what it is- I see no effort on the part of Creative to comprehensively take care of those of us they know they sold a bad player to. All they do on their website is refer you to their customer service system, which if you are like me, will determine that the product is out of warranty and supply you with a link to a page where you can buy a new one. NO WAY! I’ll buy something that is better supported by its manufacturer next time, shove this thing in a drawer and pray for Rockbox, Don’t take a chance that yours will develop this problem- take my advice and return it now while you still can.

4 Stars really enjoyable, capable player
I’ve owned this (8 gig model) for a bit over a year and have used it heavily. A few fairly minor cons and a raft of important pros:

++++pros

*good looks

*acceptably quick power-on

*solid manufacture (doesn’t at all feel hollow or cheap)

*has survived one drop from waist-height to tile floor (yikes)

*8gb model is so roomy that it’s difficult to overflow with music (different story for vids)

*highly configurable menu (lets you remove items you don’t want to see, change order of those you leave)

*skinnable (you can put your own image as the wallpaper)

*bright screen (see cons, haha… can be used as a nightlight, no joke)

*great battery life (20 hrs or so without excessive browsing songs and with display @ 10%)

*almost limitless memory expansion via SDHC card (though see cons)

*easy to navigate (max of about four levels)

*quick search by first letter (scroll through quickly)

*reset button doesn’t clear your stuff…just fixes hangs (see cons)

*has radio (decent enough reception using your headphone cable as the antenna)

*doesn’t necessitate buying into the whole itunes proprietary nonsense

—- cons

*black shows every smudge and fingerprint. if you’re OCD about this, don’t… just don’t. if that’s nbd for you, fine.

*does play movies and does so well, but unless you have hours and hours to convert size and format, fuggetaboutit

*sometimes gets hung (reset button to the rescue)

*SDHC card is treated as separate memory with separate browsing

*cannot play a song while charging (though very occasionally that has worked; usually though it stops play)

*window scratches fairly easily (e.g. don’t throw in pocket with keys)

*perhaps the biggest gripe: its bundled software is not exactly likeable (it works but i am irked by it), and doesn’t work at all in xp/64 (fine in 32-bit environment, but the unit can be browsed to and loaded via windows explorer)

*occasional song corruption occurs if you don’t use the installed software (fix is to delete the song and re-add using the sw or the wmp11 mtp update)

*screen is really bright — only goes in 10% increments, and 10% is still really bright at night, yow

*only recharging option is USB, which necessitates the purchase of 12v accessory if you want to charge in car, for instance, or 120v accessory if you don’t have a computer handy

+++ final verdict

despite a list of cons, most are minor for me and easily overlooked. most of the pros shine, or at least glow. i’m giving it 4 stars **** but not 5. a 5-star product would surpass all expectations and really blow me away. this is highly recommendable and if a few quirks (say, ahem, software, and the annoying separation of main memory from SDHC cards) were banished, i think this would go into the 5-star realm. still, a very nice unit, one that i use happily and friends and family ooh and aah about.

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