Customer Reviews:
 Faulty and had to send back December 4, 2007
I purchased this for my teenage son for Christmas. The one we received had a faulty processor or something and would not run videos properly (would skip and stall) and the videos would have poor audio. I give 2 thumbs up to Amazon for the quick processing of the return. The conversion time for putting the videos in Zen format was quite long too. I replaced the returned Zen with a 30G Zune for my son (again from Amazon) and he's a happy camper showing me "See, this is how a processor SHOULD run a video!" for the ones the Zen had trouble playing.
Positives: small size, the size is much better than my bulky 30G Ipod. Is ours was defective and my son plays mostly videos with a few songs, I don't know how it'll fare for just music, but the size is a big plus.
Negatives: was how it ran my son's videos.
 Pretty good December 2, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a great music player (for those who do not need more convincing you don't need to read on).
But for those that do need more convincing, I am not a music fanatic, but here are some things I like and dislike as an average user:
PROS:
-It is small and very portable. The design is pretty sleek.
-The screen, I heard, is one of the best, it is large and it has great resolution comparatively.
-Interface is nice, visually attractive and, maybe not intuitive, but at least pragmatic
-Contrary to what some people say, it does have a pretty convenient volume control, though like people say it is not a dedicated control. So no biggy.
-Battery life is extremely long. I could charge it for one night and I probably got two-three week out of one charge (i.e. maybe 15-20 hours of music on one charge)
-Expandable memory is nice, but I haven't got a chance to use it.
CONS:
-Probably something that irritated me the most was the sticker they put on the screen. Instead of a see-through screen protector, there literally put a sticker. The sticker leaves residue that takes time to go away. But thankfully, it DOES NOT damage the screen (unless you do something funky)
Best flash player on the market, great even for large music collections December 1, 2007
215 out of 217 found this review helpful
This is a great choice for those people who previously limited their flash players to workout duty, or only holding a small piece of their large music collection and having to change the music on it every so often. With a 16GB capacity most people can fit their entire collection on here without difficulty, and even have room for some videos.
First impressions of this player are very good. It is extremely appealing to the eye, everyone who sees it will ask about it. It is about the size of a credit card, just thicker (less than 1/2inch). The front is a very glossy black plastic that looks great until you touch it, instantly covering it with fingerprints :) The back is a rough, cheaper feeling black plastic. Overall it has a nice solid weight and feel to it, but not very heavy. This will easily fit in a pocket.
The 2.5" screen is absolutely gorgeous. Very bright with vivid colors. The viewing angle is very good, two people can easily look at the screen at the same time while watching a movie for example. The menus are all nicely animated and intuitive to navigate. The icons and text are big clear and easy to read.
One of the big perks to having so much capacity is plenty of room for videos. This was one of the first things I've tested as it was a big reason for my purchase. First of all it DOES play Amazon Unbox videos perfectly. Transferring files was very easy (just a few clicks) and very quick. The quality of the video was great as well. The max size of videos is apparently 320x240, I have not been able to get it to play anything larger than that. If the video is smaller (for example widescreen) you have the option of playing it at the correct aspect ratio, or fill the screen (stretched out). I've gotten it to play videos encoded in Xvid and WMV format. Xvid files were encoded with AutoGK, and the WMV files were encoded with Arcsoft MediaConverter. If you synchronize with Windows Media Player, you can put in *almost any* video file and it will automatically convert the file into WMV format and then transfer to the player. How long it takes to convert depends on the type of video you're encoding, how big the file is and of course the speed of your computer.
Music sounds very good on this player, but please... get rid of the stock headphones they are horrible. Using a decent pair of headphones makes a HUGE difference. The EQ options are OK, there are about a half dozen presets and a customizable EQ. The "Bass Boost" option just made it worse in my opinion, it just distorted the sound. Otherwise it is a very even and balanced sound, very similar to the Vision:M.
The FM radio has a whopping 32 presets and the reception is pretty good. Strong stations are in stereo, weaker ones come in mono. I haven't had a chance to test out the built-in mic.
I easily transferred music and playlists onto this player from Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey, as well as protected music (WMA) from Napster. Everything was very easy, usually just dragging and dropping. The speed of transfer is probably the fastest I've seen. I've used this player on XP Home and on Vista Premium 64-bit.
Regarding the SD cards. I think its only a slight inconvenience that the memory card media isn't directly integrated with the other content. Meaning if you have videos on the SD card you don't go to the "Video" menu where all the other videos are, you have to access them through the "Memory Card" menu. Once there, you browse through the file structure like normal. If you organize the content smartly on your cards you should have no problem. And really its a small price to pay for that feature. Currently SDHC cards are up to 16GB in capacity, meaning you could double the capacity and carry around 32GB worth of content in your pocket. Amazing. I tested a Kingston 512MB SD Card and a Kingston 2GB microSD card (with adapter of course) and they were recognized and played the content without difficulty.
A quick note about the firmware. Mine came with 1.10.05. When my player turns off, it really turns off. With newer firmwares when it turns off it goes into a sleep mode for a while before it finally turns all the way off. What that means is with the older firmware each time you turn it on it has to "boot" all over again, whereas with the newer firmware you get an "instant-on" at the expense of slightly reduced battery life (since it is asleep and not off). Something to consider before you decide to upgrade the firmware.
Best mp3/video player out there ! ! ! December 1, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The music sounds great and the videos look amazing, the screen size is perfect. Even the video converter is reasonably fast. All in all a great product and will not leave you disappointed. It is worth it to by the screen protector and case because the piano finish does scratch easily and the screen will smudge.
 Man, the battery December 1, 2007
My Mom and Dad got me this for my birthday [upgrade from my Zen Micro 6gb)
I've got to say I love this thing; it has great sound, plenty of room for what I use it for, it has a great screen and a lot of extra features.
BUT it loses two stars because,
1. Even though I charged it all the way then drained it all the way when I first got it (3 times) it still won't hold a charge longer than 5 hours with the screen on 10% brightness, and no more than 7 or so with the screen off (on hold)
Even though, the creative site advertises 30 hours with the screen off [on hold] (I didn't expect to get that much time, but, I did expect at LEAST 15 hours or more (with the screen off))
2. It will occasionally freeze while Syncing with Windows Media Player (latest version) or while charging (It has happened often enough for to have learned to carry a paper clip with me to hit the reset button on the bottom)
Other than this problem, this IS a great player.
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