Creative ZEN, better than an iPod? (Creative Zen 2 GB)

Member Name: Patman99

Product:	Creative Zen 2 GB
Date:	19/01/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, uses SD card for extra storage.

Disadvantages: Hard to get used to at first.

Creative ZEN 2GB MP3 player and more!!.
Not a bad little piece of kit this. It plays MP3, MP4 (videos), it has a built-in FM radio, Calender, MS-Outlook synchronisation and picture viewer.
2Gb may seem small when compared with a 16Gb iPod, but when you consider that it has a built-in SD card slot, then the memory issued becomes a minor one.

In the past, people bought Apples' iPod range for one reason, and one reason only, 'iTunes'. This iconic piece of software made it easy to upload playlists & sync your playlists with those on your PC. Well guess what?, Creative have taken the bull by the horns and created a media management tool to rival Apples' offering. You may not be able to buy music from iTunes and drop it straight on to your Zen, but you can buy from Last.fm & add it to your play list.

Sound wise the ZEN is slightly better than the iPod, but not as good as Sonys' Walkman range. Navigating the menus can be tricky at first as you are initially shown a directory of all the albums you have stuck on your ZEN, and then have to physically add the tracks you want to a play list before you can play them. The only way around this is to transfer the songs across individually to the root folder then select the 'Play All' option from the menu. Apart from this, all the play controls function much the same as a normal MP3 player. If you have album art with your MP3's then this is shown on the screen next to the artist & track info. .

The screen is just to small to view long videos, but is excellent for viewing the contents of your cameras SD card to see which photos you want to keep.

Reception on the FM radio is good, and you can store loades of stations.

I don't use Outlook, so can't sync with either the calender or contacts, but then again, I tend to use Chandler for that sort of thing anyway.

I Paid £60 for this from Sainsburys.

Summary: A neat little performer with excellent sound quality.

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