A life of Zen (Creative Zen Touch 20 GB)

Member Name: Epiphany

Product:	Creative Zen Touch 20 GB
Date:	27/10/05 (812 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper than an Ipod

Disadvantages: Not terribly user friendly

I've had my Zen Touch MP3 player for 6 months now, so I figured it was about time I reviewed it and wrote my first technical review for DooYoo in many years!

So, let's make a start....


~~ WHAT'S IN THE BOX? ~~

1 Creative Zen Touch Player
1 Pair of Stereo Earphones
1 Universal Power Adapter
1 Carrying case
1 USB 2.0 Cable
1 Installation CD
1 Quick Start Guide

As you can tell from the picture above, the Zen Touch is mainly white with silver buttons and edging. The back is silver too, so it looks nice, even if it isn't the best-looking player in the world. It's dimensions are (WxHxD) 4.12" x 2.7" x 0.866" and it weighs 7.05 oz. As a result, although it's not too heavy, if you are wearing the player hooked to the waistband of loose trousers, you may well find them working their way down your hips… or waist... or down to your knees if they are that loose. It tends to weigh pockets down as well, and can be a little bulky when held in it's carrying case, so no good trying to conceal it in a little black dress.

The display is a 160 x 104 pixel resolution LCD, which is lit up using a blue backlight. You can adjust the contrast ensuring you can always read the on-screen options clearly and you can set the amount of time that the screen stays lit after you have finished making your selections and setting changes. I have to admit I love the blue light!

The carrying case isn't the best quality, or the flashiest piece of kit, but I really like it. It's padded and lined so as not to scratch the screen of the player as you slide it in and out. It's elasticated at the side for ease of use and the belt clip is plastic, although it seems fairly sturdy. The DC input socket (for charging) and the power on/off button are accessible when in the case, but the other buttons that are used to select the music are not, and sometimes in sliding the player in and out of it's case it is possible to change settings or skip tracks.

The headphones are bog standard (fitting a 1 x 1/8" stereo mini-jack), the power adapter is cute (it's not big or heavy) and the USB cable is just long enough to be useful and not too long to become a nuisance to store and keep tidy. The installation CD is useful and easy to install and use, but I found I was up and running with the player after only a few minutes of taking it out of it's packaging (which is not at all stylish and is very cheap looking) without the use of the Quick Start Guide.

Talking of which… For something that is so thick, you would think the Quick Start Guide would be a really handy resource for everything to do with your player. This is sadly not the case. It is useful, but it is very limited and most of its bulk is made up by the alternative translations. There are 16 pages dedicated to the English language, but apparently the manual is on the CD. (Very handy if you’re on holiday and need to know how to do something… Not!) The manual is good on the whole though, mostly easy to understand and easy to follow.


~~ SO, WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? ~~

The Zen Touch is currently available in two sizes ('size' in this instance referring to the amount of music storage space); 20GB and 40GB. I have the 20GB version which is capable of holding up to 5000 MP3s, or 10,000 songs WMA format if you prefer. I can't verify that, as I haven't reached the Zen's capacity yet. Perhaps I don't own as much music as I thought I did! It boasts 24-hour battery life when playing 128kbps MP3s or 32 hours when playing 48kbps MP3 tracks but again I can't verify this, as I have never sat with my music playing for 24 hours straight, let alone 32 hours! I haven’t had to recharge it very often, and it lasts a long time when it’s not used for 24/32 hours straight. I maybe recharge once a fortnight after listening for a few hours a day on average, but it really depends on how much you use it. The batteries don’t last as long when you are constantly skipping from track to track though. The player arrives with some battery charge and sample classical tracks pre-loaded to listen to so you can check it out straight away.

Music is transferred using USB 2.0 data transfer protocol, but it is backwards compatible with USB 1.1 (if your PC is a bit older). It plays MP3, WMA and WAV files. The signal-to-noise ratio is up to 97dB, channel separation is up to 74db, frequency response is between 20Hz and 20kHz with less than 0.1% harmonic distortion output. I don't have a clue what any of that means, it sounds good though!

The files are transferred really quickly, with each one taking no more than a couple of seconds to complete.

The player operating system/firmware can be upgraded (support & updates available via www.creative.com) and Creative offer a one-year limited hardware warranty should anything go wrong. I’ve had no problems with mine so far, so it’s all good!


~~ FEATURES ~~

Now, the Creative website says that you can “create and customize music play lists on-the-go” but I am inclined to disagree. You can create play lists on your PC and upload them to the player, but you can’t seem to create them as easily on the player itself. That is, I haven’t found a way of selecting individual songs from different albums by different artists and saving them to a play list. In this instance the manual isn’t particularly helpful either. I ran through the instructions but it didn’t do what I expected at all. I saved the whole of Snow Patrol’s album instead of just the one song, and didn’t manage to add tracks to the play list I created, even though that’s what the on-screen prompts seemed to suggest I was doing. (Maybe it’s just me being dim, but I’m not normally techno-thick.)

The menu windows disappear after a few seconds too, which can be quite annoying when you’re trying to do something new and reading from the manual.

It is possible to search for songs, albums or artists although it’s not the easiest thing to use. Navigation (and selecting of letters to search on) is achieved by touching the indented area in the middle of the player. Touching it in the middle area scrolls up and down slowly. Touching the indent at the extremities scrolls faster. When the list of items is short, the list scrolls quicker and it is very fiddly to land on the correct item. It’s slightly easier when it is longer, but still a bit of a pain. The search facility only lets you search for the first letter of the title or artist, so it isn’t always that useful.

The Zen also features a 4-band custom equalizer as well as a number (maybe 10) that have already been preset. This allows you to customise the tone to your preferences, although I have not felt the need to change any of these settings.

You can set the play mode to repeat track, repeat all (of the selected play list), shuffle, shuffle repeat, track once or randomise ALL the tracks on the player! That’s more than enough to keep me happy!

~~ WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE SOFTWARE? ~~

In order to run the software that comes with the player, your PC needs to meet the following requirements:

Microsoft® Windows® 98SE/Me/2000/XP
Intel® Pentium® II 233MHz or AMD K6® -2 266Mhz (Pentium III 450MHz or higher recommended for MP3 encoding)
64MB RAM (128MB recommended)
USB 1.1 port (USB 2.0 recommended for faster transfers)
30MB free hard drive space (more for audio content storage)
CD-ROM drive with digital audio extraction support

I haven’t used the software to rip my CD’s into MP3 or WMA format because I am used to using Nero, but I do use Creative MediaSource™ to transfer my files between my PC and the player and also between the player and my play lists.

It’s really simple to use and just requires you to drag and drop to the right locations. If you can manage to navigate and copy and move files using windows explorer, you will have no problem with this. Right click on the player icon to create new play lists to add tracks to, delete tracks you no longer want on the player, everything can be done from here.


~~ IS THAT IT? ~~

No. The Zen touch is essentially a 20/40GB hard drive, and as a hard drive you can store other data files on it too. When you connect it to your PC, you’ll be able to access it as a drive and drag and drop files to it. Simple!

On the down side, because it is essentially a hard drive, you can’t shake it around and knock it about too much without doing some damage. It is recommended that you DO NOT JOG with it. So, it’s no good for runners, but seeing as I have an allergy to running, it’s fine for me!

It can also be turned into an FM radio, voice and FM recording via optional wired remote control.


~~ OK, SO WHAT DO YOU THINK THEN? ~~

I think the Creative Zen touch is far from perfect, but I love it to bits.

It can be difficult to navigate because of the sensitivity of the scrolling, it doesn’t let you create play lists on the fly easily, it’s not the smallest or lightest player but in all other respects it does the job and is everything I need in an MP3 player.

Plus… it’s a darn sight cheaper than an Ipod! (I paid £149.98.)

Summary: I love it, but it's not perfect.

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