Creative have been over-creative (Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB)

Member Name: davomrmac

Product:	Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB
Date:	17/10/08 (247 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good sound, nice screen, speaker

Disadvantages: Lousy buttons, poor control method

This little MP3 player was a brave move for me. Solely an iPod user before spending £122 for this alternative from Lambda. I wanted to try something different. I felt trapped by the ease of the iPod. New ones came out and I could've bought one without even thinking (well I did), but curiosity made me try this.

It is quite small and feels very well made. The actual dimensions are 55 x 83 x 12.5mm and it weighs 70g. The nice things about it are that the screen is 2.5-inches and very bright. It has a nice crispness to it and the colours pop out at you. It has a built in speaker, so nice for listening to at bed time without having to wear earphones and get all tangled up. The sound when using the supplied headphones is nice too, I would say a little more detailed than an iPod touch. The last of the nice things is to mention the wi-fi. It can connect wirelessly to the Creative server or your own network. You can then stream MP3 music or podcasts to the unit. Oh, and one more thing... you get 16GB of storage, but you can ad an SD or SDHC memory card to expand on this.

The bad things are many. The user interface is nice to the eye, but awful to use. Back and forth through so many menus is horrible. The buttons are not nice to press, very hard. The middle section of the control panel has a further nine buttons arranged in a square and you can never remember what each one does, so guesswork ends in tears.

In summary, this is a reasonable device. Good sound and features, let down by poor controls.

Summary: Good sound and features, let down by poor controls

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