Good player, bad design (Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB)

Member Name: sperato

Product:	Creative Zen X-Fi 16 GB
Date:	14/06/09 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sound quality, WiFi, Capacity and size

Disadvantages: Bad menus, buttons

I got this player at Christmas, so around 6 months ago.

Firstly the size and weight of the player is good, not creating any unsightly bulges or weighing you down.

The sound quality is very good, and the built in speaker is loud enough to hear over a shower, and goes quiet enough to fall to sleep to.

The Wi-fi works well but is quite a drain on the battery.

When playing through the supplied headphones the sound quality is excellent. Although I did find that the 'buds' came off too easily and consequently I lost the ones that fit my ears eventually and ended up using the other sizes supplied. Also within 5 months the right earphone stopped working and a week later the left one went, I had used it everyday but nevertheless I didnt expect them to break that quickly.

The worst thing about the player is the functionality, the menu screens, whilst not complicated, are not user friendly, there are too many to choose from and you cant just go to an artist, press play and let it cycle through other artists when done with the original choice.

Another grip is the 9 button array at the right side of the player, most of the buttons are not used and their absence would prove to make operating the player without looking (e.g. at the gym) much easier.

The software that you use to add music etc is quite good, it uploads music fairly quickly and it is easy to drag and drop to create playlists, the very quick search function aiding this. However you can only create and properly manage the playlists using this software and the video upload and conversion is horribly slow. Having said that, once the videos are on the player the quality is excellent (so far as the originals are) and the drain on the battery is not as much as I expected.

The other semi-useful thing about this player is the SDHC slot that can be used, however the files are played seperatly and are not added to your library of music, making it better for use as a large playlist.

All in all this is a good player and I would recommend it, there are some bad points but the sound quality (especially with the X-Fi) is worth the inconveniences.

Summary: Good player, worth it for the sound but be prepared for some inconvenience!

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