Creative ZEN X-Fi 16GB built with X-Fi Technology and Wireless LAN - 70PF2391001F1

I bought this player for three reasons: it wasn't made by the juggernaut fruit company at their prices, I had previous experience with Creative's MP3 player line (Creative Zen V Plus) and it had Wi-Fi capabilities. The Zen Xi-Fi gives you double the space of Apple's 8GB iPod Nano, for a slightly higher price tag. The sound is pretty much the same (excellent). Only a dog's ears could tell the difference. It was an excellent buy, except for of the features: the Wi-Fi is only good for instant messaging, it has no browser. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? What brain surgeon at Creative thought marketing this as a Wi-Fi device was a good idea, when it takes 5 minutes to type "Hey, what's up?" on their awkward 'keyboard'? Stupid, stupid Creative. And once again, the rest of this device is well designed and totally worth the money.
 
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I love this machine. I will admit this is my first player. I looked at several players before purchasing this one. I do recommend purchasing the travel sound for the Zen from Creative this is what we listen in her car because she doesn't have a aux jack or cassette tape. I wasn't able to find an FM receiver I could stand the sound. I have put most of my CD collection on it and have downloaded books from Overdrive and Net Library without issues. The 10 bookmarks have come in handy for this. As I will sometimes be listening to several books at once. I like the idea of being able to show photos of my kids to people with the expandable SD card slot and able to load them on the player. Overall their is a learning curve but I got the hang of it. Large fingers may not like the size of the buttons but overall it is easy to use.
 
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I've had lots of Creative devices, and this is another ZEN in a beautiful package that won't disappoint. And at less than $200, it's a terrific value. Display is clear, brilliant; it really shines when playing movies. The menus can be customized such that only the items you use show up, and they can be organized in any order. The sound quality is excellent. The X-fi functions (Crystallize and Expand)do help audio quality of moderately compressed mP3's. However, it can vary greatly, depending on the particular track. I found the Crystallize function to be a plus on most tracks, but the Expand function less so. Many "expanded" tracks just sound muddy, not better. The included ear buds are very good compared to the junky ones usually supplied with a player. The built in speaker is surprisingly powerful and is handy when you want to share with someone else. It works flawlessly with Windows Media Player 11 and with Rhapsody 4. I have a large library of subscription music on the X-fi and have no problems. It comes with Creative Centrale software which, often criticized, seems to work okay. It is simple, not very elegant, just a basic al a Windows Explorer style, drag and drop interface. Not pretty, but functional. I have used WMP for a long time, and it continues to be my library manager with the X-fi. The device is very particular about what it wants for video format. But the Creative Centrale does the conversion automatically when you drag and drop it into the player. The 9-button navigation interface is easy and intuitive, and I was quickly able to perform all the major funtions by feel. Not so good is the fact that, despite griping, pleading, and begging for Creative to fully integrate expansion memory into the player so that items on the expansion card are cataloged into the player library, this device is yet another ZEN where no integration has been incorporated. You can see the expansion card as stand-alone memory, then transfer files to main memory and/or play them, but that's it. The wi-fi function works, the most useful being the ability to stream and listen (or watch) files from your computer network via a media server. The Creative Mediabox, a web-based server which contains a few interesting podcasts, has potential, but is pretty thin on content as of now. The chat feature allows interfacing with Yahoo or MSN messenger, but it's not much more than a silly toy. You'd go insane actually trying to carry out a chat session with it. In summary, it's a great device with all the most important bases covered - great sound quality, beautiful display, intuitive interface, nice feature set, elegant package, and an amazing value for 16G of space for the price. So much more, for so much less, than any iPod.
 
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The Creative Zen X-Fi is everything I have come to expect from Creative and more. While the performance and value are everything I expected, the interface was even better. After using the slider on the Zen Vision M, I really appreciate the new buttons on the X-Fi. Moving through menus, changing songs, and changing volume are much easier. Of course, sending instant messages is about the same as using a telephone without a keypad, but for what I need to do, it is wonderful. And the sound is so much clearer with X-Fi technology. It always amazes me what the iTools will consider great when there are so many better products on the market.
 
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