Listen to your music everywhere. Smooth contours and tiny size fits perfectly in your palm slides effortlessly into your smallest pocket and comfortably sports your fashion at the gym. View photos and album art in full color with the vibrant 1.5" OLED display and discover all the additional rich features ZEN V has packed in tiny curves.

• Portable media player fits perfectly in your palm or pocket


• Big 1 GB memory holds up to 500 songs photographs and album art


• 1.5-inch OLED screen displays rich and vibrant photos full-color menus and more at any viewing angle


• Direct CD Recording allows you to record songs directly from an audio source without using a PC


• Player doubles as a voice recorder with the handy built-in microphone

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This credit card-sized ZEN has a stunning 2.5" TFT color screen with 16.7 million color support that is perfect for viewing album art videos and photos. Enjoy up to 500 MP3 WMA or AAC songs watch up to 70 hours of videos and share hundreds of photos with your friends. Even expand your portable music video or photo collection by adding additional content through the convenient SD memory slot. With SD cards to go carry virtually unlimited amounts of your digital library anywhere you go. ZEN is the first Creative player to support unprotected AAC format so you can enjoy all your favorite CD tracks that you've ripped through iTunes software. ZEN also supports iTunes Plus tracks from the iTunes store in addition to MP3 and WMA music tracks. It is also compatible with music subscription services such as Napster To Go and Rhapsody. ZEN supports audio books from Audible too! In between your tunes use the built-in FM radio to keep yourself up to date with world events sports scores or traffic reports. Enjoy up to 30 hours of your songs or 5 hours of video on a single charge. That's over a full day of music! Or 10 episodes of Scrubs! Photo Format - JPEG and (with transcoding - GIF TIFF PNG and BMP) Organizer - Syncs with and views Microsoft Outlook Contacts Calendar & Tasks FM radio with 32 presets Voice recorder Functions as an external hard drive Approximate Unit Dimensions - 3.26 (W) x 2.16 (H) x 0.44 (D) Approximate Unit Weight - 2.1 oz

• Enjoy all your media on a device that's about the width of a credit card


• Watch 64 hours of videos enjoy up to 4000 of your favorite songs or share hundreds of photos with your friends


• 2.5-inch TFT color display with 320 x 240-pixel resolution and support for up to 16.7 million colors


• Clock and alarm function volume restriction eight equalizer settings and a USB hard drive mode SDHC support


• Weighs 2.1 ounces and measures 3.26 x 2.16 x .44 inches (W x H x D)

More detail ...

Best flash player on the market great even for large music collections

This is a great choice for those people who previously limited their flash players to workout duty or only holding a small piece of their large music collection and having to change the music on it every so often. With a 16GB capacity most people can fit their entire collection on here without difficulty and even have room for some videos.



First impressions of this player are very good. It is extremely appealing to the eye everyone who sees it will ask about it. It is about the size of a credit card just thicker (less than 1/2inch). The front is a very glossy black plastic that looks great until you touch it instantly covering it with fingerprints :) The back is a rough cheaper feeling black plastic. Overall it has a nice solid weight and feel to it but not very heavy. This will easily fit in a pocket.



The 2.5" screen is absolutely gorgeous. Very bright with vivid colors. The viewing angle is very good two people can easily look at the screen at the same time while watching a movie for example. The menus are all nicely animated and intuitive to navigate. The icons and text are big clear and easy to read.



One of the big perks to having so much capacity is plenty of room for videos. This was one of the first things I've tested as it was a big reason for my purchase. First of all it DOES play Amazon Unbox videos perfectly. Transferring files was very easy (just a few clicks) and very quick. The quality of the video was great as well. The max size of videos is apparently 320x240 I have not been able to get it to play anything larger than that. If the video is smaller (for example widescreen) you have the option of playing it at the correct aspect ratio or fill the screen (stretched out). I've gotten it to play videos encoded in Xvid and WMV format. Xvid files were encoded with AutoGK and the WMV files were encoded with Arcsoft MediaConverter. If you synchronize with Windows Media Player you can put in *almost any* video file and it will automatically convert the file into WMV format and then transfer to the player. How long it takes to convert depends on the type of video you're encoding how big the file is and of course the speed of your computer.



Music sounds very good on this player but please... get rid of the stock headphones they are horrible. Using a decent pair of headphones makes a HUGE difference. The EQ options are OK there are about a half dozen presets and a customizable EQ. The "Bass Boost" option just made it worse in my opinion it just distorted the sound. Otherwise it is a very even and balanced sound very similar to the Vision:M.



The FM radio has a whopping 32 presets and the reception is pretty good. Strong stations are in stereo weaker ones come in mono. I haven't had a chance to test out the built-in mic.



I easily transferred music and playlists onto this player from Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey as well as protected music (WMA) from Napster. Everything was very easy usually just dragging and dropping. The speed of transfer is probably the fastest I've seen. I've used this player on XP Home and on Vista Premium 64-bit.



Regarding the SD cards. I think its only a slight inconvenience that the memory card media isn't directly integrated with the other content. Meaning if you have videos on the SD card you don't go to the "Video" menu where all the other videos are you have to access them through the "Memory Card" menu. Once there you browse through the file structure like normal. If you organize the content smartly on your cards you should have no problem. And really its a small price to pay for that feature. Currently SDHC cards are up to 16GB in capacity meaning you could double the capacity and carry around 32GB worth of content in your pocket. Amazing. I tested a Kingston 512MB SD Card and a Kingston 2GB microSD card (with adapter of course) and they were recognized and played the content without difficulty.



A quick note about the firmware. Mine came with 1.10.05. When my player turns off it really turns off. With newer firmwares when it turns off it goes into a sleep mode for a while before it finally turns all the way off. What that means is with the older firmware each time you turn it on it has to "boot" all over again whereas with the newer firmware you get an "instant-on" at the expense of slightly reduced battery life (since it is asleep and not off). Something to consider before you decide to upgrade the firmware.More detail ...

Best flash player on the market great even for large music collections

This is a great choice for those people who previously limited their flash players to workout duty or only holding a small piece of their large music collection and having to change the music on it every so often. With a 16GB capacity most people can fit their entire collection on here without difficulty and even have room for some videos.



First impressions of this player are very good. It is extremely appealing to the eye everyone who sees it will ask about it. It is about the size of a credit card just thicker (less than 1/2inch). The front is a very glossy black plastic that looks great until you touch it instantly covering it with fingerprints :) The back is a rough cheaper feeling black plastic. Overall it has a nice solid weight and feel to it but not very heavy. This will easily fit in a pocket.



The 2.5" screen is absolutely gorgeous. Very bright with vivid colors. The viewing angle is very good two people can easily look at the screen at the same time while watching a movie for example. The menus are all nicely animated and intuitive to navigate. The icons and text are big clear and easy to read.



One of the big perks to having so much capacity is plenty of room for videos. This was one of the first things I've tested as it was a big reason for my purchase. First of all it DOES play Amazon Unbox videos perfectly. Transferring files was very easy (just a few clicks) and very quick. The quality of the video was great as well. The max size of videos is apparently 320x240 I have not been able to get it to play anything larger than that. If the video is smaller (for example widescreen) you have the option of playing it at the correct aspect ratio or fill the screen (stretched out). I've gotten it to play videos encoded in Xvid and WMV format. Xvid files were encoded with AutoGK and the WMV files were encoded with Arcsoft MediaConverter. If you synchronize with Windows Media Player you can put in *almost any* video file and it will automatically convert the file into WMV format and then transfer to the player. How long it takes to convert depends on the type of video you're encoding how big the file is and of course the speed of your computer.



Music sounds very good on this player but please... get rid of the stock headphones they are horrible. Using a decent pair of headphones makes a HUGE difference. The EQ options are OK there are about a half dozen presets and a customizable EQ. The "Bass Boost" option just made it worse in my opinion it just distorted the sound. Otherwise it is a very even and balanced sound very similar to the Vision:M.



The FM radio has a whopping 32 presets and the reception is pretty good. Strong stations are in stereo weaker ones come in mono. I haven't had a chance to test out the built-in mic.



I easily transferred music and playlists onto this player from Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey as well as protected music (WMA) from Napster. Everything was very easy usually just dragging and dropping. The speed of transfer is probably the fastest I've seen. I've used this player on XP Home and on Vista Premium 64-bit.



Regarding the SD cards. I think its only a slight inconvenience that the memory card media isn't directly integrated with the other content. Meaning if you have videos on the SD card you don't go to the "Video" menu where all the other videos are you have to access them through the "Memory Card" menu. Once there you browse through the file structure like normal. If you organize the content smartly on your cards you should have no problem. And really its a small price to pay for that feature. Currently SDHC cards are up to 16GB in capacity meaning you could double the capacity and carry around 32GB worth of content in your pocket. Amazing. I tested a Kingston 512MB SD Card and a Kingston 2GB microSD card (with adapter of course) and they were recognized and played the content without difficulty.



A quick note about the firmware. Mine came with 1.10.05. When my player turns off it really turns off. With newer firmwares when it turns off it goes into a sleep mode for a while before it finally turns all the way off. What that means is with the older firmware each time you turn it on it has to "boot" all over again whereas with the newer firmware you get an "instant-on" at the expense of slightly reduced battery life (since it is asleep and not off). Something to consider before you decide to upgrade the firmware.More detail ...

Few flaws many pros

IMPORTANT NOTES FIRST:



YES it is iTunes-compatible and YES it is compatible with Yahoo! Jukebox BUT ONLY THOSE TRACKS THAT YOU HAVE PURCHASED AS "BURNABLE". In other words you will not be able to transfer your Subscription or Stream tracks to this device which is only fair (for that you have to have Yahoo! Music Unlimited To-Go which is an invite-based service and thus uncommon). Needless to say you can import tracks from any CD quickly and painlessly and/or copy any wmv/mp3/mp4 or whatever that you already have on your hard drive: the device is browsable with Windows and all you need to do is copy/paste to the right folder.



Now for the review.





THE GOOD:



++ Compatible with an amazing variety of file formats without conversion unlike iPods. Whatever is not compatible the software will convert for you if at all possible. This is a HUGE plus for the computer-illiterate.



++ Great sound quality a bare minimum requirement for a music player.



++ Sleek looks IMO superior to the trite iPod-like spin-wheel design. It certainly got more looks and comments than the iPod I had previously. Also it's more pleasant to hold in your hand: small but not too tiny and very sturdy/solid (which if you'll handle it 8-10 hours a day like I do is a huge plus).



++ The included software is fantastic. It's fast reliable (never froze) and lets you manage files and create playlists quickly and painlessly. Basically anything you can do with the player's built-in software you can do with ZEN Media Explorer from your computer. So go for it.



++ Many complained about the interface but I actually like it very much. The built-in software is easy to understand and utilize. The buttons are a tad tricky but all you need to do is play around with them for ten minutes before you're able to find them blindly by just sticking your hand in your pocket (something you certainly cannot do with iPods whose interface is more visually-driven).





THE SO-SO:



++/-- The SD expansion slot is both a pain and a pleasure. Yes you can basically make this a 16Gb with an SDHC card for a few bucks--but it's true that only SOME content will run off of it and that while you are playing content from the SD card you cannot navigate the built-in flash memory. So caveat emptor... but if you know what you're getting there's no reason to complain. How many times do you really browse your music while you're already listening to something else anyway?





THE BAD:



-- Perplexed about battery life info: "25 hours of continuous listening"? I don't think so. More like 10-12 which is on par with similar devices.



-- The shortest USB cable ever bundled. Buy a cheapo extension from Monoprice right away unless you already own a USB hub. Otherwise your player will lie on the floor or worse hang by the cable while it's being charged and sync'ed neither of which is good.



-- The joystick buttons make a slightly annoying clicking sound not when pressed but when released. However this does not happen on my friend's ZEN so maybe I got a "bad" unit?



-- AWFUL packaging! What were they thinking? Not only is it one of those impossible-to-open blister packs but if you use scissors it's relatively easy to harm the contents... not the player thankfully which is in full sight but the manuals and CD and bundled cables. So be careful.





OTHER THOUGHTS:



** BUY A SCREEN PROTECTOR! Apply it immediately. The screen will collect dust (and thus scratches) within hours like any LCD.

** BUY A CASE OR SKIN! Piano-black finish is attracted to fingerprints like flies to s__t.

** 8Gb is perfect for the serious music listener with varied taste. Buffs and pros want to go for 16Gb. Occasional listeners will do well with 4Gb. Media moguls of course need not apply: that's what the Vision is for.





Overall one of the best entry-level portable music players on the market. The price tag may well be the deal-breaker here: it is cheaper than any other brand music player and it does the same things AND in my opinion more and better. Support by Creative is also famously good so I see no reason not to buy a ZEN.More detail ...

Best flash player on the market great even for large music collections

This is a great choice for those people who previously limited their flash players to workout duty or only holding a small piece of their large music collection and having to change the music on it every so often. With a 16GB capacity most people can fit their entire collection on here without difficulty and even have room for some videos.



First impressions of this player are very good. It is extremely appealing to the eye everyone who sees it will ask about it. It is about the size of a credit card just thicker (less than 1/2inch). The front is a very glossy black plastic that looks great until you touch it instantly covering it with fingerprints :) The back is a rough cheaper feeling black plastic. Overall it has a nice solid weight and feel to it but not very heavy. This will easily fit in a pocket.



The 2.5" screen is absolutely gorgeous. Very bright with vivid colors. The viewing angle is very good two people can easily look at the screen at the same time while watching a movie for example. The menus are all nicely animated and intuitive to navigate. The icons and text are big clear and easy to read.



One of the big perks to having so much capacity is plenty of room for videos. This was one of the first things I've tested as it was a big reason for my purchase. First of all it DOES play Amazon Unbox videos perfectly. Transferring files was very easy (just a few clicks) and very quick. The quality of the video was great as well. The max size of videos is apparently 320x240 I have not been able to get it to play anything larger than that. If the video is smaller (for example widescreen) you have the option of playing it at the correct aspect ratio or fill the screen (stretched out). I've gotten it to play videos encoded in Xvid and WMV format. Xvid files were encoded with AutoGK and the WMV files were encoded with Arcsoft MediaConverter. If you synchronize with Windows Media Player you can put in *almost any* video file and it will automatically convert the file into WMV format and then transfer to the player. How long it takes to convert depends on the type of video you're encoding how big the file is and of course the speed of your computer.



Music sounds very good on this player but please... get rid of the stock headphones they are horrible. Using a decent pair of headphones makes a HUGE difference. The EQ options are OK there are about a half dozen presets and a customizable EQ. The "Bass Boost" option just made it worse in my opinion it just distorted the sound. Otherwise it is a very even and balanced sound very similar to the Vision:M.



The FM radio has a whopping 32 presets and the reception is pretty good. Strong stations are in stereo weaker ones come in mono. I haven't had a chance to test out the built-in mic.



I easily transferred music and playlists onto this player from Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey as well as protected music (WMA) from Napster. Everything was very easy usually just dragging and dropping. The speed of transfer is probably the fastest I've seen. I've used this player on XP Home and on Vista Premium 64-bit.



Regarding the SD cards. I think its only a slight inconvenience that the memory card media isn't directly integrated with the other content. Meaning if you have videos on the SD card you don't go to the "Video" menu where all the other videos are you have to access them through the "Memory Card" menu. Once there you browse through the file structure like normal. If you organize the content smartly on your cards you should have no problem. And really its a small price to pay for that feature. Currently SDHC cards are up to 16GB in capacity meaning you could double the capacity and carry around 32GB worth of content in your pocket. Amazing. I tested a Kingston 512MB SD Card and a Kingston 2GB microSD card (with adapter of course) and they were recognized and played the content without difficulty.



A quick note about the firmware. Mine came with 1.10.05. When my player turns off it really turns off. With newer firmwares when it turns off it goes into a sleep mode for a while before it finally turns all the way off. What that means is with the older firmware each time you turn it on it has to "boot" all over again whereas with the newer firmware you get an "instant-on" at the expense of slightly reduced battery life (since it is asleep and not off). Something to consider before you decide to upgrade the firmware.More detail ...

Best flash player on the market great even for large music collections

This is a great choice for those people who previously limited their flash players to workout duty or only holding a small piece of their large music collection and having to change the music on it every so often. With a 16GB capacity most people can fit their entire collection on here without difficulty and even have room for some videos.



First impressions of this player are very good. It is extremely appealing to the eye everyone who sees it will ask about it. It is about the size of a credit card just thicker (less than 1/2inch). The front is a very glossy black plastic that looks great until you touch it instantly covering it with fingerprints :) The back is a rough cheaper feeling black plastic. Overall it has a nice solid weight and feel to it but not very heavy. This will easily fit in a pocket.



The 2.5" screen is absolutely gorgeous. Very bright with vivid colors. The viewing angle is very good two people can easily look at the screen at the same time while watching a movie for example. The menus are all nicely animated and intuitive to navigate. The icons and text are big clear and easy to read.



One of the big perks to having so much capacity is plenty of room for videos. This was one of the first things I've tested as it was a big reason for my purchase. First of all it DOES play Amazon Unbox videos perfectly. Transferring files was very easy (just a few clicks) and very quick. The quality of the video was great as well. The max size of videos is apparently 320x240 I have not been able to get it to play anything larger than that. If the video is smaller (for example widescreen) you have the option of playing it at the correct aspect ratio or fill the screen (stretched out). I've gotten it to play videos encoded in Xvid and WMV format. Xvid files were encoded with AutoGK and the WMV files were encoded with Arcsoft MediaConverter. If you synchronize with Windows Media Player you can put in *almost any* video file and it will automatically convert the file into WMV format and then transfer to the player. How long it takes to convert depends on the type of video you're encoding how big the file is and of course the speed of your computer.



Music sounds very good on this player but please... get rid of the stock headphones they are horrible. Using a decent pair of headphones makes a HUGE difference. The EQ options are OK there are about a half dozen presets and a customizable EQ. The "Bass Boost" option just made it worse in my opinion it just distorted the sound. Otherwise it is a very even and balanced sound very similar to the Vision:M.



The FM radio has a whopping 32 presets and the reception is pretty good. Strong stations are in stereo weaker ones come in mono. I haven't had a chance to test out the built-in mic.



I easily transferred music and playlists onto this player from Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey as well as protected music (WMA) from Napster. Everything was very easy usually just dragging and dropping. The speed of transfer is probably the fastest I've seen. I've used this player on XP Home and on Vista Premium 64-bit.



Regarding the SD cards. I think its only a slight inconvenience that the memory card media isn't directly integrated with the other content. Meaning if you have videos on the SD card you don't go to the "Video" menu where all the other videos are you have to access them through the "Memory Card" menu. Once there you browse through the file structure like normal. If you organize the content smartly on your cards you should have no problem. And really its a small price to pay for that feature. Currently SDHC cards are up to 16GB in capacity meaning you could double the capacity and carry around 32GB worth of content in your pocket. Amazing. I tested a Kingston 512MB SD Card and a Kingston 2GB microSD card (with adapter of course) and they were recognized and played the content without difficulty.



A quick note about the firmware. Mine came with 1.10.05. When my player turns off it really turns off. With newer firmwares when it turns off it goes into a sleep mode for a while before it finally turns all the way off. What that means is with the older firmware each time you turn it on it has to "boot" all over again whereas with the newer firmware you get an "instant-on" at the expense of slightly reduced battery life (since it is asleep and not off). Something to consider before you decide to upgrade the firmware.More detail ...