Creative Zen Review

Even though the Zen X-Fi is out now, I’m still writing this review since I don’t really plan on buying the new Zen. The WiFi features and the new look are simply not enough to make me buy a new player although I am really, really curious how the X-Fi technology can make music sound better in a PMP. But I think I’d rather wait for the 3rd-generation Zen than spend money on a rehashed Zen.

I bought my ZEN 16 GB last March (2008) in Electroworld at the SM North Cyberzone branch. I paid in cash so I got a discount in addition to the following freebies: wire management silicon case, leather case and wall charger. These items are usually sold separately in other stores but I got the whole package for just 10,000 pesos. I consider myself lucky for finding this great deal. There’s an option to extend the warranty but I didn’t get it because I’m sure better players will be available by next year.

I couldn’t wait for the 32 GB model to arrive in the Philippines and even if it was available, it still wouldn’t be enough to hold my entire music library. As of this writing, the 32 GB model is still not sold here (AFAIK) and it’s been almost 5 months already since I bought mine. Good thing I didn’t decide to wait.

Instead of discussing the main features which many other reviews have already gone into detail, I’m just going to list the “little” complaints I have on this little player. Let me warn you though that many of the things listed may appear to you as just plain nitpicking but I take stuff like this seriously that’s why I came up with this kind of list. And for the record, let me also say that I never regretted buying the ZEN. It will be so much better though if the following “issues” are addressed if not by a new firmware then probably on their next players.

Note: This review is for the Creative ZEN 16 GB model with firmware version 1.21.01. Items marked with an asterisk (*) can be considered as feature requests. Also, the list is not sorted in any particular order.

1. FM Radio reception is average – One of the main reasons I don’t like the iPod is its lack of the FM radio feature. And I don’t want to buy some overpriced accessory just to have something as elementary as the radio. So it’s good Creative (and many other players) has it but sadly, my experience with the reception quality has only been so-so. I don’t like how I have to position the player in some weird way just to get good reception on my favorite stations. I didn’t have this kind of problem with my old Muvo TX FM so I’m sure this can be addressed.
2. Bitrate info problems – When you listen to a song with a variable bitrate (VBR) and then you go to view the File Details, what you see on the bitrate section is not the average bitrate of the song. Alright, so that is probably too geeky for anyone to ask. But here’s something I really can’t stand: You can’t see the bitrate info in the file details screen unless that song is currently playing! What’s up with that?
3. No file size info for music and videos - I can understand if they left this info out for videos but they should at least have included it for music. The ZEN can show the bitrate info (sometimes) but no file size at all? They were able to show this with photos so I don’t think it would take a lot of work to show it also with other types of file.
4. Better podcast and audiobook support – We do have the ZENcast software for getting podcast updates so we could transfer them to the Zen easily. But there’s one problem I’ve noticed while using the software. If we choose the option to convert the podcast episode to a ZENcast video, the resulting file turns out to be a corrupted copy of the original. It does show on the player the real length of the episode but it doesn’t finish the whole clip because it’s corrupted. It seems like there’s a bug in the conversion process of the software. (I have version 2.01.01 of ZENcast Organizer.) As a result, I’m forced to use the original audio podcast files which mix with the music library. And as for audiobooks, they should also make a separate section in the player for managing them. I know Bookmarks can be a workaround on this but shouldn’t Creative be making things easier for the user and not more difficult?
5. Back button inconsistencies – It doesn’t always do what it’s supposed to do. Let’s have an example. Go to DJ mode then Most Popular and then play a song. If you hit on Back it would take you to the DJ menu and not to the Most Popular list. Very annoying. Same thing happens in the Lookup Artist page. Hitting the Back button takes me all the way back to the main menu. I thought the Back button’s purpose is to bring the user back to the page he saw prior to the one he’s currently viewing, just like in web browsers.
6. Album of the Day is not correctly implemented – It should have been named “Album of the Moment” or “Play Some Random Album” if it just picks a different album each time you select the option in DJ. There’s really no Album of the Day which the Zen will remember for that day. I don’t know if other players have it like this too but it’s definitely misleading to have it named like that. I remember reading a review before for the Zen saying that it’s really one album for each day. Don’t know where he got his ZEN… :-S
7. FM Radio station name length limit – You can only have up to 9 characters which I find very limiting. Creative should have allowed us up to 15 characters because it would still fit on the screen anyway.
8. Seek To feature - It’s useless to me. I like just holding down the left and right buttons to go to a specific part of a track and yes it does that. The problem is you won’t hear anything until you release the button so you have no idea how long you should be holding it down. Yeah, it has the time elapsed info on the screen and the Bookmark feature too but those are not enough. I want a real-time track seeking feature. I expected the Zen will have something as simple as this but no it doesn’t. Even my old Muvo player can do this!
9. *Battery meter with hours:minutes left – It would be nice to actually see how many hours you have left. Of course, based on several factors like screen brightness, equalizer, etc. But that’s probably asking too much. Still, they can just add this in the Information page if they can.
10. *Change Order of Tracks - When playing music on the ZEN, you have this default playlist called “Selected”. You can actually create playlists right in the player itself although it takes quite some time adding and selecting tracks. Once you’ve got the songs selected, they’re stuck in the order in which you added them. I wish we could move the tracks around on this default playlist as well as on the saved playlists. A simple option like Move Up/Down on the context menu of the list should do it.
11. Play Count – One of my biggest gripes on the Zen is the way it tracks play count. Each time you play a song is considered a play count on the Zen. It would be nice to have it work like the audioscrobbler of Last.fm which only considers a count after you’ve played a certain percentage of its track length. For example, a 4 minute song can only be considered “played” after playing 2 minutes of it (if the setting was at 50%). If this was improved on the Zen, we can get a more accurate Most Played list on DJ mode.
12. *Continuous Video Playback – Why are we forced to go back to the video list each time we want to play a video? Can’t we just have it automatically play the next video on the list after the current video is done playing? Sheesh!
13. *Turn Off Display – Yes, the display will turn off if you have the player on hold. But there are also times when we want to save some power while still being able to control the player. I usually have the Zen in my pocket. (This is why I still prefer tactile buttons over touchscreen.) And it’s not convenient that I have to take it out just to turn off hold so I could move to the next song or lower the volume.
14. Better battery life? – Most of my songs are encoded in high bitrates and that really makes the player consume more juice. But I guess this can’t be fixed by a simple firmware update so there’s nothing we can do(?)
15. *”Recently Added” feature on DJ mode – Yet to Be Rated and Rarely Heard are great to have but having this additional list will make it easier to find the new songs we just added on the player.
16. *Browse by Year - It already has music browsing by Genre so why not have the option to browse by Year too? But I guess it’s better to have this once they’ve released bigger capacity players.
17. *Saving Playlists – It would be easier if we could just choose one of the current playlists to overwrite when we just want to replace an existing one. Although it’s in QWERTY style, the onscreen keyboard is not the most intuitive input design if it doesn’t come with touchscreen. Not that I’d like the ZEN to have one.
18. Keep the settings even after upgrading the firmware - Alright, I’m not sure if this is even a glitch so I’m apologizing now if it’s not. When I upgraded to firmware 1.21.01, the ZEN locked up on me so I had to use the reset hole. By doing that, I effectively lost my previous settings including all the preset FM stations I worked so hard to name and configure. I don’t know if it was the firmware or the Reset option that erased my settings though. I’ll probably find out after Creative releases the next update.
19. *DIVX/XVID support – Creative, Your Zen Vision M had this! And you called the Zen a replacement player? Once you get this feature back, then I will go asking for FLAC, APE, OGG, MKV and PDF support too. 
20. *Gapless Playback and Track Crossfading – Come on! Is it too much to ask, Creative? ;-(
21. *Visualizations – I kid. I kid. Hm.. but then the PSP has it so… 

Some of the things I’ve asked here are probably too much to ask in a player like the Zen. But the purpose of this post is not only to provide points for improvement but also to give prospective buyers an idea of what the player can and cannot do YET.

I hope the Zen X-Fi is a sign of better things to come from Creative. I like some of the improvements in the X-Fi like changing the Reset hole to a button which is easier to use. (Too bad I’m still stuck with the hole.) This is a portable player and I can’t believe they expected us to be carrying a needle everywhere we go just in case we need to reset this thing! I’ve been in that situation more times than I’d like to remember so good job on that Creative. Just wish you had thought of it before releasing the first ZEN.

Let me also say that I don’t hate the iPod. There are just some things Apple does with their players which I don’t like. Heck, if Apple can produce an iPod designed for audiophiles and PMP nitpickers in mind like me then I’d buy it in a heartbeat but that’s already a subject for another post.