Creative’s Zen, which has spent years nipping at the heels of the iPod without ever making that killer bite, has come up with what can only be described as a ‘premium MP3 player.’
It can play video, but with a screen measuring 2.5 inches, that's unlikely to be its daily chore – especially since it’s only got 16GB of storage.
The screen is about half the size of the iPod touch's and is 4:3 shape, so widescreen video is also out of the question.
Plastic fantasticIf the Zen is indeed starting to sound like a jumped-up MP3 player, it does have plenty of advantages. Smaller than a credit card and at 65g around half the weight of the Touch (though not as slim), the Zen suffers is no hassle to tote around. The one drawback with the plastic frame is that it feels a touch flimsy, although we had no problems with it during testing.
An SD/SDHC card slot is there to expand the capacity and with 4GB SD cards down to a few quid it’s worth considering. The option to load a few SD cards with movies and music for long trips (or using with a camera) is attractive and hooked-up to a PC via USB, the Zen also works as a card reader.
For music the Zen is limited to just MP3, WMA and WAV files though this should be enough for light use. Sound quality is higher than the touch and at 25 hours has an impressive battery life.
Back to basicsVideo is more restrictive, but again covers the basics. It can’t handle ASF, MP4, MOV, older WMV files or H.264, but XviD, DivX, MPEG, WMV9 and all AVI work fine. OK, the 320x240 pixel screen is tiny, but the quality is surprisingly good and if you’re loathe to take huge gadgets on holiday, the Zen’s video is just as impressive as that of the touch and stretches to five hours.
It’s also got a one-up on Apple with an FM radio, which managed to find and sets presets for 10 radio stations within about seven seconds. Blimey.
Aside from great sound quality and acceptable video, it’s this ease of use that is the Zen’s biggest skill. It doesn’t have a touch screen, but with design this good, it doesn’t need one.
Author:iGizmo
Copyright 2009 Dennis Publishing All Rights Reserved.
iGizmo.co.uk