Creative Zen 20GB MP3 Player - Black at Shop Ireland

Creative Zen 20GB MP3 Player - Black

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159 reviews

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Average rating -

Rating: - Excellent player, with battery issues.

As the title suggests I found this to be a fantastic player with excellent functionality, user interface and the sound quality is simply sublime. However on the downside I found the battery life to range from poor to terrible. Used on a long run without changing tracks very often I managed to get about 5 hours out of the battery which is under half the advertised 11 hours. Used in short sessions over a few days the battery life was terrible, probably under 2 hours.

After researching the battery problem I found that this was a well known problem with the micro which was resolved with a firmware fix. Unfortunately this player is still in it's infancy and no firmware is currently available. As already mentioned on this site this player is not officially available within Europe so support is not the best either.

I would recommend this player to anyone that wants a great player that doesn't require fantastic battery life, if it's battery performance you want then steer clear.

Rating: - adequate but not amazing

The Good:

-It's a 20Gb player. Lots of space for lots of music.
-It sounds pretty good. Not as good as my last player, a Rio Karma (RIP), but pretty damn good.
-No-nonsense software. Appears in windows explorer, just drag and drop your music on and there you go, it's on the player. Ease of use much appreciated.
-Metal body gives good durability.
-Small and fairly light.
-Quick charging.
-For some reason people like the fact that you can make playlists on the fly. I don't understand this, if I get bored I just stick it on random, but if you like that idea, this will let you do it.
-Other bells and whistles that will pick songs for you - play favourites, play least often heard, play from specific year etc (like my Karma did).
-Can act as a removable hard drive.
-You can configure the player's menus yourself.
-You can get a remote control.
-MP3 and WMA support. No built in DRM crap either.
-Configurable EQ.
-Microphone.
-Rather nice blue glow, which voobs when charging (like my Karma did).

The Bad:

-Touchpad controls. You have to be looking at it and touching carefully in order to get it to do what you want. This is fiddly, bothersome and invites mugging. Standard buttons and dials can be operated under clothing/without having to look much easier.
-Bad response on touchpad. If like me you have all your music in one big playlist, it can take literally minutes to scroll from one end to the other. The "buttons", especially the ridiculously shrunken play/pause, are similarly picky about when to take notice of you prodding them. Also, the slidy control is both volume and tracklist control, taking only a light tap to switch from volume to playlist. A light tap can be very light - like as light as putting your finger on there in preparation for adjusting volume.
-Badly positioned controls. Unless you get some kind of case that you can attach to yourself (mine stays strapped to my left arm), you need to use both hands to operate it with any degree of effectiveness. This is a common problem for HDD players, however. Blame Apple.
-It's easy to get songs on, but damn time consuming to make playlists of any length. You can't import playlists either, you have to make them from scratch. Took me 2 days to recreate my 3369-song full Winamp playlist from the ground up, but importing an .m3u file would have taken all of 5 seconds.
-Rubbish battery life. Even with moderate volume, EQ off and all snazzy yet power-draining lighting turned off, I find I have to charge it every day or so. My Rio Karma was much more forgiving.
-Non-removable battery. This is fairly standard, but apparently the 6Gb version has a removable battery, which kind of rankles.
-Slightly larger than the 6Gb version, so does not fit accessories (not that there are many, though)
-Random play is not really random, tending to cycle between a handful of places in the playlist.
-Removable Hard Drive mode must be selected and data is placed on a seperate partition from music. No giving your friends your music, like you did on tape in the '80s, that's too evil to be allowed now.
-Microphone only records 10 minutes maximum, so useless for concerts etc.
-Let's face it, it's bloody ugly.

My Conclusion:

I'll never buy another player with touchpad controls. They suck. I'll also prioritise battery life next time. However, the ease with which this player communicates with my PC (my main beef with my Rio Karma) is commendable. It's small, light, seems durable and sounds pleasant. With the addition of a decent case it's adequate but not amazing.

A USEFUL FACT: If you own a PSP and one of these, a USB charger for a PSP will also charge this. If you have one of those combined data/charge cables, you can even charge the PSP off the charge plug and the Zen off the USB data plug at the same time! However, DON'T charge the Zen from a mains PSP charger, it's too high in amperage.

Rating: - Brilliant, but short-lived

This is a fantastic piece of equipment but tragically, mine crashed after 2 months and wouldn't respond. I was sent a replacement, but that one crashed a day later. I am now buying another model, from creative zen because I honestly think they're very good, but I'd investigate direct with them before buying this product. It's excellent - unless it dies. Menus are fab and the all-tracks random shuffle is hilarious. Eminem into Beethoven. Superb.

Rating: - reliability issues

I've now had two of these. Both lost one half of the stereo output after about 6 weeks. The second does not always charge properly.

My advice - don't. I've spent hours loading stuff on it - all wasted.

Rating: - Amazing Zen!!

I've had my Creative Zen for 3 months and it's wonderful! The touch pad takes a little getting used to, but it's pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it, and the navigation system is really easy too. The recording function is clear and good quality, and although i haven't used the radio all that much, it seems pretty efficient too. It lets you create playlists on the actual Zen (I think most ipods let you do this, but apparently not all other mp3 players do) which is really handy, and you can queue up loads of tracks in advance too. The DJ function is cool, and helps with the indecisiveness that results from having so much amazing music to choose from! The 'most popular' function just lists your top 20 favourite tracks though, I think, rather than shifting them around, but that's OK, and the 'rarely heard' function is a really good idea - just plays a random selection of songs you haven't ever played, or hardly ever play (obviously, I suppose!). When i first got it, it froze twice, but only for a few seconds each time, and once it switched itself off and refused to respond for about 24 hours, but the third time I tried the charger it was fine, and apparently software problems like that are qute common to mp3 players. There haven't been any problems like that before or since, so I think it was just a glitch. The headphones you get with it are a bit rubbish, but as soon as you plug it into some decent ones, it sounds amazing! The 'mesmerising blue glow' is very pretty. Also, Creative is really good because it doesn't require you to convert all the mp3s to a special format, like Sony and Apple do (I don't really know what that means, but apparently it's good for the company and bad for users, so might be worth looking up). The machine isn't too heavy or bulky, and it is quite sturdy, which is comforting. All in all, it's brilliant and exciting and I love it! :-)