Rating: 
Summary: You Cant Replace The Battery
Review: Ive been looking into MP3 players, as i am preparing to purchase one. In my opinion, this is the best one out there, but dont plan on keeping it forever. The battery is built into the thing, so when it dies, you have to trash the unit, and buy another one. I read that Creative says the average battery lasts 2 years or so. Buy the way, the IPOD is built the same way, also making it a disposable player.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Product
Review: Great product, terrible software. But, by all means, don't let that deterr you from buying this. I ripped all of my cd's onto this device with plenty of space left, and they all sound great. I also own the 10gig ipod, and i have got to admit, i like this better. More space, cheaper price, and good interface. I like this interface better than the ipod, simply because it's designed to be used with one hand, unlike the ipod. I love this device!!
Rating: 
Summary: Jukebox Zen Review
Review: I just got this player a few days ago, it rocks !
It's small and light, the screen quality and blue backlighting is very cool, the user interface is really intuitive on the player. accessing songs with the scrolling wheel is extremely easy. USB2 transfer are fast, recharging the player and transfering songs with the same usb2 cable is great, just plug one cable! The sound quality is great, it sounds better than mp3s on my audigy.
Now the bad points: It froze several times, 3 times so far in 3 days. I had to use a paper clip, better always carry one with you as you never know when it's going to freeze.
I went to the creative website, downloaded a new firmware for the player (actually the install program took me there and I entered the info correctly, then I got to the firmware page, downloaded it and when I wanted to install, it said that I don't have a compatible player. Creative better upgrade their page.
The software is [bad], the creative windows player is terrible so I'm using the other manager, it's not very intuitive, you can't see what's in your Jukebox player and you can't upload music from the player to the pc. you can copy mp3 files as FILES but then you can't read them with the player. pretty [bad] too.
Worst point : the player recognize the id3 tag from the mp3 files, but only the artist and song title fields, NOT THE TRACK FIELD !!... that means when you rip an album and copy it in your jukebox, if you select the album to play, it'll play the tracks in alphabetical order. that's definitely the worst shortcoming of the player, I have to rename the id3 for each song I'm transfering like this : track number - song title. It's long, boring and incredibly annoying. I hope they fix this with a new firmware.
So far all he problems come from software (I'm used to it with creative). The hardware part seem almost perfect (except the freezing part), so I'll keep looking for new firmwares and hope they fix the problems.
Rating:
Summary: The Zen Rocks
Review: Wow! The Zen is really great. I looked at the ipod and the Zen. If I had a Mac, I might have gone with the ipod, because it is a touch smaller. However, for a PC user, the Zen's software is so simple to use, it's really a pleasure. The transfer is like lightning with the fire wire, the menus are easy and logical, and the thing sounds incredible. The EAX audio really lets the user customize the sound. With a size barely bigger than the ipod,pc-friendly software, and a price tag ...lower than the comparably equiped ipod, the zen is the way to go. Kudos to Creative.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not great.
Review: Bought myself the Zen for Xmas. I use this daily and find it perfectly adequate. For the price, it is hard to beat. Battery life is fine, comes with USB and Firewire, which makes transfers very fast, form factor is wonderful (small and light), looks stylish (much nicer than the iPod IMHO). The problems I've had with it: 1. Within the first week (has happened 3 times so far), it froze up on me and required a "hard" physical reset with a paperclip(!) 2. Only works with Windows and the software they've included is not all that great 3. Drivers/software seems sometimes to have trouble detecting connection with the player, requiring some fiddling for it to appear to the OS (not sure if this is a Windows or software issue) 4. UI on the player is not very intuitive and lacks certain functionality, e.g. allowing quick way to add all artists to playlist In conclusion, there are certain shortcomings to the unit, but this is definitely the best bang for the buck unit I've found on the market today.
Rating:
Summary: Great player, versatile, durable, superior sound quality
Review: The sound quality is superior to any other MP3 player I've used. The interface is very easy to use and has quite a few options to customize how the player works. The EAX settings are great, I use a few of them quite regularly and they're things you just won't find on any non-Creative player. The carrying case is included and it's very rugged and durable. The buttons are easy to reach and give a good responsive feel when pressing. The battery charges very quickly and really does last a long time. I have used it for over 10 hours without recharging. Transfers using firewire are very, very fast, songs copy to/from the player in 1 or 2 seconds. It's a great product overall, highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Selective Zen Is No Zen At All
Review: Worthy of note is that the player requires an MS-bsed OS for transfering songs to the player. Can Creative really offer true digital zen only to the windows users amongst us? Truly a blow to the concept of "selling" zen.
Rating: 
Summary: Well done
Review: I just got this player last night, and my initial concerns regarding hard disk based mp3 players are already gone. First, I can SHAKE it, and it doesn't skip. That is because it holds a nice 16MB cache and only spins up the harddisk once every 4 or 5 songs. Once the songs are in memory, no can skippy. Transferring is FAST. An entire cd from disk to mp3 player in just a few minutes. Pulling the songs from CD is the slowest part, but my CDROM is slow. The songs transfer extremely fast to the player, so I can transfer music for the gym right before I go, rather than having to plan way ahead of time. The sound quality coming out is absolutely clear through high quality headphones at 128Kbps (though obviously there is a slight difference between this and CD. I am not able to comment on battery life yet, as I haven't used it for that long. However, I was happy with the fact that it charged in 4 hours initially, we will see how long they last. My only Critique is the general interface could use a bit of work. The buttons are a bit small and figitty. It is slightly difficult to find the buttons you want just by feel (a small critique). I also think that Creative Playcenter is trying to look a bit more glamourous than it needs to, so the overall interface is a bit clumsy albeit still simple to use. I am not a bit fan of interfaces that try to look like space pods that transform and collapse. Just give me a simple clean design with well thought out menus please... Good job creative.
Rating:
Summary: SHOULD BE ZERO STARS
Review: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. Bought it for my son for Xmas. It worked for 5 days without problems. Then we went on a trip to Cancun. As soon as he sat down on the plane and went to use it, it failed to come on properly. During our layover for the connection to Cancun, I called Creative. They first didn't even know about the Rescue Mode. Finally after pestering the tech person, he remembered it. I tried this three times but it didn't get the unit back to working condition. So the unit didn't work on the flight. When we arrived in Cancun, I tried the Rescue Mode again. Suddenly it worked again. It then worked for a few more days. The day before we were to depart, it stopped working again. This time Rescue Mode didn't help at all. When we got home, we tried a complete format which didn't work. Because we sent in the REBATE FORM, we will have problems getting a refund. Because I bought it a couple of weeks before Xmas, I am just barely within the AMAZON.com return period. Creative's warranty is only 90 too. Much too short for a new product like this. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT and be careful of buying items with rebates.
Rating:
Summary: Nomad Zen + Etymotic ER-6 headphones = music heaven
Review: The nomad Zen plus the ER-6 headphone from etymotic.com for the ultimate listening experience. I was looking for sound quality, price and portability. The zen matched all of the above, except that the headphones provided, althought OK, didn't really made the Zen justice. So I embarked myself in a long quest to find a good pair. I figure, I am spending a lot of money in the player and the music I am putting in it, so I should get a good pair. So, I found that those noise cancelling phones are the way to go. The main reason is that as they cancel outside noise, you can really enjoy the music at much lower levels. After long research, I came accross the ER-6 from Etymotic. Wow, what an experience. These headphones are actually used by music people during recording and they make a version for HI-FI geeks like us. Because they work like ear-plugs, they isolate ouside noise so you can really hear the music. The Zen with the ER-6 is the way to go. Don't compromise the quality of what you hear. And the two will cost you less than the iPod. Enjoy.
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