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Rating: 
Summary: No more Creative for me
Review: Had this for 7 months. Kept it in excellent condition but after 7 months it crapped out. I had to pay shipping and deposit $20 with Creative to have them look at it. They told me it was a bad circuit board and it would cost me $125 to fix it. I told them to keep the $300 paperweight. Then 2 weeks later they call and ask me if it is correct that someone (I assume inside Creative) authorized to charge my account to fix it. I told them that if I see any charges on my account I will contact Better Business Bureau. I used to swear by Creative products. Now I just swear AT them.
Rating:
Summary: Run, don't walk from this item
Review: I have a huge library of mp3s that I maintain on a 40 gig mp3 player. I wanted to upgrade, and the Creative 60 looked good. Two insurmountable problems: 1) the unit's manual is provided as a pdf file, but in order to load it onto your computer, it assumes that you don't have Acrobat Reader (of course - this is 1960, isn't it?), and insists on installing acrobat on your computer. When it discovers you have acrobat (no!), it doesn't know what to do, so a) it screws up your current acrobat installation, and b) it fails to provide access to the manual. 2) Creative is confident that, even though you have 60 gigs of music, Creative knows better than you do how to organize it: by artist, name of song, album, year, and genre (rock, jazz, etc.) Never mind that you organized music by year (1973), function (wedding music), or specific category (Anton's favorites). In order to find a song, you must scroll through 60 gigs of songs to find yours. This is a small, sleek (perhaps a little tinny and fragile) unit, but the restrictions on organization render it useless. The old Archos 20 gig is a far more user-friendly system. The RCA Lyra 40 I now use has similar issues, but accomodates a work-around. The Creative is simply not "creative." Keep it. I'll try not to buy another Creative product.
Rating: 
Summary: I LOVE IT
Review: This is the best mp3 player i have ever used, it took a whiel getting used to the controls and options but once you get the hang of it, its incredble. The only complain I have is the software used to transfer the songs... it just sucks. But we arn't talk about the software here we talking about the mp3 player, its just awsome, the sound, the design, the options all make it an awsome package. Took me less than 5 minutes to transfer 3GB of music and installin gthis baby was a breeze. YOU ALL NEED TO GET THIS MP3 PLAYER. its better than the zen nx and zen xtra because you can buy and optional remote, which I did. It only works with the Nomad Zen and this makes it even a beter mp3 player with the remote! GO OUT AND BYE ONE ASAP!Previous Creative Products:
Soundblaster PCI 512
Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX
Nomad IIc All of them were/are great! Creative is the leader in sound and iPods suck ass!
Rating: 
Summary: Important Zen Information
Review: This player is an overall disappointment with a couple of big flaws that potential buyers should be wary of; and all readers need to know about a third party software company that resolves virtually all of the Creative MediaSource file transfer issues. Zen Good points: 1. I achieved my basic objective; my entire CD collection is on a portable device with lots of room to store more. 2. Most MP3 players have a gap between the end of one track and the start of the next; it's annoying in music that is intended to be continuous. The Zen has minimal stoppage between tracks; when listening to music that continues from one track to the next the gap is just a hesitation - a slightly audible click; if I am not listening for the progress from one track to the next I don't even notice the click. Flaws: 1. Creative MediaSource software is OK to rip, catalog & burn music if you are starting from scratch; but I used MusicMatch to rip my CDs before I bought the Zen (272 CDs; 3,350 tracks; 12Gb of music all ripped at 128bps) and guess what? MediaSource did not recognize my tags; my choices at that moment would have been to manually re-tag my music or re-rip using MediaSource. I don't think so. BTW, if you *are* ripping your CDs, MediaSource accesses the CDDB music catalog over the Internet and the few CDs I experimented with all provided good quality [correct & uncluttered] tag information. 2. Despite most reviewers giving kudos to the Zen for music quality, I experienced a flaw using EAX. After about 45 mins of listening there was audible static in the player. When I turned EAX off the static disappeared. When I turned EAX back on the static was also not present. Creative are *the* sound people for computers, I can't understand why EAX would introduce static. Is EAX faulty? Is my unit defective? Was I just unlucky at that moment? Was it a full moon that night? I haven't figured it out yet. 3. MediaSource is an application with serious user interface flaws. Do not underestimate this in your purchase decision. Many reviewers refer to it as "clunky" or "difficult" - heed their warnings. 4. The Zen *stores* data files, but does not allow a folder structure nor does it allow documents to be opened or programs to be launched from its disk (they must be copied to another hard drive to be launched). In other words, the Zen is not a convenient data storage device; only buy the capacity you need for your music collection (see point 2. for some sizing information). My goal of using it as a music player *and* data storage device has not been met; don't make the same mistake. 5. The Zen does not have a Stop button! You can stop playback by pressing 2 buttons, first the Pause button, then the "Next Track" or "Previous Track" button. But this is *not documented* in the Zen manual - neither the hard copy nor the CD version. To discover this I had to read about 10 online reviews (with many complaints about the lack of Stop button) before I found one reviewer who was smart enough to both figure it out & document it. 6. The Zen NX battery requires the AC adapter to recharge; it does not charge by USB cable; this is not tragic, but USB recharging would be a convenient (additional) choice. If you are buying a Zen Xtra check whether the battery recharges via USB; it does not on the Zen NX. 7. MediaSource did not install on my personal notebook. It referred to a "Microsoft Jet Database Engine" error and the install program suggested I download a service pack from the MS website to fix the problem; I did that and re-installed the software but had the same error. Creative provided e-mail support; I followed their advice but that failed, too. I experimented with installing MediaSource on 2 other computers at home and it worked fine. So it is probably "just bad luck" on my part that the personal notebook I own had this install error. However, it did motivate me to find a work-around solution. Third Party Software To The Rescue After much frustration (above) I found the Notmad Explorer; cute product name for software that resolves virtually all of the Creative MediaSource FILE TRANSFER & ORGANIZATION problems. I am not associated with the company, I am not providing a URL, but search for NotMad and you should find it pretty easily. This provides drag & drop transfers of music between the computer & Zen; each time it transfers music to the Zen it asks if you want to generate a playlist; it allows playlists developed in other software to be transferred to the Zen (.m3u files are used by most mp3 players like MusicMatch and Winamp, but not Creative); it doesn't care what software you use to rip or catalog your music - Creative or any other company - all my 12Gb of music were transferred to the Zen with correct tags - hooray! Notmad has other features too, but this is not an advertisement so please see the company's web site for more information ... Conclusion: If I knew then what I know now I would have paid the extra to get an iPod & avoided the Zen. Given that I already have the Zen the only reason I am happy with it is because of the Notmad software. And I am hoping the static I heard when using EAX was a blip ... To summarize, I am using the Creative Zen as a mobile device; I am using MusicMatch to rip & catalog (and if I choose, download) music; I am using Notmad Explorer to move music & playlists between the Zen & my computer. The only Creative software I am using is the device driver(s).
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