Creative Zen X-Fi 32 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver)
from: Creative Labs
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Electronics : Creative Zen X-Fi 32 GB Video MP3 Player with Wireless LAN and Built-In Speaker (Black/Silver) |
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 Creative Zen X-Fi, built with X-Fi technology and wireless LAN--the sound of perfection. Click to enlarge. |
 A pocket-sized player that weighs a mere 2.4 ounces, the Zen X-Fi sports attractive curves with a graceful finish. Click to enlarge. |
 The included EP-830 earphones provide optimum comfort with excellent noise isolation. Click to enlarge. |
 A control/feature schematic. Click to enlarge. |
 Immerse yourself in the brilliant 2.5-inch TFT screen with 16.7 million colors as you watch your movies and view your pictures. Click to enlarge. |
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Rating:  - * Excellent sound and versatility ... I was thinking of buying an Apple iPod, as the new ones are pretty, but I heartily object to Apple's treating me like a thief (mp3 names scrambled) and not letting me use the player as storage as well. Also, the idea of an SD slot seemed extremely useful. I've had good luck with Creative sound cards and read many positive reviews here, so I decided to buy this little gadget. While not an audiophile, I do a lot of music production and studio work and have to say I prefer the sound from the Creative Zen X-Fi to my friend's iPod for the same headphones and sound file. It seems less fuzzy somehow- I think they must be doing something with the EQ? My issues are as follows: -The headphones don't fit my ear canals very well and keep falling out. I am unsure if this is because I have deformed ear canals or something, but I just usually need to switch to my giant goofy-lookin' headphones. -Creative Centrale is not very good software. It keeps track of my iTunes library very well in terms of tracks, but it's terrible for importing playlists. -Creating and editing a playlist on the device is difficult to figure out. -I wish I could play all the songs by one artist. Will see if firmware upgrades ever do that. I admit I haven't tried anything with video or pictures. Charging is the same as any other USB device, and I'm really glad I don't need to use a proprietary connector (like Apple uses) or dock to charge it from my computer- my camera cable or cell phone cable both work for this, since they're all mini-to-USB. Have not tried the voice recording. I managed to crash it once (no batteries plus connecting it to a non-charging source), but rebooting as it tells me to on the Creative support site fixed the problem. The speaker's sound quality was a nice surprise. As for the controls, they weren't difficult after reading through the quickstart guide once. I'm also pleased by the ability to delete files from the device without connecting it to a computer. However, I couldn't get the device to work with Linux. I don't think most users would even contemplate that, though. I hear that the SD card content is not integrated into the player's library, which means I'll have to store my less-used movies and music there when it comes time. But the functionality is amazing, the sound quality lovely and crisp, and the ability to manage my own files means this one's a keeper and I recommend it to all who want to be 'power users' of their portable devices. Rating: - * Almost Perfect ... I bought the Nomad Zen NX about 5 years ago and it still works great. However, it is relatively big and heavy, and that's why I decided to upgrade now. Other players I considered were the Zune 120gb and the iPod 120gb but the Zune lacks an equalizer which was a dealbreaker for me and the iPod only has equalizer presets -- no customization. So I went for the Zen X-Fi 32gb and I'm glad I did. It lacks the capacity of the other two players, but the SD slot sort of makes up for it, even though it isn't well integrated with the internal memory. Also, SD prices have been falling fast, so I can see 32gb SD cards being sold for a reasonable price in the not too distant future. And this Zen is considerably smaller than those other two devices which is a big plus for me. The sound quality is very good. I like that it has a customnizable button to configure however you like. I assigned the volume control to it since that isn't directly available via another button in all screens. Now I can more easily access it at all times. FM reception in my area is superb, with little distortion or static. I think it will depend on where you live. In NY City, it's great. As for syncing, I am using the J River Media Center. It syncs fine with the Zen X-Fi and I prefer it to the non-intuitive Centrale software. The Centrale software bundled with the device is not totally useless. For one thing, it installs a help file on your PC that's a lot more detailed than the Quick Start guide that comes in the package. You should install Centrale at least for the help file. After you copy it elsewhere, you may be able to uninstall Centrale if you want. However it's harmless and I think uninstalling it might remove some of the needed drivers your PC may require in order to recognize the Zen X-Fi. You can also re-format the player using Centrale. Speaking of drivers, there is a Windows glich that prevented my Windows XP machine from initially recognizing my Zen x-Fi so I couldn't update the firmware or sync. I tried re-installing the Creative software and updating the drivers through Windows device manager but I kept getting this error message -- "A service installation section in this INF is invalid." A google search came up with the solution. If this happens to you, do a google search on that error message and follow the link to myCreative Fansite. In the first post is the answer -- A missing umdf file -- and a link to download it. The solution is really simple and worked like a charm, and my Zen is now fully recognized by my PC and the Creative software. It is not Creative's fault as this is happening to users of other MP3 players who are on Windows as well. The headphones are terrific and are far far better than the stock headphones that come with most players. I had planned to sell them on eBay since I have a few sets of earbuds already, but I'm going to keep them now as they have a nice rich sound and work well with this player. They are fairly easy to drive too so you can keep your volume on the Zen low which means your battery should last longer. For example, if I am listening with these headphones with the volume set to 7, I might have to set the volume level at 15 to get the same loudness using my Sony MDR-EX71 earbuds. You also get a nice hard plastic case to store all the little papers and accessories that came with the player. To clear up something a recent reviewer said .... once you have the correct drivers installed from the CD that comes with the unit (and apply any Windows fix if you have the umdf issue like I did), you do NOT have to go through Creative's Centrale software to get files into this player. It will show up as a separate drive instantly when you connect. Just click on My Computer to access it and you can browse the folder structure and drag and drop files. This is an additional way to load music files along with other alternate options such as Windows Media Player or J River Media Center. I would have given this player 5 stars if not for the poor integration of the SD card with the internal memory. I also really wish they had volume and pause hardware controls on the SIDE of the player which would allow one to control them even with a closed leather case. My Zen NX has this. With the Zen X-Fi you have to open the covers of the leather cases to get to the volume and pause controls. Because of this, I might simply go with a hard plastic case with cutouts or a silicone skin. Other than that, I'm very happy with this purchase. As I said, this little player is almost perfect. Rating: - * can't stop listening to it ... I love love love this mp3 player with x-fi. This is the best so far. I loved my zen v by creative labs but this is over the top. If you are in doubt buy it. Rating: - * Good little player - really awful software ... I've had the Zen X-fi for about 2 weeks now. I'm fond of it - the sound quality is pretty good, the colors are very crisp and clean and it's fairly easy to figure out how the whole thing works. (This is my first Creative Product.) I have some minor gripes with it, such as the "random" feature seems to have an insatiable need to play songs twice in a row, or play songs from the same album through most of the album but since I tend to have to laying next to me it's easy enough to skip the track. The layout of the buttons is a little annoying, and once you put the player inside the Creative Labs Leather Case for Zen X-Fi (Black)(optional) the buttons on the right side are a bit hard to access. They're quite small, also, and I have dainty little fingers! I have no attempted to use the SD card, so I can't make comment on that. My only really big gripe is the software. Good lord, it's awful. It doesn't sync! (Are you reading this, Creative?) This means that if you add music to your computer you're going to have to manually add it to your player when you dock it. I'm thinking of trying a different software altogether out. These things aside (and except for the software they're really not big issues to me) the player is solid. It has good sound (I have Skullcandy headphones, I didn't use the earbuds that come with the player) and it looks sharp without looking cheap. I'm fairly impressed with the Zen X-Fi. Plus, it's not an Apple product! Points right there! Rating:  - * Awesome in the store, but a disappointment at home. ... I was blown away with how many features they managed to fit into the Zen X-Fi mp3 player. It had music, video, wireless lan, SD cards, FM, microphone, a nice user interface, 36 hours of battery life, and 32GB of internal storage. It seemed so perfect. But when I got it home, i realized these things: 1) The 32GB internal storage is not seen as a standard external drive. This means I can't just open it up as a normal folder and drag-n-drop my stuff; I need to go through Creative's software instead. That sucks. 2) The wireless LAN stuff is a cool idea, but it was totally different than what I expected or needed. Creative designed the LAN as a way to stream files to the player, and they even provide a free central repository out-of-the-box so that you can stream things from all over the world right away. That's cool, but I was hoping to use the LAN stuff to be able to transfer files, much like a USB cable. That's not supported. Also, if you want to stream anything from your computer, once again you must use Creative's software -- you can't just use a standard shared folder on your computer. I hate that. 3) It isn't stable yet -- During the first hour that I was playing with the X-Fi mp3 player, it crashed 3 times. I had to manually reset it. There are still a lot of bugs that need to be worked out (as of November 2008). 4) I got absolutely NO reception on the FM radio. It's like my antennae was broken or something. I have heard from other reviews that the FM reception is supposed to be pretty good, but for mine it was completely white noise. 5) Poor integration with SD and internal memory. Music on your SD cards don't automatically get included in your playlists. They're completely separated. Because of those items, I decided to return mine. I wish I didn't have to -- I really like the Creative brand. I have used their Stone player, and I really loved it. I was just hoping that the X-Fi would be simple and standards-compliant, just like the Stone. Too bad. :( ~Chris Sebastian |
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