Review by Decolliber:

I have both the older 8gb Zen (2007) and a new 16gb Zen MX. They are basically the same except that the MX has integrated access to the removable SD card directly from the Creative Centrale software that comes with the it. With the old Zen you had to go into a removable card menu on the Zen and then access the card via the computer operating system to add or delete files. Zen MX also does not have the code for some video formats and the software has to convert them before transfer to the Zen MX; on the old Zen you could just transfer the video files directly to the Zen. Finally, the Creative Centrale software that comes with the new Zen MX does not seem as intuitive and user friendly as the older software that came with the Zen. If I had to do it again I would have bought the older Zen rather than the new Zen MX, but the older ones are becoming hard to find and are a lot more expensive. Strangely enough the 16gb version of the old Zen is more expensive than the 32gb version!

To answer those who said the Zen MX will not play DRM protected files. Not true. It will play DRM9 protected files, but they have to be put on the Zen via the transfer function in the software, not through drag & drop, because the former also carries over the license info and the latter technique does not. Creative notes this on their web site.

Review by Michael X. Watman:

After hanging on to a Zen Micro for a few years (due to a stingy character), I picked up this “update” and have been so pleased. It has easy to operate button/rocker switches rather than the erratic touch controls of its ancestor. Transferring my old library and playlists was a snap. Having the chance to store a few photos also ups the pleasure of the device.

Although others may wish for a combo camera-phone-music-whatever piece of hardware, if you’re interested in any easy to handle mp3 player at a reasonable price, this is definitely something you should seriously consider.

Review by D:

First, an introduction: Recently I’ve owned and used and liked an iPod 4th gen 80gb, zune 80, iPod 5th gen 80gb, creative zen vision: m 30gb AND 60gb versions (the holy grail to so many mp3 player fans), and I am a power user with a music library of 35gb, all tagged using the free Media Monkey software. I know what I’m talking about. (If you’re curious, the two ipods were returned, the ZVM30 was given to my cousin when I got the 60, the ZVM60 was destroyed in iraq and so was the Zune80)

Looks extremely sexy, definitely on the iPod and Zune level of sexiness.

It’s ridiculously lightweight and weighs just a bit more than a nano and about half as much as a harddrive bearing zune or ipod.

Video transfer/conversion does not apply to me, so I will not be reviewing it.

IM chat gimmick is worthless, move along.

wifi connect works and is easy to set up, but there is no link to shoutcast or icecast directories. Instead, creative “media box” will show up with internet access, but has a very limited selection of podcast streams, and almost no streaming music.

Streaming music from a local wireless network is very cool, but chews up the otherwise good battery life, limiting its usefulness.

SD card support is hardly seamless, and has a limited set of browsing functions, but this may be nitpicking as most players don’t bother to include ANY expandable memory.

x-fi sounds “different” but not unanimously “better”, and uses more battery, not really a selling feature then

The headphones are awesome and while they’re compared as worse than the zune 80′s included headphones, the zen’s fit more comfortably (to me) and sound just as good.

The built in speaker is very cool and sounds surprisingly good for its size, there is never any distortion even at maximum volume (distortion is what makes speakerphones and other bad+loud audio sources sound so horrible). It is perfect for showing a song to a friend or friends or playing a little background music in a quiet room.

No line out, but using the headphone jack at full volume sounds just fine on my car stereo and home stereo, with no distortion.

Software:

A lot of people complain about the Creative software but you really never need to use it except for video transfer. I use Media Monkey to sync my music and it works flawlessly. Everyone has Windows Media Player and that syncs just fine with the player. It’s an MTP device and that means that a lot of different programs can sync with it. So except for video issues, you really have no reason in the world to complain about the creative software.

Buttons:

The nine button grid is 4 directions and a center “select” button, and on many menus and lists the diagonal four buttons act as home/end and pageup/down, but on many screens they are useless. If they were customizable they could be very powerful! Faster seeking, view toggles, many possibilities, if they were customizable. Firmware update maybe?

I have long fingers and big hands and the player is comfortable to hold, but the buttons are small and indistinct, you have to concentrate a little to be sure you press the correct one if you are fishing for the next/prev track or the volume up/down buttons in your pocket. The pause button is unmissable though, and that is most important.

The zen vision:m’s vertical slider with side to side rocking and touchpad tap for select was really perfect for an audio player, and I find myself missing it a lot (but I don’t miss that player’s poor battery life, large size or ogreish looks)

A disappointment: On no screen are the grid buttons used to refer to a specific function on a grid on the screen (which would have opened some very quick and intuitive menu options), they are ALWAYS arrow buttons with a center select, and sometimes other use diagonal buttons.

Creative have dropped the ball a little by adding four new buttons and not using them to their full potential. The most notable example is that the IM chat function could have used a cell-phone style text entry, but instead uses a very obtuse method that keeps the buttons as arrow keys. Once you’ve moved past the chat function and removed it from the main menu, you’ll then notice that on the ‘now playing’ screen, the most common and important screen, the four diagonal buttons don’t do anything at all.

The customizable shortcut button is still here and still awesome, easily settable by simply holding it down. It comes preset to the x-fi settings screen, which should have been integrated into the EQ screen anyway. Mine is set to jump to ‘now playing’, perfect for changing volume or next/prev track quickly from any menu, and then you can press back to return to wherever you were.

The menu button (or “right click” button as I call it) shows the list of options for most screens, but the list sometimes runs off the top and bottom by just a few lines and could have been scaled down to fit them all. Would have been nice to enable the ‘diagonal’ buttons to be shortcuts for some of the common menu items, while the menu is open.

The Interface (the most important part of any mp3 player):

It may sound like I’m pointing out a lot of flaws in the device’s usability, but let me assure you it really is fantastic to use. The device interface is the same as the venerable ZVM, and is powerful, attractive, and simple. The ‘right click’ menus offer a lot of functionality while being intuitive to any computer user; rather than hide a cluttered pile of settings in the main menu settings screen, many settings are accessed from the screen they’re related to. I’m a big fan of the ZVM interface and am glad they didn’t change it. On the Zen the graphics have been given quite a boost since the ZVM days, and the gui really is pretty.

Useful things the Zen players do that ipod and zune do NOT under any circumstances support:

- [zune] sync with 3rd party software

- ‘now playing’ playlist access

- creation/saving of playlists on the fly

- ability to add a track to the ‘now playing’ list allows you to build a playlist and not interrupt currently playing track, great for playing music for others

- bookmark track positions (great for podcasts, audiobooks, long music mixes)

- switch between view of albums, artists, or track in the music menus

- rearrange items when you customize the main menu

- “dj” menu with options like “play popular” and “play highly rated”

- delete actual tracks from within the player

- record voice

- hide photos/video easily, obviously to hide porn when showing off your player to your mom

- actual usb port, no proprietary connector

- built in speaker

- wifi network access

I see this player is squaring off against the ipod and zune, and is already going above and beyond them both, feature by feature.

PS:

Nitpicks:

- no rapid way to seek in a track

- no “go to album” or “go to genre” for a track, only “go to artist”

- pageup/down buttons stop working when you move “right” to the list of letter shortcuts on a long list, and they don’t work on the ‘right click’ menu

- speaker should have been put on the left side, your hand ends up covering it up sometimes, when you hold it right handedly

Review by Jesus Hector Fernandez:

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MT954C8FQVXL Hi.

This is the Zen X-Fi in action, player seems very good (for me at least) its got many features which I like, the only downside for now has been the software that is bundled with the player which for me it is not a very good software, anyway if you want to see it in action check out the video.

Review by Decolliber:

I have both the older 8gb Zen (2007) and a new 16gb Zen MX. They are basically the same except that the MX has integrated access to the removable SD card directly from the Creative Centrale software that comes with the it. With the old Zen you had to go into a removable card menu on the Zen and then access the card via the computer operating system to add or delete files. Zen MX also does not have the code for some video formats and the software has to convert them before transfer to the Zen MX; on the old Zen you could just transfer the video files directly to the Zen. Finally, the Creative Centrale software that comes with the new Zen MX does not seem as intuitive and user friendly as the older software that came with the Zen. If I had to do it again I would have bought the older Zen rather than the new Zen MX, but the older ones are becoming hard to find and are a lot more expensive. Strangely enough the 16gb version of the old Zen is more expensive than the 32gb version!

To answer those who said the Zen MX will not play DRM protected files. Not true. It will play DRM9 protected files, but they have to be put on the Zen via the transfer function in the software, not through drag & drop, because the former also carries over the license info and the latter technique does not. Creative notes this on their web site.

Review by Michael X. Watman:

After hanging on to a Zen Micro for a few years (due to a stingy character), I picked up this “update” and have been so pleased. It has easy to operate button/rocker switches rather than the erratic touch controls of its ancestor. Transferring my old library and playlists was a snap. Having the chance to store a few photos also ups the pleasure of the device.

Although others may wish for a combo camera-phone-music-whatever piece of hardware, if you’re interested in any easy to handle mp3 player at a reasonable price, this is definitely something you should seriously consider.

Review by D:

First, an introduction: Recently I’ve owned and used and liked an iPod 4th gen 80gb, zune 80, iPod 5th gen 80gb, creative zen vision: m 30gb AND 60gb versions (the holy grail to so many mp3 player fans), and I am a power user with a music library of 35gb, all tagged using the free Media Monkey software. I know what I’m talking about. (If you’re curious, the two ipods were returned, the ZVM30 was given to my cousin when I got the 60, the ZVM60 was destroyed in iraq and so was the Zune80)

Looks extremely sexy, definitely on the iPod and Zune level of sexiness.

It’s ridiculously lightweight and weighs just a bit more than a nano and about half as much as a harddrive bearing zune or ipod.

Video transfer/conversion does not apply to me, so I will not be reviewing it.

IM chat gimmick is worthless, move along.

wifi connect works and is easy to set up, but there is no link to shoutcast or icecast directories. Instead, creative “media box” will show up with internet access, but has a very limited selection of podcast streams, and almost no streaming music.

Streaming music from a local wireless network is very cool, but chews up the otherwise good battery life, limiting its usefulness.

SD card support is hardly seamless, and has a limited set of browsing functions, but this may be nitpicking as most players don’t bother to include ANY expandable memory.

x-fi sounds “different” but not unanimously “better”, and uses more battery, not really a selling feature then

The headphones are awesome and while they’re compared as worse than the zune 80′s included headphones, the zen’s fit more comfortably (to me) and sound just as good.

The built in speaker is very cool and sounds surprisingly good for its size, there is never any distortion even at maximum volume (distortion is what makes speakerphones and other bad+loud audio sources sound so horrible). It is perfect for showing a song to a friend or friends or playing a little background music in a quiet room.

No line out, but using the headphone jack at full volume sounds just fine on my car stereo and home stereo, with no distortion.

Software:

A lot of people complain about the Creative software but you really never need to use it except for video transfer. I use Media Monkey to sync my music and it works flawlessly. Everyone has Windows Media Player and that syncs just fine with the player. It’s an MTP device and that means that a lot of different programs can sync with it. So except for video issues, you really have no reason in the world to complain about the creative software.

Buttons:

The nine button grid is 4 directions and a center “select” button, and on many menus and lists the diagonal four buttons act as home/end and pageup/down, but on many screens they are useless. If they were customizable they could be very powerful! Faster seeking, view toggles, many possibilities, if they were customizable. Firmware update maybe?

I have long fingers and big hands and the player is comfortable to hold, but the buttons are small and indistinct, you have to concentrate a little to be sure you press the correct one if you are fishing for the next/prev track or the volume up/down buttons in your pocket. The pause button is unmissable though, and that is most important.

The zen vision:m’s vertical slider with side to side rocking and touchpad tap for select was really perfect for an audio player, and I find myself missing it a lot (but I don’t miss that player’s poor battery life, large size or ogreish looks)

A disappointment: On no screen are the grid buttons used to refer to a specific function on a grid on the screen (which would have opened some very quick and intuitive menu options), they are ALWAYS arrow buttons with a center select, and sometimes other use diagonal buttons.

Creative have dropped the ball a little by adding four new buttons and not using them to their full potential. The most notable example is that the IM chat function could have used a cell-phone style text entry, but instead uses a very obtuse method that keeps the buttons as arrow keys. Once you’ve moved past the chat function and removed it from the main menu, you’ll then notice that on the ‘now playing’ screen, the most common and important screen, the four diagonal buttons don’t do anything at all.

The customizable shortcut button is still here and still awesome, easily settable by simply holding it down. It comes preset to the x-fi settings screen, which should have been integrated into the EQ screen anyway. Mine is set to jump to ‘now playing’, perfect for changing volume or next/prev track quickly from any menu, and then you can press back to return to wherever you were.

The menu button (or “right click” button as I call it) shows the list of options for most screens, but the list sometimes runs off the top and bottom by just a few lines and could have been scaled down to fit them all. Would have been nice to enable the ‘diagonal’ buttons to be shortcuts for some of the common menu items, while the menu is open.

The Interface (the most important part of any mp3 player):

It may sound like I’m pointing out a lot of flaws in the device’s usability, but let me assure you it really is fantastic to use. The device interface is the same as the venerable ZVM, and is powerful, attractive, and simple. The ‘right click’ menus offer a lot of functionality while being intuitive to any computer user; rather than hide a cluttered pile of settings in the main menu settings screen, many settings are accessed from the screen they’re related to. I’m a big fan of the ZVM interface and am glad they didn’t change it. On the Zen the graphics have been given quite a boost since the ZVM days, and the gui really is pretty.

Useful things the Zen players do that ipod and zune do NOT under any circumstances support:

- [zune] sync with 3rd party software

- ‘now playing’ playlist access

- creation/saving of playlists on the fly

- ability to add a track to the ‘now playing’ list allows you to build a playlist and not interrupt currently playing track, great for playing music for others

- bookmark track positions (great for podcasts, audiobooks, long music mixes)

- switch between view of albums, artists, or track in the music menus

- rearrange items when you customize the main menu

- “dj” menu with options like “play popular” and “play highly rated”

- delete actual tracks from within the player

- record voice

- hide photos/video easily, obviously to hide porn when showing off your player to your mom

- actual usb port, no proprietary connector

- built in speaker

- wifi network access

I see this player is squaring off against the ipod and zune, and is already going above and beyond them both, feature by feature.

PS:

Nitpicks:

- no rapid way to seek in a track

- no “go to album” or “go to genre” for a track, only “go to artist”

- pageup/down buttons stop working when you move “right” to the list of letter shortcuts on a long list, and they don’t work on the ‘right click’ menu

- speaker should have been put on the left side, your hand ends up covering it up sometimes, when you hold it right handedly

Review by Jesus Hector Fernandez:

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MT954C8FQVXL Hi.

This is the Zen X-Fi in action, player seems very good (for me at least) its got many features which I like, the only downside for now has been the software that is bundled with the player which for me it is not a very good software, anyway if you want to see it in action check out the video.

Review by J. R. Croft:

This is the 3rd creative player I have owned. All of them have been excellent. I really like the mosiac the best. The sofware sets up a logical order so I can find stuff like set up the equlizer,turn on speaker ,etc I will say that it did take me while to learn how to navigate the menu options. The speaker is an added bonus. I rarely listen to music mostly audio books. The sound can be addjusted so I can hear the spoken word clearly. I have poor hearing as a result of listening to music to loud when I was younger. Just a word to the younger folks out there. One final thought all of the players Zen nano plus,ZenV plusand the mosiac 300 do freeze up. I just reset the player it always rebulds and goes to where it left off this is annoying nothing more. When I look back to transister radios i listened to when I was a kid this device is a miracle. Jim C PS I would not continus buying creative if I didnot like the product. I did buy a sansa once e140 did not like it

Review by E. A. Brackbill:

The unit shut itself off automatically while I was at the beach. The unit was in a beach bag. Thought it failed but after I got home it worked. Battery was fully charged so I knew it wasn’t that. Few days later, left the unit in the console of my car. When I came out after work and tried to turn it on. It wouldn’t. After I got home, it worked. The only common factor, temperature but in neither case was the unit in the sun. The unit was warm to the touch but not hot. On another occasion the same thing happened when I left it in the car. On a whim, I turned on the air conditioning and held the unit near the vent for less than a minute. It worked again! Obviously, there is a very temperature sensitive component.

Returned the first unit for another one thinking there was a manufacturing defect. The second unit does the same thing. Doesn’t always work at the beach; doesn’t always work in the car. What good is it? Previously had a Zen V Plus. Never had a problem at the beach or in the car.

I really like the unit, its controls and features but they’re of no advantage if the unit doesn’t function. There must be a design or component problem. It’s return time again, and buy the refurb Zen V Plus 4GB available here.

Review by D:

First, an introduction: Recently I’ve owned and used and liked an iPod 4th gen 80gb, zune 80, iPod 5th gen 80gb, creative zen vision: m 30gb AND 60gb versions (the holy grail to so many mp3 player fans), and I am a power user with a music library of 35gb, all tagged using the free Media Monkey software. I know what I’m talking about. (If you’re curious, the two ipods were returned, the ZVM30 was given to my cousin when I got the 60, the ZVM60 was destroyed in iraq and so was the Zune80)

Looks extremely sexy, definitely on the iPod and Zune level of sexiness.

It’s ridiculously lightweight and weighs just a bit more than a nano and about half as much as a harddrive bearing zune or ipod.

Video transfer/conversion does not apply to me, so I will not be reviewing it.

IM chat gimmick is worthless, move along.

wifi connect works and is easy to set up, but there is no link to shoutcast or icecast directories. Instead, creative “media box” will show up with internet access, but has a very limited selection of podcast streams, and almost no streaming music.

Streaming music from a local wireless network is very cool, but chews up the otherwise good battery life, limiting its usefulness.

SD card support is hardly seamless, and has a limited set of browsing functions, but this may be nitpicking as most players don’t bother to include ANY expandable memory.

x-fi sounds “different” but not unanimously “better”, and uses more battery, not really a selling feature then

The headphones are awesome and while they’re compared as worse than the zune 80′s included headphones, the zen’s fit more comfortably (to me) and sound just as good.

The built in speaker is very cool and sounds surprisingly good for its size, there is never any distortion even at maximum volume (distortion is what makes speakerphones and other bad+loud audio sources sound so horrible). It is perfect for showing a song to a friend or friends or playing a little background music in a quiet room.

No line out, but using the headphone jack at full volume sounds just fine on my car stereo and home stereo, with no distortion.

Software:

A lot of people complain about the Creative software but you really never need to use it except for video transfer. I use Media Monkey to sync my music and it works flawlessly. Everyone has Windows Media Player and that syncs just fine with the player. It’s an MTP device and that means that a lot of different programs can sync with it. So except for video issues, you really have no reason in the world to complain about the creative software.

Buttons:

The nine button grid is 4 directions and a center “select” button, and on many menus and lists the diagonal four buttons act as home/end and pageup/down, but on many screens they are useless. If they were customizable they could be very powerful! Faster seeking, view toggles, many possibilities, if they were customizable. Firmware update maybe?

I have long fingers and big hands and the player is comfortable to hold, but the buttons are small and indistinct, you have to concentrate a little to be sure you press the correct one if you are fishing for the next/prev track or the volume up/down buttons in your pocket. The pause button is unmissable though, and that is most important.

The zen vision:m’s vertical slider with side to side rocking and touchpad tap for select was really perfect for an audio player, and I find myself missing it a lot (but I don’t miss that player’s poor battery life, large size or ogreish looks)

A disappointment: On no screen are the grid buttons used to refer to a specific function on a grid on the screen (which would have opened some very quick and intuitive menu options), they are ALWAYS arrow buttons with a center select, and sometimes other use diagonal buttons.

Creative have dropped the ball a little by adding four new buttons and not using them to their full potential. The most notable example is that the IM chat function could have used a cell-phone style text entry, but instead uses a very obtuse method that keeps the buttons as arrow keys. Once you’ve moved past the chat function and removed it from the main menu, you’ll then notice that on the ‘now playing’ screen, the most common and important screen, the four diagonal buttons don’t do anything at all.

The customizable shortcut button is still here and still awesome, easily settable by simply holding it down. It comes preset to the x-fi settings screen, which should have been integrated into the EQ screen anyway. Mine is set to jump to ‘now playing’, perfect for changing volume or next/prev track quickly from any menu, and then you can press back to return to wherever you were.

The menu button (or “right click” button as I call it) shows the list of options for most screens, but the list sometimes runs off the top and bottom by just a few lines and could have been scaled down to fit them all. Would have been nice to enable the ‘diagonal’ buttons to be shortcuts for some of the common menu items, while the menu is open.

The Interface (the most important part of any mp3 player):

It may sound like I’m pointing out a lot of flaws in the device’s usability, but let me assure you it really is fantastic to use. The device interface is the same as the venerable ZVM, and is powerful, attractive, and simple. The ‘right click’ menus offer a lot of functionality while being intuitive to any computer user; rather than hide a cluttered pile of settings in the main menu settings screen, many settings are accessed from the screen they’re related to. I’m a big fan of the ZVM interface and am glad they didn’t change it. On the Zen the graphics have been given quite a boost since the ZVM days, and the gui really is pretty.

Useful things the Zen players do that ipod and zune do NOT under any circumstances support:

- [zune] sync with 3rd party software

- ‘now playing’ playlist access

- creation/saving of playlists on the fly

- ability to add a track to the ‘now playing’ list allows you to build a playlist and not interrupt currently playing track, great for playing music for others

- bookmark track positions (great for podcasts, audiobooks, long music mixes)

- switch between view of albums, artists, or track in the music menus

- rearrange items when you customize the main menu

- “dj” menu with options like “play popular” and “play highly rated”

- delete actual tracks from within the player

- record voice

- hide photos/video easily, obviously to hide porn when showing off your player to your mom

- actual usb port, no proprietary connector

- built in speaker

- wifi network access

I see this player is squaring off against the ipod and zune, and is already going above and beyond them both, feature by feature.

PS:

Nitpicks:

- no rapid way to seek in a track

- no “go to album” or “go to genre” for a track, only “go to artist”

- pageup/down buttons stop working when you move “right” to the list of letter shortcuts on a long list, and they don’t work on the ‘right click’ menu

- speaker should have been put on the left side, your hand ends up covering it up sometimes, when you hold it right handedly

Review by Jesus Hector Fernandez:

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MT954C8FQVXL Hi.

This is the Zen X-Fi in action, player seems very good (for me at least) its got many features which I like, the only downside for now has been the software that is bundled with the player which for me it is not a very good software, anyway if you want to see it in action check out the video.

Review by Harvey Ramos:

This is a great choice for those people who previously limited their flash players to workout duty, or only holding a small piece of their large music collection and having to change the music on it every so often. With a 16GB capacity most people can fit their entire collection on here without difficulty, and even have room for some videos.

First impressions of this player are very good. It is extremely appealing to the eye, everyone who sees it will ask about it. It is about the size of a credit card, just thicker (less than 1/2inch). The front is a very glossy black plastic that looks great until you touch it, instantly covering it with fingerprints The back is a rough, cheaper feeling black plastic. Overall it has a nice solid weight and feel to it, but not very heavy. This will easily fit in a pocket.

The 2.5″ screen is absolutely gorgeous. Very bright with vivid colors. The viewing angle is very good, two people can easily look at the screen at the same time while watching a movie for example. The menus are all nicely animated and intuitive to navigate. The icons and text are big clear and easy to read.

One of the big perks to having so much capacity is plenty of room for videos. This was one of the first things I’ve tested as it was a big reason for my purchase. First of all it DOES play Amazon Unbox videos perfectly. Transferring files was very easy (just a few clicks) and very quick. The quality of the video was great as well. The max size of videos is apparently 320×240, I have not been able to get it to play anything larger than that. If the video is smaller (for example widescreen) you have the option of playing it at the correct aspect ratio, or fill the screen (stretched out). I’ve gotten it to play videos encoded in Xvid and WMV format. Xvid files were encoded with AutoGK, and the WMV files were encoded with Arcsoft MediaConverter. If you synchronize with Windows Media Player, you can put in *almost any* video file and it will automatically convert the file into WMV format and then transfer to the player. How long it takes to convert depends on the type of video you’re encoding, how big the file is and of course the speed of your computer.

Music sounds very good on this player, but please… get rid of the stock headphones they are horrible. Using a decent pair of headphones makes a HUGE difference. The EQ options are OK, there are about a half dozen presets and a customizable EQ. The “Bass Boost” option just made it worse in my opinion, it just distorted the sound. Otherwise it is a very even and balanced sound, very similar to the Vision:M.

The FM radio has a whopping 32 presets and the reception is pretty good. Strong stations are in stereo, weaker ones come in mono. I haven’t had a chance to test out the built-in mic.

I easily transferred music and playlists onto this player from Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey, as well as protected music (WMA) from Napster. Everything was very easy, usually just dragging and dropping. The speed of transfer is probably the fastest I’ve seen. I’ve used this player on XP Home and on Vista Premium 64-bit.

Regarding the SD cards. I think its only a slight inconvenience that the memory card media isn’t directly integrated with the other content. Meaning if you have videos on the SD card you don’t go to the “Video” menu where all the other videos are, you have to access them through the “Memory Card” menu. Once there, you browse through the file structure like normal. If you organize the content smartly on your cards you should have no problem. And really its a small price to pay for that feature. Currently SDHC cards are up to 16GB in capacity, meaning you could double the capacity and carry around 32GB worth of content in your pocket. Amazing. I tested a Kingston 512MB SD Card and a Kingston 2GB microSD card (with adapter of course) and they were recognized and played the content without difficulty.

A quick note about the firmware. Mine came with 1.10.05. When my player turns off, it really turns off. With newer firmwares when it turns off it goes into a sleep mode for a while before it finally turns all the way off. What that means is with the older firmware each time you turn it on it has to “boot” all over again, whereas with the newer firmware you get an “instant-on” at the expense of slightly reduced battery life (since it is asleep and not off). Something to consider before you decide to upgrade the firmware.

Review by G. Carini:

This is an all around solid MP3 Player. I will describe some of the pros and cons about this player. I will say right now the pros strongly outweigh the cons. I have also tested this player adequately and have tested the SD card slot which I find very nice. Despite some complaints about the SD card, I find it adequate to suit my needs.

By the way if you are wondering why I am publishing this review… I received the player from Creative where it is in stock. Amazon is taking a little while longer.

Pros:

1) Excellent Sound – This MP3 Player is a bit louder, and sounds better than my previous Vision:M. I think the sound quality is quite superb.

2) Bright, Brilliant Display – The display is just stunning, and the 16 million colors really show great improvement over the ZVM.

3) Easy Navigation – I love the navigation on this player, and I really love the different themes.

4) Videos – The videos look incredibly nice… I’ve only played a few

5) Transfer Speed – Extremely Fast! What can I say? This is what has surprised me the most. The speed is an extremely huge difference over hard-drive based players.

6) Good Button Placement – Though small for some, I do happen to like the buttons

7) Nice looks – I really like the looks of this (this is very subjective)

Small Size – This is a very light player, that is only a foot print of what the ZVM was. The most amazing part is that the screen is 2.5″ inches.

Cons:

1) Power Adapter – It should come with one, but it only comes with a USB power cable (which is acceptable)

2) Crappy Ear phones – Eh. Buy the Creative EP-630. You don’t buy a nice player and use the provided ear phones. The EP-630 are an incredible set.

3) Buttons are a bit hard to push at first – This is something others have experienced… this is true for a while.

4) Can smudge – to prevent this get the plastic case!

How does this stack up against an ipod?

It crushes it in my mind. I really think Creative did a fine job here, and I’m sure firmware will be updated constantly knowing Creative’s attention to the customer.

Edit: Added a few things.

Review by JE:

I purchased this to replace my 4 gb Zen Plus. Still works great, but I really wanted more capacity. I use them mainly at the gym when working out and on airplanes during travel.

The player itself is great. As other said, the buttons get take a little time to get used to, but once you do, it’s great. Sound and battery life are excellent.

The only con, as others have said is the HORRIBLE Centrale software. It works terribly on my Vista 64 computer – very slow, seems to freeze up. It is useless – I can’t believe Creative released this crappy software. I never had a problem with the software that came with my Zen V Plus but this software was horrible. I uninstalled it and was going to return the player but decided to try and use Windows Media Player for syncing music. What I found was that you can use Windows Media Player to sync music and create playlists. It works beautifully and quickly and transferred my many playlists perfectly.

All in all, I couldn’t be happier.

Update: 5/22/09

I reiterate the 5 stars I gave this player after using it daily for the past couple of months. I find I use the speaker much more than I thought I would, and really love it. Sounds great for the size. The 16 gb capacity is amazing – I have still not managed to fill it up. I love the way I can create my playlists on windows media player (I have one for rock, one for running, one for classical etc) and have it easily sync with the Mozaic. Battery life is amazing, and the sound is great. Durabilty is excellent as I have dropped it several times while on the treadmill, and it still looks and works fine.

Review by Rainbow Starship:

I’ve had the Creative Mozaik 16gb player for over a month now and in general, I love it! I will just make a basic pros and cons list, because those are always the most helpful.

Pros:

Small

-Lightweight- I wear it around my neck comfortably.

-While it takes a couple minutes to get used to, the interface is quite easy to use

-Has a radio!

-16gb is A LOT of space. I have over 600 songs on my player and have used only 3 or so gigabytes!

-Has a “sleep” function, which I find very useful because I listen to it while i’m trying to fall asleep, this way the player turns off after 30 minutes and doesn’t waste battery

-Battery lasts a LONG time. I took this camping for 3 days and when I came home the battery was still over half full

-Can play movies and view pictures

-Has six different display themes

-Has a voice recorder

-Handles DRM copyright free music and audio books =)

-VERY inexpensive, especially compared to the iPod

-Is sturdy, and will probably last longer than the iPod’s lame lifetime of 6mos to a year LOL

Cons:

-The headphones it comes with are of OK quality, but they do not fit in my ears and the foam padding falls of easily. this is just a personal qualm though, and it may be different for other people

-Buttons are TINY. I have very small hands so this isn’t a problem for me, but it may be troublesome for someone who has larger hands.

- Start-up and shut down time is way too long. Shut-down time is nearly 6 seconds, while start-up time varies from 5-8 seconds =/

-The Creative Centrale software it comes with SUCKS. BAD.

-While you CAN drag and drop music onto the device, you have to use the very sucky Creative Centrale to create playlists, and to convert video.

-Video converting is slow and sucky. I have not been able to find a better third-party alternative, so at this point I just skip the movies

- Playlist creating is annoying, because CREATIVE CENTRALE SUCKS.

-CREATIVE CENTRALE SUCKS.

- For some reason I can’t always find albums I’ve dragged into the player in the gross and horrible Creative Centrale program making me unable to put them in playlists.

As you can see I don’t have many problems with the device itself, but I would like to dip whoever came up with “Creative Centrale” in a vat of acid =)

*I have read that you can create playlists in Windows Media Player. I have not tried this yet, but I will in the future.

Review by R. Hunt:

I’ve owned many MP3 players incl. Creative’s Muvo, Zev V, and Zen. What drew me to the X-Fi2 was the larger screen, the video out, the RSS, plus the touch interface and speaker somewhat.

Display: Very pretty, 400 X 240. Good quality video and images look sharp and bright.

Audio Quality: I did A/B comparisons between the Zen and the X-Fi2, and the X-Fi2 wins. The top end is smoother, and the bass is tighter and deeper, and the overall sound is more open. They’re similar in max volume, but the X-Fi2 sounds better.

X-Fi: I don’t use it.

Creative Centrale: Install it, then forget it.

Audio Storage: Album art is a problem. The art has to be “embedded” in the ID3 tag for it to appear, it’s possible Windows Media Player automatically does this. This can also be done with an app like “Mp3tag”. Which meant going back and doing that to all 350 albums I had on the old Zen. Note that I don’t use any services like Rhapsody, or files with DRM, so for me playback itself was fine.

Viewing Photos: Some jpgs don’t show up except as “?” marks. Not sure why.

Videos: Nightmare. With the avi or wmv that worked fine on the Zen, the audio would break up or the vids wouldn’t be recognized. Creative Central was unreliable and slow, and coverts vids to wmv.

I tried about 6 other converters, and either audio or video was messed up, or just not recognized (XVid, Divx, or wmv). Finally tested Handbrake, and the X-Fi2 was happy playing those XVid files, with very specific settings, about 90% of the time. And when it works, it looks great.

Video Out: Works surprisingly well, but no one will think it’s a DVD.

RSS: Run a sync program from the X-Fi2 when it’s connected to your PC. Kind of a pain, but it works.

Battery: Seems like the charging time and life are on par with the Zen.

Interface: Not easy. A quick light touch mostly doesn’t work. Pressing down a larger area takes longer to process, so sometimes the fingernail trick is best. And sometimes it just takes a long to to respond in general. It also misinterprets gestures frequently. But with practice, it’s usable.

The volume control is not immediately accessible (3 steps) on most levels, and not at all from the main menu. So trying to quickly turn it down on a sunny day (hard to see the display) is almost impossible.

Trying to do things one-handed is difficult (e.g. walking to the train, X-Fi2 in one hand, coffee in other).

Summary: It feels that the X-Fi2 was launched before development was complete. The touch interface is quirky, the video support is very finicky, and the menu design needs refinement. I’m hoping further firmware updates improve things. ITMT, the average user will NOT be happy.

Review by G. Wernette:

I had high hopes for this player. Creative certainly advertizes it as the ultimate music machine that also plays video. And that is true, up to a certain point.

SPOILER ALERT: The X-Fi2 is not an MP4 player, seems sort of sad for a product of mid 2009. The device will play .avi files, but if you wrap an ffmpeg in an m4v container, it will not work.

1. The hardware is good, not great. The outer casing is slick metal, and can slip out of your fingers very easily. I ordered the leather case as a bumper bra, and at the time of my purchase, there were no ‘skin’ accessories to enhance the gripping of the X-Fi2. This is a two-handed device, one to grip, one to operate.

2. The Creative Centrale software sucks. There is no other word for it. Don’t expect it to do anything useful (XP SP3). Fortuneatly, it is a mass-storage device, and you can drag-n-drop your files onto the X-Fi2 to avoid it.

3. Don’t use Creative Centrale to encode video. It will not play reliably. The X-Fi2 has a limited compatibility with video files, so a third-party, one-trick pony application is needed to produce compatible video. Download a program, like HandBrake (free), and you will be able to watch great video on the 3″ screen. The key to successfull video, scale the source video down to the X-Fi2′s size (400 x 240). Observe perspective, get as close to those values as your source video will scale, but don’t force them. keep your quality setting at 80& or higher, and the video will look very close to the source quality. 100% quality gives a great picture on the 3″ screen, with all 16 million colors present, and no blocky pixels.

4. Touchscreen. Could be better. Even after issuing a firmware update just for the touchscreen, it still doesn’t track well, and can be frustrating for diabetics who’s finger tips may not get good circulation. You will do alot of swiping.

5. Music. Sound quality is superb, but the adjustments are not. Users must navigate several sub-menus for EQ, detail, and x-fi enhancements.

6. The supplied in-ear phones are comfortable and sound great. They come with a set of 3 different-size inserts.

7. Tuner. Great sound, poor management. Although there are 20+ presets for storing your favorite radio stations, they are not represented by any shortcut keys. You must access them sequentially, scroll through till you find the one you want. SPOILER ALERT: EQ cannot be applied to the tuner without leaving the tuner function, thereby killing the music. This sucks if you like to change genres of music in the same sitting. In order to select your listening preferences you leave the tuner section to access the EQ submenu, then have to go back and re-enter Tuner. Very bad, because it creates a negative exerience for radio listening.

8. Pictures. I haven’t done many pictures, but the few which have been dropped in, need a few seconds to be loaded, then they are ‘instantly’ accessable

9. Battery. So far, I’ve gotten about 7 hours maximum, while watching video at 3/4 screen brightness. I haven’t tried to stay with just music to see how much longer it could last.

10. Voice. The sample recording was of good fidelity, and I could hear background objects faintly (but cleanly) from about 10 ft. Closer is obviously better.

This is not a competitor of an iTouch. The Apple product costs more for the same 8GB capacity.

Pluses:

Video Out

Micro SDHC slot, recognizes up to 16GB.

Drag-n-Drop, no iTunes requirement(like an iPod would have)

3″ Screen is high resolution, can have great video IF YOU SCALE.

Minuses:

VERY BAD SOFTWARE: Creative Central application is hands-down worst interface I’ve ever tried to use. The irony is, I have Creative mp3 players (Nomad IIc / Nomad Jukebox) from 2003 that have better software, and everything works. This year’s Creative Centrale interface is pure crap.

Clunky operation: touch screen tracking is finicky, plus submenus are needed to access basic music adjustments. There is certainly enough empty real estate on the screen to program a shortcut or two, but there are none.

Tuner: can’t listen to radio station and select EQ at the same time.

When this player has the proper support, it is a fantastic machine. Unfortuneatly, the need to go out for 3rd party support reduces the smarmy feelings I could have, and I seriously hope that future upgrades will eventually make this the ultimate media player that Creative advertizes it to be.

Review by R. Hunt:

I’ve owned many MP3 players incl. Creative’s Muvo, Zev V, and Zen. What drew me to the X-Fi2 was the larger screen, the video out, the RSS, plus the touch interface and speaker somewhat.

Display: Very pretty, 400 X 240. Good quality video and images look sharp and bright.

Audio Quality: I did A/B comparisons between the Zen and the X-Fi2, and the X-Fi2 wins. The top end is smoother, and the bass is tighter and deeper, and the overall sound is more open. They’re similar in max volume, but the X-Fi2 sounds better.

X-Fi: I don’t use it.

Creative Centrale: Install it, then forget it.

Audio Storage: Album art is a problem. The art has to be “embedded” in the ID3 tag for it to appear, it’s possible Windows Media Player automatically does this. This can also be done with an app like “Mp3tag”. Which meant going back and doing that to all 350 albums I had on the old Zen. Note that I don’t use any services like Rhapsody, or files with DRM, so for me playback itself was fine.

Viewing Photos: Some jpgs don’t show up except as “?” marks. Not sure why.

Videos: Nightmare. With the avi or wmv that worked fine on the Zen, the audio would break up or the vids wouldn’t be recognized. Creative Central was unreliable and slow, and coverts vids to wmv.

I tried about 6 other converters, and either audio or video was messed up, or just not recognized (XVid, Divx, or wmv). Finally tested Handbrake, and the X-Fi2 was happy playing those XVid files, with very specific settings, about 90% of the time. And when it works, it looks great.

Video Out: Works surprisingly well, but no one will think it’s a DVD.

RSS: Run a sync program from the X-Fi2 when it’s connected to your PC. Kind of a pain, but it works.

Battery: Seems like the charging time and life are on par with the Zen.

Interface: Not easy. A quick light touch mostly doesn’t work. Pressing down a larger area takes longer to process, so sometimes the fingernail trick is best. And sometimes it just takes a long to to respond in general. It also misinterprets gestures frequently. But with practice, it’s usable.

The volume control is not immediately accessible (3 steps) on most levels, and not at all from the main menu. So trying to quickly turn it down on a sunny day (hard to see the display) is almost impossible.

Trying to do things one-handed is difficult (e.g. walking to the train, X-Fi2 in one hand, coffee in other).

Summary: It feels that the X-Fi2 was launched before development was complete. The touch interface is quirky, the video support is very finicky, and the menu design needs refinement. I’m hoping further firmware updates improve things. ITMT, the average user will NOT be happy.

Review by G. Wernette:

I had high hopes for this player. Creative certainly advertizes it as the ultimate music machine that also plays video. And that is true, up to a certain point.

SPOILER ALERT: The X-Fi2 is not an MP4 player, seems sort of sad for a product of mid 2009. The device will play .avi files, but if you wrap an ffmpeg in an m4v container, it will not work.

1. The hardware is good, not great. The outer casing is slick metal, and can slip out of your fingers very easily. I ordered the leather case as a bumper bra, and at the time of my purchase, there were no ‘skin’ accessories to enhance the gripping of the X-Fi2. This is a two-handed device, one to grip, one to operate.

2. The Creative Centrale software sucks. There is no other word for it. Don’t expect it to do anything useful (XP SP3). Fortuneatly, it is a mass-storage device, and you can drag-n-drop your files onto the X-Fi2 to avoid it.

3. Don’t use Creative Centrale to encode video. It will not play reliably. The X-Fi2 has a limited compatibility with video files, so a third-party, one-trick pony application is needed to produce compatible video. Download a program, like HandBrake (free), and you will be able to watch great video on the 3″ screen. The key to successfull video, scale the source video down to the X-Fi2′s size (400 x 240). Observe perspective, get as close to those values as your source video will scale, but don’t force them. keep your quality setting at 80& or higher, and the video will look very close to the source quality. 100% quality gives a great picture on the 3″ screen, with all 16 million colors present, and no blocky pixels.

4. Touchscreen. Could be better. Even after issuing a firmware update just for the touchscreen, it still doesn’t track well, and can be frustrating for diabetics who’s finger tips may not get good circulation. You will do alot of swiping.

5. Music. Sound quality is superb, but the adjustments are not. Users must navigate several sub-menus for EQ, detail, and x-fi enhancements.

6. The supplied in-ear phones are comfortable and sound great. They come with a set of 3 different-size inserts.

7. Tuner. Great sound, poor management. Although there are 20+ presets for storing your favorite radio stations, they are not represented by any shortcut keys. You must access them sequentially, scroll through till you find the one you want. SPOILER ALERT: EQ cannot be applied to the tuner without leaving the tuner function, thereby killing the music. This sucks if you like to change genres of music in the same sitting. In order to select your listening preferences you leave the tuner section to access the EQ submenu, then have to go back and re-enter Tuner. Very bad, because it creates a negative exerience for radio listening.

8. Pictures. I haven’t done many pictures, but the few which have been dropped in, need a few seconds to be loaded, then they are ‘instantly’ accessable

9. Battery. So far, I’ve gotten about 7 hours maximum, while watching video at 3/4 screen brightness. I haven’t tried to stay with just music to see how much longer it could last.

10. Voice. The sample recording was of good fidelity, and I could hear background objects faintly (but cleanly) from about 10 ft. Closer is obviously better.

This is not a competitor of an iTouch. The Apple product costs more for the same 8GB capacity.

Pluses:

Video Out

Micro SDHC slot, recognizes up to 16GB.

Drag-n-Drop, no iTunes requirement(like an iPod would have)

3″ Screen is high resolution, can have great video IF YOU SCALE.

Minuses:

VERY BAD SOFTWARE: Creative Central application is hands-down worst interface I’ve ever tried to use. The irony is, I have Creative mp3 players (Nomad IIc / Nomad Jukebox) from 2003 that have better software, and everything works. This year’s Creative Centrale interface is pure crap.

Clunky operation: touch screen tracking is finicky, plus submenus are needed to access basic music adjustments. There is certainly enough empty real estate on the screen to program a shortcut or two, but there are none.

Tuner: can’t listen to radio station and select EQ at the same time.

When this player has the proper support, it is a fantastic machine. Unfortuneatly, the need to go out for 3rd party support reduces the smarmy feelings I could have, and I seriously hope that future upgrades will eventually make this the ultimate media player that Creative advertizes it to be.