creative zen v plus 8gb review

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Average Ratings

Sound Quality	8.5/10
Battery Life	9.3/10
Features	9/10
Value for Money	7.3/10
Reviewer Rating	7/10
Overall Rating	8/10

75% Recommended3 out of 4 Reviews

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By P1J2H3 on 8th Jun 2007

P1J2H3's Ratings

Time MP3 Player Owned	1 - 6 Months
Sound Quality	8/10
Battery Life	9/10
Features	10/10
Memory	8Gb (7.5 Useable)
Value for money	8/10
Overall value	8/10
P1J2H3's recommendation

Good Points

Tiny.
High capacity memory.
FM Tuner.
Good battery life.
Reasonable sound but supports Plays For Sure.
Non-DRM WMA compatible.

Bad Points

Slightly less inspiring sound and less bass than the outgoing Zen Micro.
Creaky casework when some buttons pressed.
Almost impossible to see the display in sunlight.
Could go a bit louder.
Battery not user replaceable.
Memory can't be expanded.

General Comments

I bought this player to replace my aging Zen Micro. What struck me immediately was how small this player is. It has around 15 hours playback, double that of the Zen Micro but you can't replace the battery. This extended battery life appears to be principally due to the fact that the new player has solid state storage. The unit has an OLED colour display that can be tailored with various colour schemes. I'd sooner they had left an LCD as this is so much easier to see in sunlight and probably uses less power. However this colour display does assist the Zen V Plus in playing back video and photos. Neither of these functions seem worthwhile as the display is a mere 1.5 inches but some may find this useful. There's a built in Mic and line-in jack. You can encode analogue audio via this jack so you could connect another player etc. and make your own files without a PC. There is a built in FM tuner that actually works quite well, not a great strength of the Zen Micro. You can store and name 32 presets. The player has the ability to record from the radio but not at a very good quality and only in WAV. The various menus are pretty similar to that of the predecessor, and again, these can be tailored to your taste. Charging is by way of a mini USB port and a lead is supplied for charging from a PC. I use my old Zen Micro wall charger too and it is worth noting that the optional wired remote control of the Zen Micro is compatible with the Zen V Plus. Navigation is by a tiny joystick in the centre of the player. At first it seemed fiddly but you soon get used to this. Unlike it's predecessor's touch pad, the Zen V Plus does not really need to be key locked when carried. Volume is now adjusted on a rocker switch on the right hand side of the player. There is a key lock switch to the left but I find I don't use this much now. When you press the play or return buttons, the case creaks in a rather cheap and nasty way but this is not indicative of poor quality construction, it's just a characteristic of the single piece casework. As the casework is now a high gloss black, I do tend to find myself continually polishing off all the greasy marks that continually appear. So not a good colour for perfectionists like me! I was a little disappointed with the sound compared to my Zen Micro, although it is more than acceptable. The older player seemed to have more "oomph" and vibrancy, certainly it has a more weighty bass. The volume output can be preset so that it does not exceed a user predetermined level but I found that without this feature, the sound pressure level often doesn't go loud enough at full volume anyway, when used on the train with in-ear headphones. I use the same Etymotic Research ER6i's earphones as I did on the previous player but the difference is noticeable. I also use Sennheiser HD480's. Whilst bass is improves using these, volume is attenuated considerably, given the size of the Senheiser's drive units, this isn't a big surprise! I make the assumption that the engineers have restricted output and frequency range on the Zen V Plus in the quest for extended battery life. The player has a graphic equalizer with a number of preset profiles, plus one user definable custom setting. I found that these tone settings do not have the same amount of gain control as with their predecessor's. Again this may be to do with conserving power. I found that the advertised 8Gb storage was in practice actually around 7.5Gb, which was a bit of a disappointment. Unlike the Sansa E280, the memory cannot be expanded using Transflash (Mini-SD). This 2Gb extra capability would have been useful but manufacturer's marketing research probably shows that their main audience is young people who carry a limited collection of music with them. I chose WMA at 64Kbps some years ago before iPods were even a twinkle in their design engineer's eyes and find that this low loss compression is more than adequate for the vast proportion of the 3500 odd tracks on my player, 4Kb tracks capacity is achievable. WMA 64Kbps has the same quality of sound as an MP3/AAC at 128Kbps, thus affording you twice as much capacity for your music. I like the fact that this player syncs with Windows Media player with DRM disabled and is "Plays For Sure" compatible. In summary, this is a great little payer that performs pretty well. I am not so excited about this as I was about my Zen Micro but technology often looses it's novelty factor. If you want extra storage and a replaceable battery, the slightly bigger Sansa E280 may be worth a punt. I may well have purchased a Sansa, but at the time, the European versions were not available with an FM Tuner, something I use a lot. What about iPods I hear you say. These are very sexy items with a beautifully tactile interface but they lack compatibility with anything but iTunes, don't support WMA, don't have a tuner or the ability to record. As soon as these issues are addressed I might give the market leading product some consideration but I shan't hold my breath! I respect the fashion conscious iPod user for their good taste in style and ergonomics though.

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