Accessories

Pretty good with some reservations
I bought this as I travel quite frequently and wanted to do something other than listen to music or read. First the good...

The resolution and sound is very good. It is lightweight and easy to use. The controls are relatively intuitive, but I would recommend that you customize them to get rid of some of the kruft within the menus that you will probably never use (like the tasks, calendar, and reminders). The battery life is fairly good, but since I use it quite often, I am starting to notice that the charge does not last for as long as it use to. The ZenCast software sync is really cool - the site has alot of interesting areas and offer similar content as is available for the fadPod (I am NOT an iPod fan). The container is fairly robust - it survived an encounter with my small dog, with little more than a few teeth marks - but I HIGHLY recommend the leather case which also doubles as a stand for easy viewing.

Now the bad:
Ripping DVDs has been a challenge. While there are a number of software products that rip the DVD well enough, and rip them with the appropriate codecs, I almost always have to run them through the Video Converter prior to loading (it makes them WMV, with some loss). Also, make sure that you boost your volume when ripping - at standard levels, you have to turn the player almost all the way up to hear. Replace the enclosed headsets with something better sounding and more comfortable (I recommend any of the Bose headsets, or the Philips noise cancelling ones). I am also starting to worry about replacing my battery in the sealed case...

Overall - an excellent value for the money. If I can't replace the battery, I will replace this with another one.

Another Great Creative Product
I own 2 creative players now (and 1 ipod.) Ipod collects dust and my Zen's play all day long, at home, work and in the car. Please support companies like Creative which struggle in sales BUT excel in quality.

If you like music, spend more money
This player seems nice. Good design, small, thin.. but that's the outside.
I bought 2 of them at once for my girls and one never turn on and the other , after some resetting procedures during the first month, never woke up again. I just threw $228.00
I'm not an apple fan but next time I'm going for the best (IPOD)

Beware of this product, don't get lured for the price.
You always get what you pay for.

So far, so good.
I've had this over a week now and am very impressed with it. It looks and sounds great and does exactly what I want it to do, which is hold a lot of music. Granted I had it filled up in one day due to the size of my music collection, but it is still exceptionally nice. The video, photo and recording features of this work well also.

My complaints so far really don't mean a lot, but are still worth mentioning. For a device that is rechargeable and doesn't take the conventional batteries, it should really come with a charger other than the USB computer cable which is only a few inches long. Some people don't leave their computers on long enough to charge them (4 hours)and when they do, they are usually using the player elsewhere.

The sleek black look is awesome, but it will scratch easily. Buy a case if you buy this. Creative really should add a charger and cheap case in with this as a bundle.

Overall, this is a really good product. It plays music very well, does the photos and videos and has a recorder which could be very handy if you want to blackmail someone.... Or whatever... The UI takes some getting used to, but that's typical... As compared to my Rio Cali that I've been using since 2003, the Zen is awesome. I'm sure there are ways for Creative to make this better and hopefully they will. I give it two thumbs up so far... I will update my review if anything drastic changes...

Wow! It has everything I needed!!!!
It has everything I needed.
mp3 player with Radio, recorder and plays videos.
I bought this because of memory slot and found that even without that memory slot it is better than many players.
Two bad things about it:- Take 4-5 sec to start up and tic-tac sound of its buttons.