Creative Zen (4GB)

Manufacturer: Creative Labs Inc. Part number: 70PF216200111

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CNET Editor rating:
4.0 stars Excellent
Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 51 reviews

More product information:: Editors' review; User reviews; Specifications; Product series; Manufacturer info

Bottom Line:: We're hard-pressed to find anything not to like about the Creative Zen. It's a great option for anyone looking for a great-sounding, pocketable MP3 player with an excellent, video-capable screen and plenty of extra features.

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CNET editors' review

Creative Zen (4GB)

price range: $87.99 - $102.61

Reviewed by: Jasmine France
Reviewed on: 09/14/2007
Updated on:04/25/2008

The good: The Creative Zen sounds fantastic and features a brilliant color screen capable of displaying photos and video. The player offers a smorgasbord of desirable extras such as an SD card expansion slot, an FM radio, a voice recorder, and a user-definable EQ. It has a slim, pocket-friendly design; is very user-friendly; supports subscription music; and sports a reasonable price tag.

The bad: The Creative Zen only comes in black, the control pad feels cheap, and it doesn't come close to matching the max 60GB offered by the player it's replacing.

The bottom line: We're hard-pressed to find anything not to like about the Creative Zen. It's a great option for anyone looking for a great-sounding, pocketable MP3 player with an excellent, video-capable screen and plenty of extra features.

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Editors' note: The body of this review has been updated to reflect added memory options and significant price drops.

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Creative Zen

In a move that surprised many a Creative fan, the company has ushered in a flash-based replacement for its Zen Vision:M, a full-size, hard-drive player that offered up to 60GB of space. Though the news was not well-received by some proponents of carting around a large library of tracks, those who give the new player--dubbed simply the Zen--a chance will find that it's a completely worthy follow-up to its chunky predecessor. This new Zen--which comes in 2GB ($79.99), 4GB ($99.99), 8GB ($129.99), 16GB ($199.99), and 32GB ($299.99) versions--may not hold as much media as the 60GB Vision:M, but it offers the same, lovely screen in a much smaller body, and it packs in a couple of new features for good measure. Plus, it's an incredible value for the price.

It's all about sleek understatement
Creative has gained somewhat of a reputation for putting MP3 players in a vast array of colors, so it comes as a bit of a shock (and maybe a letdown, for some) that the Zen will be offered in just one: black. Still, it must be said that black does make an excellent frame for the awesome 2.5-inch TFT screen, which is capable of displaying 16.7 million colors. Also, while the design might not be as innovative as that of the iPod Touch and iRiver Clix--or as cute or as eye-catching as that of previous family members--the Zen has a certain understated elegance with its shiny face and brushed-metal backside. It's like a smaller, sleeker version of the Vision.

Despite its ample screen, the Zen is pleasantly compact. At just 3.3 inches by 2.1 inches by 0.4 inch, it's about 60 percent smaller than the Vision:M and it's definitely pocket-friendly. We're also pleased to note that Creative didn't skimp on the controls and has migrated completely to the user-friendly tactile variety. Main functions are handled by a four-way control square surrounding a center select button. This is flanked on the top by a back/contextual menu rocker and on the bottom by a shortcut and play/pause toggle. Sadly, there's no dedicated volume control, but the right edge of the Zen houses the ever-handy hold/power switch along with a standard mini-USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack. The reset and mic holes can be found on the bottom and top spines, respectively.

Fun features for all
Exploring the top side of the Zen also reveals one of the new extras we alluded to earlier. In another departure from the norm, Creative has built in an SD card expansion slot--a first for its MP3 players. We're happy to report that the slot can take SDHC cards, which currently go up to 16GB in the full-size SD variety. (Of course, at a price that exceeds the 16GB Zen itself, those are a bit cost-prohibitive at the moment.) Considering the move away from more capacious hard drive memory, we definitely think the addition of memory expansion was a wise--and necessary--move.

Another new feature to be found on this Zen is its support of unprotected AAC files, meaning it will play back iTunesPlus tracks, though you can't use iTunes to transfer them. The player can sync via drag-and-drop in Windows Explorer, or you can use a jukebox such as Windows Media Player or Rhapsody. Like its other family members, this Zen also supports MP3, WAV, Audible, and both protected and unprotected WMA tracks. Unfortunately, it also shares Mac incompatibility with the other players in its line. Photos must be in JPEG format, which Windows Media Player can convert to automatically during syncing. On the video side, the Zen plays WMV and Motion JPEG out of the box and MPEG4, DiVX, and XViD with conversion. Creative includes an app--Zen Media Explorer--which can take care of the conversion painlessly and (somewhat) quickly.

In addition to its media capabilities, the Zen includes Creative's usual impressive array of features, though it's worth noting that there is no line-in recording for audio or video (the latter in particular would have been a nice touch). You do get voice recording and an FM radio with autoscan and 32 preset slots. There's also basic PIM functionality: you can sync contacts, tasks, and calendar info from Outlook to the device. Plus, you get the usual shuffle and repeat playback modes, handy contextual menus, and the ability to search for artists and songs as well as rate songs on the fly and set up to 10 bookmarks. Nine preset EQs, a five-band, user-definable mode, and a bass boost function ensure that you can adjust sound to your liking.

But it's the fun visual display option that set the Zen line apart. Album art can be viewed as a thumbnail or in full-screen mode on the playback display, and Creative includes various themes for interface customization. You can also set any image on the player as wallpaper, and the photo-browsing experience is great: there's a 5x4 thumbnail grid and each one magnifies as you scroll over it. Naturally, you can view photos and slide shows while listening to music. There's even a nifty, semi-split-screen deal on the main menu that cycles through album art, photos, or video image clips, depending on which media type you are browsing.

Shining performance
No two ways about it: the Zen's screen is fabulous. Photos look vibrant and bright, with excellent color saturation and good detail. Videos are similarly impressive--clear and bright with no noticeable pixilation (though we did notice the occasional blurring around some sharp edges)--and the viewing angle from side to side is excellent. Even the interface looks stellar, right down to the transparent icons on the main menu. It's a nice screen to look at for sure.

Frankly, we've come to expect stellar audio quality from Creative's MP3 players, and the Zen did not disappoint--once we swapped in the Shure SE530 headphones. (For their part, the included headphones were passable.) Perhaps the best thing is that all genres of music sound equally great. The bass of Zeb's disco house track "Disco Patel" was tight and enveloping without overshadowing the sparkle of the high hat and minute ting of the triangle. In the Bangles' high-end heavy intro to "Hazy Shade of Winter," the detail of each instrument was crystal clear, and the relatively quiet Spanish guitar was not lost among the frantic chorus of the rest of the track. Overall, music was rich, warm, and detailed...and it just made us happy.

The Creative Zen also boasts plenty of volume to drive a full-size set of 'phones--we only had it up to about a third with some noise-isolating buds. The rated battery life of 25 hours for audio and 5 hours for video is solid, and CNET Labs pretty much matched these estimates at 24.7 hours and 5.6 hours, respectively. It may not be the longest-lasting battery on the market, but the Zen certainly offers a good value with its lovely screen, nice sound, and good combination of features

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Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 51 reviews
My rating: 0 stars

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 51

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7 stars

It has a big flaw

by centaclaws on October 15, 2007

Pros: Small size, nice/smooth design, nice screen, great sound

Cons: Very slow startup, freezes randomly, short battery life

Summary: It's a good mp3 player, nice looking, good sounding, not that expensive, and generally overall. So when your friends get one, it's pretty nice to play around with ...

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Summary: It's a good mp3 player, nice looking, good sounding, not that expensive, and generally overall. So when your friends get one, it's pretty nice to play around with it for an hour. But it's different when you actually own one, you get to know it well, know its flaws just as well.
1) the buttons collect a lot of dirt and residue, and it is HARD to clean it out
2) the bass-boost function is not as good as it sounds, nothing compared to my Sony MP3.
3) there is no low-battery indication, it just shuts off and you're just wandering "the hell just happened, and why won't it turn back on"
4) the most important flaw - it just freezes. I was watching a video, and all of a sudden, it just freezes. It took over three minutes to unfreeze.

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11 out of 14 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 stars

Hidden problems.

by Larry77777 on November 7, 2007

Pros: Small with nice display.

Cons: Interface, buttons, user can't replace battery.

Summary: This was delivered to me on a Friday and the following Friday night my neighbor and professional "geek" got it working. Upon opening it, I connected it to my computer, ...

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Summary: This was delivered to me on a Friday and the following Friday night my neighbor and professional "geek" got it working. Upon opening it, I connected it to my computer, a laptop with xP and WMP 11, and immediately Windows Explore saw it as one of the drives and I used Windows Explore to drag and drop some music files. I was listening to it and reading the instructions that said to first install their software. I installed the software. That's when everything went south. No longer would it show up as a drive on my computer. I couldn't use Explore anymore and Creative's ZEN Media Explorer did not have the ability to move files or folders around within the player like you would expect with any USB mass storage device like a USB flash drive. I uninstalled their software. I could use WMP 11. It still wouldn't work with Explore. I took it to work and another computer with xP and WMP 11 accepted it, found the drivers, and worked with Explore. Another computer with xP and WMP 10 found the drivers. The ZEN showed up as a drive in Explore but the files could not be manipulated. Another computer did something else. A string of e-mails with Creative did not avail any solution. Customer service at Creative was, howerever, very responsive. If I wrote a help request before bed, an answer was waiting in the morning. The last advice was going to get me to mess with my computer's registry. Enter my neighbor. He goes into the control panel and finds the Zen under Portable Devices. He right clicks and uninstalls it. He unplugs the Zen and replugs it. This time the computer says that it found new hardware and then it went to find and install a driver. Success! It again works with Explore. I reinstalled the Zen software and it the computer said to connect the player to finalize installation. Now I'm back to the last Friday. The software messed it up but it contains the video converter. It seemed necessary. So I went back into the control panel and uninstalled the player and unplugged it and replugged it and Explore worked even with the Zen software. I experimented with the Zen software again and it made the player disappear as a drive in Explore. I repeated the uninstall / install process again and nothing has broken for four days. This sucker could be a lot more flexible. It requires Windows xP or Vista with WMP 10 or 11.

The radio works pretty well. It is sensitive enough to get most stations in stereo. The display is 320 by 240. It's very pretty. The Zen software runs all the time and so if you right click a picture (or other media), you have a choice to send it to the Zen. It automatically reduces the picture to 640 x 480 with some additional compression. Why not 320 x 240? But if i use Canon's Zoom Browser to reduce the photo to 320 x 240 resolution, and then try to send it to the Zen from Zoom Browser, it can't find the Zen as a drive. I need to send the photo to a folder and then send it to the Zen from the folder. It should show up like a USB flash drive. The sound is good, but it could use more drive for less efficient headphones. It is probably typical. You can't browse the music in a "folder mode". That is, you can find music by playlists, artist, album, or genre but not by the way you organized the folders inside the player. The battery is not user replaceable like a Sansa E200 series player. If you are lucky, it will go dead inside the warrantee or last until you break the player anyway. The four way navigation button does not work well on my player. If I press around the center of the > button which should change the track or radio station, it activates the ^ button which changes the volume. I need to press the > button in the lower right corner to keep it from doing this. Don't want to charge it from a computer and think the Creative charger is to many $$ and should have come supplied with the Zen? You can find those 5 volt USB chargers all over the place. If you have a cell phone that charges through the mini USB port then you can use that. If you don't really need the 2.5" display and you don't mind the proprietary connector, the Sansa E200 with user replaceable battery and a metal back is probably a better, more friendly bet. Whatever you buy, even a $25 player, a good set of headphones will improve any player.

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10 out of 16 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Near perfect multi-media to go player.

by mjrei1 on December 28, 2007

Pros: Excellent sound quality, clear and bright screen, great ergonomics and features.

Cons: Don't believe the 25-30 hr battery rating.

Summary: Creative is hitting on all cylinders with the latest version of Zen players! I have owned the Zen Vision m as well as countless other multi-media players in the past (...

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Summary: Creative is hitting on all cylinders with the latest version of Zen players! I have owned the Zen Vision m as well as countless other multi-media players in the past (I can count at least 10 others). None stack up to all the pros of this newest Zen player.

For the record, this review is going to be all over the map, as there are so many things I like about this player. Beware; gushing ahead.

There's so much to love for a power user that it's hard to know where to begin. First of all I hate proprietary anything. The Zen is anything but proprietary. It plays subscription music by just dragging and dropping. Without installing the included software the Zen shows up as another storage/drive device. Some players require you to use their included "clunky" software to load copy protected songs from subscription services, but not this Zen. Again, just drag and drop.

Even the connectors are not proprietary. My phone charger also charges my Zen. It uses a standard usb to mini usb cable. The mini cable that it comes with is so short its actually funny but usb cables are so common and inexpensive that this is not a negative to me.

The sound and image quality are superb! There are also other nice features like a sleep timer, equalizer, bass enhancement, and "smart volume" which plays all songs old and new at the same volume levels! This is the first player I've owned that did all of this. Go to sleep with music playing in your ears... wake up the next morning without a drained battery and without blood pouring from your ears! Again, great features!

The layout of the buttons and the layout within the user interface are also great. The buttons are all logically placed and the connections (usb, headphone jack, sd expansion slot) feel like they are located where they should be. The interface is relatively fast and always beautiful as well as logical. It isn't ipod fast when accessing music but its close. In every other way its ipod-superior in my book.

The video playback for a 2 inch screen is actually awesome. Yes it is small but nearly the entire face is used by the screen and my movie files look and sound fantastic. The only player I've even thought came close was the Archos 404 which had a larger screen but the battery life was atrocious and the player was considerably heavier.

The only cons to this unit are minimal. The screen does smudge easily and unfortunately, it also scratches easily. So a pda-type screen protector is a necessity. Also, the battery life doesn't appear to be up to the 25-30 hrs claimed in the specs. While I haven't really tested this it appears it will be more like 12-15 hrs. Still very respectable. A carrying case in a $100 plus player would also be nice. These are why this weighs in for me as a 9 out of 10. Small and insignificant things I'd like but ultimately not that important.

Considering the credit card size of this player and its very worthy multi-media player billing, I have yet to use a player that I like so much. My only regret was not going for the 8gb unit. I'm going to fork out the money and get the larger unit even though the memory on this 4gb Zen is expandable. I like having my music and books files on the flash drive to be handled by the players very powerful interface. The expansion slot is for movie files where a 4gb card can handle about 20-30 movies files.

Thanks Creative for a very thoughtful design and feature-rich small player!

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4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
10 stars

Firmware update seems to fix it

by Gonnakillu on December 24, 2007

Pros: Beautiful display, amazing sound, easy to use

Cons: NONE at all

Summary: ok well this thing is amazing, has not locked up on me once, i would assume the firmware update that it downloaded immediatly took care of this problem, The display ...

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Summary: ok well this thing is amazing, has not locked up on me once, i would assume the firmware update that it downloaded immediatly took care of this problem, The display is amazing looks like a mini-lcd TV ha, very easy to use and find songs, you can change the background to any picture you want. Wonderful player amazing screen and the GF got it for me for x-mas.
I would reccomend this to anyone

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4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
10 stars

THIS IS GOING TO KICK APPLE'S BUTT!!!!!!

by CreativeLabsForLife18 on September 2, 2007

Pros: it is windows media friendly and supports all video formats. its more current and yes, it is slender and the controls appear to be user friendly unlike the ipod...APPLE USERS, LOOK OUT!!!!!!!!! :-)

Cons: WHAT IS THERE TO SAY?? NOTHING!!

Summary: WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! creative has done it again. I have owned two CL products and they have done great!!!! i own the creative labs zen 1gb [holds 500 songs] and the CL ...

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Summary: WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! creative has done it again. I have owned two CL products and they have done great!!!! i own the creative labs zen 1gb [holds 500 songs] and the CL Zen V 4gb. The Zen V4gb gets the job done, but i just want to upgrade and the 8gb would be great along with the sd card and a case. then, i would be set!!!! personally, i do loads of research before i purchase a mp3 player bc i want it to last unlike some brands... ::coughs apple:: apple sucks. it is absolutely overratted. it really makes me mad because people who buy ipods are only buying it because it is a fad and all these podcasts are avaliable. but, i know there is a tradeoff.......you only have to use only i-tunes and only that- not windows media player.....apple only uses their video format only.........creative labs is pc friendly and supports all file formats for video and music! just look at the player!!! who cannot resist buying it?!!!!!!! I personally think creative is leading the pact in mp3 players. microsoft zune; i think, is not cutting it. it is bulky and it is does not support windows media player either.... isn't it ironic bc its a microsoft product and suppose to be compatible w/ wmplyr. the zune is like a one hit wonder in my opinion. GO CREATIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Creative Zen (4GB)

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