Creative Zen Sleek Photo user reviews (20GB)

Pros Looks nice and may offer a great alternative to Ipod

Cons ALL CREATIVE DEVICES HAVE THE SAME DEFECT TO DATE

Summary For the most part, Creative is a great company with great products except for the fact that most of them have the same problem. I myself have gone through 3 Zen Micros already, and I know for a fact the Zen Touch and Nomad have the same problem. The problem is the earphone jack connection isn't properly soldered to the board of the device, and this is a known problem to Creative, but from what I've seen they haven't done anything to fix it. This causes the sound to either not come out of the right earphone, or the sound quality will get worse and worse. The problem usually shows itself about 3 months into having the product. So, before you buy this product maybe you should wait alittle while to see if they did in fact fx the problem or if its the same story.

Pros Easy to read screen, good user interface, no drivers required

Cons Slide button a bit sensitive, sync is buggy

Summary I have owned the monochrome zen sleek for a week now (Gee, I thought the point of a review was to review this product, not complain about past products). So far I love it. I cannot comment on the sound quality as I use it in noisy environments (planes, cars).
I actually love the touch strip. It allows me to scroll a page at a time or, if you touch the very top or very bottom, it acts like a key repeat, no need to go around in circles (You must be careful when using the scroll up repeat as you can accidentally hit the play/pause button). I heard horror stories about the strip, so I initially set it to low sensitivity. After about 10 minutes I pushed it back to medium and I am going to try high.
The user interface is very intuitive to me. It is very easy to pick the music by artist, genre, album or listen to all songs. It is also easy to create playlists. You can also configure the main menu. One of the first things I did was to put a "Random Play All" item in the main menu.
The screen is good. I have no problem reading it, except in low light. Of course the back-light fixes this problem. I actually hate color screens because I can never read them in full daylight.
One of my complaints is with the button aspect of the slide. I do get false clicks that require you to press the return button (lower left button). Not a big deal, but I wish creative would allow me to set the slide button sensitivity separate from the slide scrolling sensitivity.
I also found an issue with the sync function. I tried to transfer a playlist I made on the sleek to my computer. The playlist on the sleek was 50 songs, but the playlist that wound up on my computer was 99 songs, with many of the 50 songs duplicated.

Pros FM tuner, recorder, change background, great sound

Cons none, this is my perfect player.

Summary I love Creative labs. I had a 30gb video iPod and didn't like it as much as the three Creative players I own, including a 20gb Zen Touch, a 5gb Micro and now the Zen Sleek Photo, which is by far my favorite of the three. I got this player after checking it out at Best Buy. It's a fun player. The battery life is amazing, the sound quality awesome and it has everything and more that I wish the iPod had. If my Pod would have come with some of these features I'd still own it.
One fun thing about this player is there are about 12 different color backgrounds so you can have a different one every day! It has a great FM radio, which you can record as well. I recently used my Sleek to record a college class and was not disappointed, nor did it let me down when I recorded from the FM tuner. The brushed aluminum case is nice and does not scratch, although I would like to get a case for it. the quality of uploaded photos is great and except for not yet being compatible with Audible, that is the reason I bought the Zen Micro before this one was released, the Zen Sleek photo is a truly fun and functional player. Creative Labs listens to their customers and made the ultiamte player I was looking for. Rock on Creative!

Pros It was easy to load music

Cons The screen picks up dirt

Summary After 4 months the device quit altogether. Before it quit it took 10-15 minutes to find a play list. This morning it just quit altogether. The docking to the computer does not work. Music is lost. Pictures are lost. The only thing that works is the radio. Far too expensive for just a radio