- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 25 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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6 out of 8 people found this review helpful
2.5 stars
"It's a great multi-functional device, when it wants to work"
Pros: Music, nice widescreen for video, FM tuner, etc. It does it all.
Cons: Really bulky, not convenient to carry around, long pauses when accessing large files (esp. by picture), hard drives crashes, overwrites ID3 tags, poor design
Summary: I've had this device since Xmas '06. Initially , I loved his thing for it's nice wide screen and multi-functionality. But just after a few days of use, I notice the hard drive needed to rebuild itself whenever I turned it on. I ignored it at first but then i started to notice this happen ever few days or so. I took it back and got another one. Again, the same problem. I could understand the hard drive needing to rebuild itself if I was being rough with the thing and taking it with me on workouts. But no, I mainly used it to sit on my desk at work. not to mention , other things started to bug me. The small buttons in the bottom corner are scrunched together, so sometimes you really have to take a second to make sure you're pressing the right button. Furthermore, FF or rewinding through songs or videos require you to hold it down so I can't always get back to precise moments as I'd like. Also, the thing tends to lag when you have it loaded with lots of media. As a tip, don't bother to search for movies or music by picture or you'll have to wait forever for it load picture to picture from page to page. navigating through screens is easy enough but the button layout on the side really doesn't work for me, it's too spread out and the buttons are too small and stiff. And the on / off and volume buttons feel cheap. They remind me of an old Walkman from the 80's. Not to mention that the flimsy on / off button can sometimes get easily on the edge of clothing shutting the thing off while you're using it. For example, I can't mention the number of times I'm listening to music while the player was in the front pocket of my hoodie only to shut off as I'm walking. And finally, the device also reorganized my music files. I fixed this before because the IPOD does the same thing. I fixed this problem by correcting the ID3 tags, but the Zen will not recognize it and still split up my music outside of the way I label it. Despite all the faults I listed, the device is great for all the functions it has but for me, it's just marred by poor design and poor interfacing. Hopefully they get it right next time.
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