Creative Zen V+ 4gb review

[greeny]

Creative Zen V+ 4gb review

Having used my Zen constantly for a few months (until it’s untimely demise) I wondered why anyone would EVER buy an iPod. For less than the price of a shuffle, you could have a DAP which could rival the nano.


The V+ is pleasing on the eye. It is extremely small and light, and is very comfortable to hold. The screen is quite scratch resistant, although a few weeks of rubbing against my keys made the screen look rather worn, although this was never an issue when the screen was actually on. It has dedicated volume buttons on the right and a power/lock button on the right. The 5-way joystick, although at first fiddly, is easier to use once you get used to it. There are 2 buttons to the right of the joystick; a play/pause and back buttons. When holding the back button, a menu appears with options such as “add to playlist” etc. However, it took me quite a while to realise that this was possible, and I always wondered how to create playlists. The only problems I found with the button layout was that it was rather difficult to reach with my thumb when holding in my right hand. I found it much easier to flip the display 180 degrees and use it upside down.

The UI is very simple and intuitive. Everything is arranged in lists, which are navigated using the joystick. Also, you can change the background to one of your own photos, which is a nice feature.

Battery life is truly ENORMOUS. It could easily withstand a couple of day’s heavy use without charging. I even fell asleep listening to it a couple of times, and it was still playing the morning after.

The OLED screen is only 1.5 inches, which isn’t great for watching movies, but for short clips it’s fine. However, I had some issues with the video playback, which I will explain later.

It contains some possibly useful, although rather superfluous IMO, features such as synching with outlook and use as a Mass Storage Device. It would’ve been great if it had a couple of simple games (just Tetris or whatever) as it’s size meant I could hide it in the palm of my hand during class (and I have tiny hands). The FM radio feature was below average. On autoscan it skips some stations, and the quality of he sound isn’t great.


In the box you get all the usual cables and manuals etc. I was quite impressed by the earphones that come with it. They are Creative EP-480s, and were extremely comfortable, gave out a good quality sound and made a hell of a lot of noise

The Creative Video Converter software didn’t seem to work properly. No matter how I tried, I was unable to get it to work. It would just pop up with an error message telling me it couldn’t do it Also, I was under the impression it would support BBC iplayer downloads, though obviously I was mistaken. However, the video converter is my only major criticism of this very useful, well rounded DAP.

Overall rating: 7/10

This rating would have easily been an 8 or 9 if it weren’t for the disappointing video converter.

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[greeny]

Sorry, forgot to add that it died form screen failure One day the screen went all dark and died. Unfortunately this seems to be a common problem with the V and V+