Creative Labs 16 GB ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN MP3 Player (70PF2391001F1)

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good quality mp3s
- The battery life is impressive. I 've had to charge my unit once a week with 2 to 3 hours of playback per day.

Form factor:
- Very light and slender
- The screen is clear and the colors come out vivid
- The audio jack is located at the right place so as to keep the earphone cable straight (a lot of players don't care for that and as a result your earphone cable dies soon due to frequent bending at the connector)
- BAD: The button interface, in my opinion, is not very friendly. You have to be cautious of what you press and many times look at the buttons to make sure your finger is on the right one. Compare this to a jog dial (from my previous player), once I had my finger on the jog key I could just toggle it left, right, up, down, diagonal etc. Specially useful when the player is in your pocket or on your armband and all you wanna do is increase/decrease the volume.

CRITIQUE: The player sounds great, video quality is very nice, lots of features to play with (so you want get bored soon!!) and internet connectivity is plus if you are the kinda person who would put it use.

COMPARISON WITH iRIVER Clix 2:
If you are and audiophile and care less about features then Clix 2 might be the choice for you. This player is feature packed and "in my opinion" comes as close as 80% to the quality of sound of clix 2 (I know this 'cause my wife bought the clix 2 when I bought this player).

SUMMARY: X-Fi is lots of features and good quality sound and video but Clix 2 is a notch above in sound quality (at the cost of features). Make your pick!!

Creative Labs 16 GB ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN MP3 Player (70PF2391001F1)

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player less toy-like with the metallic paint on the back and the "chrome" surrounding the player. The only thing that bothered me was the nine main buttons--you only need four of them to navigate the player! The corner buttons are only there to help you move diagonally when you are typing using the chat function or for quicker scrolling down your music library. The player is about 1 mm thicker than the original Zen, which had the thickness of a CD case. Still pretty thin and light, though.

The screen itself is the most impressive thing on the player. IT HAS 16.7 MILLION COLORS! The Nano, for comparison, has 262,000. Pictures come out clean and crisp. Videos are bright and colorful.

So how do you get everything into the player? Keep in mind that the software that comes with this player is OPTIONAL. For music and pictures, you can just drag and drop files into the player. I use Windows Media Player 11, and it gives me no troubles. For video, you will probably need to download Creative's Video Converter, which will convert pretty much any video file into a MP4 file that is compatible with the player. I converted a few videos, and I liked how the videos had decent quality and only used up a little space. One 20 minute episode took around a few hundred megabytes.

Now for the cons. First off, as with the previous Zen, the new X-Fi still does not have SD card integration. This means that if you were to purchase, say, an 8GB SD card (which I did,) you would only be able to access the files you put into the memory stick from a specified "Memory Card" section--it does not integrate into your player's pre-existing library. But I guess that if you aren't big on expanding memory, then this should not be a problem. Another drawback is the online chat function. I have not yet tried this out extensively, but chatting seems rather clumsy. The keypad is arranged similarly to a phone's, but instead of designating each of the NINE buttons to three or four letters, the buttons act as a directional pad for you to navigate across and diagonally along the keypad on the screen.

Okay, so to sum it up, despite some minor setbacks, the X-Fi's great price, awesome design, and plethora of extra features sealed the deal for me. In this day and age, the iPod has a lot more legit competitors who seem to improve every year. Creative Labs has come a long way with their MP3 players, and I feel that this one is a true alternative that will do its job and save you money. Hope this review helped! If you need to see some specs or technical stuff about the player, check out Creative Lab's website for more info!

UPDATE: I transferred some videos into my 8gb SD card (simple drag and drop,) and I have to say that playing files from the "Memory Card" section exceeded my initial expectations. Contrary to what some people have said about video playback, you CAN pause, fast forward, and rewind the videos in the SD card. I recommend purchasing an SD card primarily as extra memory for all your videos. My 16gb X-Fi now has 24gb of memory, all for about an additional $20!

Creative Labs 16 GB ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN MP3 Player (70PF2391001F1)

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dollar Sony I had bought prior and the sound reproduction range was not as high or as low and the mid sounded muddy compared to the EP830 headphones. I tried listening to the Sony headphones on my prior MP3 player and it sounded better (but nowhere as good as the Zen X-Fi). When using the EP830 phone on the other MP3 again it sounded even better but still worlds away from the EP830/Zen XFi combo.

Don't waste your time on overpriced but pretty looking screens. If the music is your priority and not fooling around with gadgets and widgets on an MP3 player then the Zen X-Fi is the tool for you. While with 16Gb of space is certainly enough to handle lots of pictures, videos etc. The wallpaper is changable and the WiFi feature sets it apart. While you cannot surf the internet, you can reach podcasts and other such broadcast if you wish. There is also an FM radio with 24 pre-sets. The Zen screen is very clear and color rich, images pop off the screen and sunlight does little to dim it. All in all, this is my new favorite toy.

My only niggle is that after charging the unit fully, it needs re-booting...every time. That was annoying at first but it is a small price to pay for the quality of sounds it produces. One other [...] and it isnt with the product, it is with the company, there is no included car or ac adaptor, Creative want 35 bucks for a car adapter. >:(

All companies lie about performance, they claim battery life of 35 hours, I'd like to know what planet that happens on but it aint Earth. I get an honest 10 hours out of it. I start at 7AM and am home by 5PM, most days I can get home with it warning me it's about to die. On rare days it cuts off on me on the way home. A car adapter would really help, also an ac adapter would prevent me from having to run a PC in order to charge her up.