Has anyone got the new Creative Zen Portable Media Player?

[fusionlab]

It's the one with the screen that can play movies as well as music. I'm thinking of getting one...but does anyone know if it's any good?

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?prodid=9882

[Librarian]

I'm not really interested in upgrading to that model, but I've had a Nomad Zen NX for the past year and it's been a trooper - in the car, hiking, and at the gym.

[geddyleerox!]

they sound great...
where acn u get 1?

[Librarian]

If memory serves, I bought mine at one of the "big-box" retailers. If you keep an eye on www.techbargians.com there are occasional specials on Creative products.

[clave]

I had a Zen Xtra (30 GB) and I cannot begin to tell you how bad it was, in all sorts of ways (interface awful, etc.). Lots of hardware problems, too. the hard drive crashed a while back (out of warranty) and I'm so disgusted that I'm not going to bother having it repaired.

Compared to that Other OS's products, the sound quality was terrible, too. Maybe Creative has gotten their act together with their knockoff of the iPod Mini, but somehow I doubt it.

If you do go for a Creative product (MP3 player, for example), I'd strongly recommend buying Red Chair Software's much superior Notmad software. You won't regret it. (Equally true of their Anapod Explorer.) See Red Chair Software (http://www.redchairsoftware.com) for more. (No, i don't work for them, but their products work for me <g>.)

[Librarian]

I'm a little surprised to hear you say that, I guess I've been a little lucky with mine, it even survived an "all-thumbs" drop to the floor a few weeks ago. The software is cumbersome, though.

[clave]

I'm a little surprised to hear you say that, I guess I've been a little lucky with mine, it even survived an "all-thumbs" drop to the floor a few weeks ago. The software is cumbersome, though.

I have a feeling that my player was one of the many (if you check feedback on sites like Amazon and www.nomadness.com) that was flawed to begin with, as I had tons of problems with it before the hard drive died. And the sound quality (even at 320 mpb) is awful compared to my iPod -- like night and day.

BTW, should you ever try to uninstall your Creative software, look out -- most of it will stay on your hard drive, although it shouldn't. I need to write to their support people about this, but have put off doing it because i don't expect much of anything in terms of help from them.

Bottom line: their software is horrible, very difficult to use, and their warranty is a joke -- only 3 months! HP's version of the iPod (4th generation) is covered for a year when you buy it -- no need to drop extra bucks on Apple's pricey "extended" protection plan. (which is good up to a point, since HP's warranty can't be extended beyond one year.)

[Tenorman]

I will stick to my MD player.

Lose the MD player - still have my software

Lose some of my software (only some) - I still have the player.

I cannot get round the idea of entrusting huge quantities of my music onto one easily loseable or destroyable bit of plastic - plus the fact the sound is better - less compressed

[clave]

plus the fact the sound is better - less compressed

It all depends on how you're encoding it, assuming that you're ripping some of your own CDs and uploading files to the MP3 player. I use either 256 or 320 for MP3s, and sometimes I use WAV files, too.

With Minidisc hardware being so difficult to come by in the US, this is a reasonable alternative (supposing you trust the hardware and have good software). With the program I'm using, I can back up my iPod's entire hard drive... But then, I have MD, too. I do like having a lot of files in one place, even though they're not the absolute best quality.