The Creative Zen X-Fi on our review table is basically a refreshed version of the Zen, but with added wireless features and X-Fi sound enhancement. Transfiguring the entire music standard from simpler devices to modernized ones, there have been quite a few tugs of wars to equip music devices with enhanced features. One such device promising efficient features comes to our desks, Creative’s elegant Zen X-Fi, a high capacity flash-based digital media player with X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity Audio technology. Well, we cannot say if this will be enough to satisfy Zen fans!
Like several other players swirling around, the Creative Zen X-Fi comes with the basics, including a USB cable, EP-830 headphones, X-Fi install disk and quick start guide. Hopefully, users may be impressed with the supplied headphones since the set is better than typical earbuds. The EP-830s will appeal to the bass heads since it’s really heavy on the low end of the spectrum. The highs, however, are not as clean as they should be.
Now, shedding some light on its design and structure quality, the X-Fi is quite an enhanced device from Zen. The player is very sturdy with button tolerances that are on point. Exquisitely designed, however, the looks are a bit deceiving since no metal is actually found on any of the exterior parts, all of which are some version of plastic. There you get some disappointment! The screen, although plastic, is harder and smoother than what is found on the Zen. In addition, buttons are actually raised to help keep the screen from getting scratched when placed face down.
The 2.5-inch 320×240 pixel, 16.7m color screen looks great with rich and accurate colors. There are nearly full viewing angles for left, right and bottom angles, but the top angle will greatly disappoint you. Tilting the player towards you only a few degrees washes out the screen. Further, the device’s buttons feel very sturdy and have a nice click on them. Now, talking about its user interface makes us feel happy since the player’s interface has become quite cluttered from the new features. The device offers users’ ability to configure the entire menu system, enabling to completely remove some features from the homescreen or bring sub menu times to the front. Bounced?
The Zen X-Fi is an MTP device. Anyone with Vista or an updated XP computer will be able to drag and drop. Linux and Mac are not officially supported, but they will work if the right hacks and libraries are installed. Otherwise any media player will do the trick for transferring content to your player: Windows Media Player, Napster, etc.
Digging deeper brings us to its SD memory, where Zen terribly fails to impress us by its poor memory slot’s integration. It does not integrate with the main memory so you can’t really call it an expansion slot. Although accessing media from the card is made possible, but nearly all media features are absent. Additionally, you’re confined to the current menu position when playing media from the card. Concurrently, there is a transfer memory card to internal memory feature. This may turn out to help you for dumping your digital camera’s memory. At the same time, it’s not too helpful for other media because when you transfer the files, they go to the “transferred files†folder on the X-Fi. Only photos can be viewed from this folder. Overall, the SD slot gets a big Fail. Huh!
Well, now connecting to a wireless access point is straight forward and allows connections to encrypted networks. The X-Fi will let you choose up to 10 access points ordered by connecting preferences. This is nice for using your player in different locations. On the contrary, its incorporated media server is still efficacious in certain ways. Well, with this feature, you can download content directly to your player. Accessing this feature will let media go in the respective folder and be integrated into your main memory when downloaded. Moreover, its Creative MediaBox comes with extensive and major podcast content. But here as well, you cannot leave the current media since it will stop. The media is streamed directly from the server and cannot be downloaded. Unfortunately, users won’t be able to fast forward, reverse or bookmark anything from Creative MediaBox.
As far as its friends/ chat feature are concerned, some might discover it to be a quick way to connect and communicate with friends. Something that may vex you up entirely is its text input. You are required to use its directional keypad for moving each letter, and then the center button is used to toggle between the available letters. Quite disappointingly, users cannot even listen to music or use any other part of the player while chatting.
On the other hand, its photo viewer enables users to easily browse photos in folders, lists and thumbnails. Now, commenting on its Radio feature, the reception is quite poor. Though its autoscan feature is nice, but it only picks up three stations. Its voice recording and organizer features remain almost same as the previous Zen devices.
Apart from all these features, the media player comes with a battery life rated at 35 hours audio and five hours video. You will experience the same video experience as you had in other Zen devices. But, to notify, its charger cord is way too short to bring convenience. If your CPU is placed on the floor, you may encounter the risk of stepping on it.
Pros: The player offers remarkable EP-830 headphones, enabling great sound clarity at the low end of the spectrum. Its exquisite design can easily mesmerize users while delivering great video clarity and efficient user interface at the same time.
Cons: Now, glimpsing at the darker side brings us to its incapability to deliver crystal-clear sound while played on a high volume. The device, in a way, fails to be entirely efficacious since certain features like SD memory, inconvenience to operate while chatting, and a small charger cord make it a miss.
Overall, the Creative Zen X-Fi turns out to be a slight enhancement over the Zen. But, we were disappointed to see the poor implementation of the new features and lack of polish to the old. Not paying much heed to its certain darker aspects, music enthusiasts may still give Zen X-Fi a thought. The device has managed to gain a 7 on 10 and can be clutched for Rs. 13,599.
