Never give in to the iPod mania.

Many years ago I bought my first MP3 player. This was just after the 1st gen iPod had come out, and seriously, it was just way too expensive with not enough storage. So I bought a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox instead (my review is still here, though horribly outdated) and I was quite happy with it for many, many years. It finally died.

So I started shopping for another. I looked at the iPod again - the price has come down, but it's still the high end item in the market. There are tons and tons of other options now, with more features for less money. The Creative Zen is one of those, and given my previous happiness with Creative products, I went for it. Again, very happy. I've had this for a few months now, and it's mostly smooth sailing.

The Good Stuff

- Clear sharp viewing screen.
- Video, MP3s, FM Tuner, Photos, Organizer, and Voice Recorder all in one toy
- Sleek, stylish, and tiny, lightweight and extremely portable
- Low price compared with other MP3 players with the same feature list
- Easily manage files with the Windows explorer interface, as well as Windows Media Player support (and I hear tell iTunes too, but I've not tried that) - no proprietary software that you have to install (though it does come with software, see below)
- Charges quickly via the USB hookup, battery seems to last at least 3 - 4 hours at a stretch watching video, longer if you're just playing the audio (haven't let it die completely yet - Creative claims 5 hours video usage, 30 hours audio, but I can't substantiate those claims) which is quite adequate
- Easy to understand buttons - I mastered the basics in about 15 minutes, and I discover new little tricks still (and ignore what some other reviewer said about no fast forward - it's there - push the right side of the main nav square and hold it, voila, fast forward)
- Very aesthetically pleasing interface & menus - customizable to some extent and easy to navigate
- Expandable storage with an SD card, and you can use the storage space like a portable hard drive / thumb drive type operator
- Decently sturdy case construction, save for the screen itself (yep, I've already dropped it a couple of times so I've tested this part)

The Not-So-Good Stuff

- Get a screen protector or case at the SAME time you get the player. The screen scratches REALLY easily with everyday usage. (Yes, scratched it before I dropped it.)
- The USB cable that comes with it is far too short to be functional - be prepared to find a different one
- The headphones (earbud style) that come with it are cheapy, and horribly uncomfortable to me. (My boyfriend likes them better than the ones I use though, so that's more a personal preference thing probably.)
- The software that comes with is sketchy at best - the video converter does what it should (converts most video file types - including DivX and Xvid - into the right size/resolution for the player) but neither my computer nor my boyfriend's would even run the rest of it. (Not too big of a deal though since you can easily manage in windows explorer though.)
- SD Card storage is not integrated - meaning the files on it are not accessible through the regular video, photo, or music menus. You have to go to the Memory Card menu. A bit annoying, but nothing to that I worry too much about (we've barely used the SD card anyway, as the 4GB storage works well enough to store tons of music & podcasts along with quite a few TV shows all at once)

Just get it!

The most features, done right, for the lowest price. And I think it's much nicer looking than the iPod. (Of course, that's just my own opinion.) There is no reason to spend the extra money just to conform. Be a rebel, and be happier. :)

Update 10/23/08:

My boyfriend and I had been sharing this - we work different hours so we'd just swap it out and charge when we could - but he bought me my own 8GB version for my birthday. Now, whether this was because he was tired of me overloading the one we had with all my videos that he didn't care about or just because he's that awesome of a boyfriend, I dunno. But either way - still love the Zen a LOT. Plus, I can attest to the durability given the player-swapping we were doing. Stood up to a fair amount of abuse (once we put the screen protector on, of course).