Creative L X FI 8GB MP3 Player Reviews

+ The unit is very sleek and light weight, with a good vibrant color screen. The sound is reasonable when using 320kb Mp3. The X Fi 8Gb incorporates a music expander feature, which does not seem to make any real difference when switched on, but does reduce battery life. The supplied Software installed quickly on Vista, and provides a reasonable music library system. Ripping from Cd is quick and easy, and the supplied software gives you the option of making a copy to both your PC/Laptop at the same time as transferring the sound directly to the player. After the initial charge the battery last for around 12 days whilst playing only music files.

- The external speaker function is a good idea, but the sound supplied by the built in speaker is very light weight and has a harsh treble and a nearly non-existent bass. Switching on X Fi system or the Crystal Expander makes very little difference to the sound both externally our through the 3.5mm headphone socket.

+ Delivered what I had expected high quality sound with good capacity to store music and audio books. Best of all do not have to use iTunes!

- Buttons are too small and unlabelled. Screen difficult to see in bright sunlight.

+ Very ok player. The screen is nice and compact

- Set up was a bit hard with some guesswork involved and the associated pc software (especially the video converter) could be better

+ Having bought less well known mp3's and mp4's in the past and had frustrating problems with random play/shuffle .alpha all track listing . artist listing and sound quality I feel well qualified to comment .
This player is fantastic ..everything works ...the indexing is great ..you can easily sort and access by alpha by track .artist album genre and even set up your own selections ..even down to rarely played.! .the player sorts everything by alpha in whatever category you select automatically and you can add new tracks individually and they are sorted too .The earphones supplied are excellent quality too unlike other makes ....the audio settings are all relevent ..no stupid speed of playback but good ones like a bass boost and a smart volume ..this equalises the volume on playback stopping the irritation of some tracks being louder than others due to the recorded volume level . I also use the x-fi on max level and it does improve quality .there is no distortion it is crystal clear and I am hearing instruments in tracks i have never heard before .the video and photo quality is also excellent even the video tracks I borrow from you tube are impressive ....

- I struggle to find a fault .perhaps.the 9 button access arrangement takes a bit of getting used to ..the four corners are redundant and the five others operate as a toggle ..perhaps a toggle rocker switch would have been easier but the arrangement looks stylish

+ Nice display, in-built speaker, smooth operation, ergonomic software

- 8GB is slightly small these days

+ cheaper and better tnan comparable ipod.

- no bad points at all.

+ great device with clear screen and plenty of features. Nice sound and picture quality. Great size the ability to change the SD card allows for a greater array of media to use. photo slide show is great for keeping the holiday photos to make your friends jealous.

- on off switch a little on the fidley side. No way of storing the earphones, but what device does

+ small and excellent sound quality

- small fiddly button

+ sound quality, built in speaker, earphones v good

- fiddly on/off switch, individual function buttons not as good as basic Zen model, Pc interface not great, but most importantly you do not get full functionallity from add on SD cards which is v annoying as you don't get to realise this until you've brought it .... very shabby

+ Sound quality excellent, small and light. Great video and picture viewing.

- Battery small - only around 20 hours on one charge

+ first time with mp3 , Nice easy and functional controls

- won't go into my portable speakers, must use cable to connect

+ Good sound Quality and easy to use. Screen resolution good so its very good for watching videos on. High capacity for the price and the option to add an SD card means you can cheaply expand the capacity

- Switches its self off randomly when using and then you have to reset the unit before it comes back on. files on the SD card are not integrated with the operating system so they dont appear in the music menu - you have to navigate to them manually

+ Creative are superior to apple in every way! - i laughed at people on the train the other day with their brick like i-phones and I-touch ha!

- Wish it came with some kind of case! The cases you can buy aint to great.

+ sound is fantastic. the fact that you can use a memory card is great, it means that you can keep putting music on cards and just swap the cards over, very handy.

- Using software to put music onto internal memory was a little confusing. Button configuration is a bit odd, there are nine buttons on the middle area, which do various tasts depending on which mode you're in, but the four corner buttons don't seem to do anything?

+ Sound quality, built-in speaker, screen quality, o/s.

- Can't separate audio books from music so the shuffle will play a book as if it was music. Media on the memory card is treated separately to media stored internally so is not properly integrated in the library. The Creative Centrale PC software is a bit flaky - it did not always transfer the CD cover images to the Zen . . . and it managed to corrupt my media player library on the PC.