Nice Touch? You bet. "Ipod killer"? Not yet.
Written: Dec 22 '04 (Updated Feb 12 '05)
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Pros: Long battery life; large storage capacity; small size; good search/filter features;
Cons: Oversensitive touch panel hampers usability; no folders/subfolders; no drive letter access
The Bottom Line: Though it's a good unit, small but significant quirks in the user interface make this unit the inferior to the Zen Touch's rival, the Ipod.
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| davlee's Full Review: Creative Technology Zen Touch (20 GB) MP3 Player |
Reviews around the net of the Zen Touch invariably compare it to Apple's Ipod, for good reason. "Ipod" has become one of those trademarks like "Scotch tape" and "Walkman" that define the whole product genre because of a magic mix of good design, brilliant marketing, and hype. I wouldn't be surprised if many who get this player this Christmas morning do so because the Ipod was either too expensive or sold out in their area.
Who the player's for
The styling of this player is less cutesy than the Ipod. The Zen Touch looks like an overly-wide air conditioning remote, while the Ipod resembles a bar of soap. The Ipod is a fashion statement these days. The Zen Touch is not. That said, while the Zen Touch's design is more function than form, it's by no means bulky or ugly.
It's college guy style, compared to the Ipod's post-Barbie-phase girl style. Singapore sensible, not California cool.
The pertinent specs
20GB 1.8 inch HD (good for 5000 songs)
24 hour lithium battery
Plays MP3 (all bitrates), WMA, and uncompressed WAV files
Organizes files using an MP3 tag structure, rather than a files/folders scheme
Large, informative LCD screen
External power/charging: DC adaptor, or power through USB 2.0 connection
Inside the package
- Player
- Case
- USB 2.0 cable
- DC adaptor
- Creative earbuds
- Multi-language "Getting Started" manual
- CD containing drivers, software, and full manual
A nice extra - the unit comes preinstalled with 60 classical piano and symphony pieces by the Beijing Orchestra. They're beautiful, but though they can be deleted, they're "locked" in the unit and can't be copied to a PC.
The package itself is a plastic blister pack. This does not compare well with the Ipod's nifty cubic box packaging. The Zen Touch's poor packaging and cheap presentation doesn't do the unit justice. Besides, all that throwaway plastic can't be good for the environment.
Using the player
You turn the Zen Touch on by pressing and holding a power button on the side for a second. Impressively, music starts playing instantly, with no boot-up wait time.
The unit's big "improvement" over previous Zen models is the "touch pad", a 3cm vertical strip on the front of the unit that assists with scrolling through the large lists of songs that 20gb of storage allows. Running your finger up or down the strip scrolls through those lists quickly. The problem is that it's a little too quick and sensitive, and there are no buttons to help you "sneak up on" the file you want to select that you're apt to overshoot with the touch pad, even at its "low" sensitivity setting.
Once the file you want to select is highlighted, you can press an "OK" button at the top of the pad, or if the setting is enabled, tap the touch pad twice. The latter is more intuitive, but the oversensitivity of the panel makes this an exercise in frustration. Hopefully a firmware update will make the pad less sensitive, but I'm afraid this might be a hardware issue. Maybe this is as low on sensitivity as they can make it.
On this score, the Ipod's scroll wheel has it over the Zen Touch. Creative gets an A for the idea, but a D- for execution. One handed operation simply isn't going to happen with the Touch.
Organizing songs
Having used MP3-CD players for years, I'm used to the folders and subfolders (dos) system of artist/album organization. The Zen Touch is not happy with this. It puts all the songs in one big "root" directory, but allows you to filter/search the collection based on artist, album, and genre MP3 tags.
I have no problem with this system in theory - it has its advantages over folders - but in practice it means that thousands of MP3s in my collection downloaded from various places, all with inconsistent (or non-existent) MP3 tags needed re-tagging, lest they be scattered all over the place inside the Touch.
The included software, "Nomad Explorer", helps with this re-tagging, but if your MP3 collection is as large as mine, and they're from illegal downloaded sources, expect to spend a couple of days retagging and reorganizing everything.
Playing the songs
Once the cataloging work is done, selecting music to play is a breeze. You can tell it to play all the songs by an artist, just one album, all the songs in a genre, or play randomly within those categories, or (this is scary if you have a large collection) play songs randomly from the whole unit. You can also make "playlists" either in the unit, or using the PC software.
However, to set any of this up, you need to fidget with the unit's touch panel for at least 10 seconds, and it's going to take all of your concentration and probably both hands. This is not a unit you want to try to change albums with while driving, unlike well-designed MP3-CD players.
Working with the PC
The Zen Touch comes with a piece of bloatware called "Creative Mediasource" that acts as a librarian, player, and ripper all in one. You likely have better software for all of this already if you're in need of a 20gb MP3 player, so save your hard disk space.
However, you need to install the "Zen Explorer" software and drivers that allows your computer to transfer music to the unit. As of Dec 2004, the unit's firmware DOES NOT ALLOW THE UNIT TO BE USED AS A DRIVE LETTER. It does not appear as a "mass storage drive" like digital cameras an USB keychain drives, nor does Windows XP recognize it instantly like most USB storage devices. However, once the Zen Explorer software and drivers are installed, copying songs to the unit is quick and easy over USB 2.0, though any directory/subdirectory tree information is lost.
It's also possible to store non-music files on the unit. However, the Zen Explorer software is again necessary to write to and read from the unit, and applications are not able to access the unit's drive as data. Files must be copied to the PC's hard drive before they can be read.
On the good side, the unit can be charged via the USB cord provided it's not turned on and "docked" to the Nomad Explorer, or Windows Media Player, which can also talk to the unit.
Longevity of the battery and HD
It's a new unit, so all people can do is guess or rely on Creative's word on how long the battery and hard drive will last. Consensus has it that the battery's good for 500-1000 cycles, or two to three years. Replacing the rechargable battery requires opening up the unit and will void the warranty, but at the 2 to 3 year point, that's not a big deal. Replacement batteries are already available for about $40US.
The hard drive, a 1.8 inch notebook drive, can in theory be replaced, though like the battery doing so will require opening the unit up and voiding the warranty. But this is good to know, in the event that the hard drive crashes, or that 20GB is somehow too small and I might want to put a bigger one in later. The unit has a "rescue mode" that allows for the formatting of a hard drive. Guides on the internet indicate this is not a difficult operation.
What I like
1. The Zen Touch sounds good. It's a quiet unit with excellent audio specs. The output is plenty loud provided the source MP3 was encoded hot enough.
2. I also like the large detailed LCD screen, and the track advance buttons.
3. The battery life, at 24 hours, is in the top of its class. I like that it can be recharged from any computer's USB port, as well as with the DC adaptor. I'm often on transpacific flights. This unit will last the whole way home to the other side of the world.
What I wish was better
1. The oversensitive touch panel, as described above. It's the single biggest flaw of the Zen Touch, and will remain so unless Creative can fix it with a firmware revision.
2. The front panel buttons stick up too high, and are easily accidentally pressed if the unit is playing while inside the pseudo-leather case. The "lock" switch on the top of the unit really is a necessity because of this.
3. The lack of USB mass storage device support. Sure, I can load non-music files onto the spacious hard drive, but if I want to read them away from home on some other computer, I have to install a multi-megabyte driver-software suite on that machine just to be able to access the files.
Conclusion
I'm pleased with my Zen Touch. It does what it's supposed to at a reasonable price and has so far proven reliable.
However, I'm personally not entirely sold on the whole MP3 HD player concept vs. the much cheaper MP3 CD player, which can be had for $30~40US at Wal-Marts and holds 150 songs on a $1 CD-RW. How necessary is it to be able to bring every MP3 I own everywhere I go in one tiny player? I'm afraid the Zen Touch will get stolen from my car or melted in the Borneo heat - concerns I don't have about my cheapie Panasonic MP3 CD player, which can also be fairly easily controlled while driving, unlike the Touch.
Maybe as I grow with the Zen Touch, I'll wonder how I ever lived without such a large portable MP3 capacity. But for now, I think my old MP3 CD players still have some life in them.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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Epinions.com ID:
davlee
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Location: East Asia
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 2 members
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Some of the worst experiences in life make the best stories!
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