- 2 Blue Backlit LCD
- Vertical Touch Pad - an intuitive interface that makes it easy to find what you're looking for
- Built-in Voice Recorder
- Built-in FM Radio & Recorder with 32 Station Presets
- Syncs with Microsoft Outlook - transfer your calendar, contacts & task list
As is the case with many folks shopping for a good mp3 player; I needed an Mp3 player that was compact, had above average battery life, at least 20gb of storage, and a few extra features to keep it interesting. But most important of all, it MUST have good audio quality (97db SNR)! Well, this Zen Sleek met all of my goals and more!
Here is what I found while doing some research this weekend both on-line and in the local stores. The Dell DJ, while cheap, simply didn't offer any of the features or battery life the Zen Sleek offered. The iPod had "average" battery life, no nifty features, too expensive, and isn't fully compatible with other music formats. The Zen Touch does have the best battery life ever but it's way too bulky and the LCD isn't very bright. And with a max storage of 6gb, the Zen Micro just didn't have enough space for my needs. Otherwise, it would have been my 1st choice.
And just to sum everything up, here is a list of Pro's and Cons.
Pro's:
Considering the storage, it's quite small and light
20gb of storage (I'm hoping for more in the future)
18 hrs of battery life (As expected, I got slightly less with 192kbps WMA's)
97db SNR for the best possible audio quality. I tested the audio quality with everything from a high-end car stereo to a top of the line home theater system. All sounded excellent. It even sounded rather good with a tape adapter!
FM Radio (not needed, but very handy)
Awesome and very easy to use touchpad feature as well as Creative's well known interface.
And it looks great with the silver and white color scheme!
Con's:
Slighty on the expensive side ($249.99 US)
Not enough accessories at time of release
Not a big fan of the velvet-like carrying pouch. Sorry, I just refuse to use that thing. :)
So, basically I can't find anything wrong with the unit itself. :) For this reason, I'll give it 5 out of 5 stars and consider this unit highly recommended.
Buy Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB MP3 Player Now
I bought this MP3 player yesterday at Best Buy. I was originally looking fo the Zen Micro since I knew that it would allow me to play my Rhapsody to-go songs. I really had not heard of this new player until I arrived at the store. I asked the salespeople if this player would allow me to play RTG and they did not know. This was my main criteria for purchasing a player.The great news is that it does play the RTG songs! This is really excellent. If you do not know about Rhapsody to-go or the similiar Yahoo or Napster versions, let me tell you, it is simply incredible. For a small fee each month, I can listen to any of over 1.3 mil tracks on my computer and now with this player, I can listen to those tracks anywhere. Basically, I download hundreds of dollars, even thousands of dollars worth of music on my computer and also on this solid player and listen anywhere, anytime.
Pros -
+ Great looking, sexy, shiny and futuristic
+ Solid Battery, 16 to 18 hours
+ Easy to learn and get up and listening right away
+ FM tuner with 32 presets
+ Recording record your own voice for up to 10 hours
+ Recording record a radio show for up to 10 hours
+ Locking lock up the player while it plays so you don't accidently press the wrong button
+ Music playback lots of different ways to play your music
+ Syncs syncs great with WMP 10, fast and easy to use
+ Bookmarks you can bookmark save up to 10 marks where you are listening in a song, this feature makes sense if you are listening to an audio book (not needed for a 4 minute song)
+ Cool buttons great looking blue neon effect with the buttons
+ Size fits snug in your hands
Cons -
+ Trackbar even with practice and changing the settings, this is a very delicate trackbar
+ Headphones the standard headphones sold out of the box are alright, you will probably want to buy your own
+ Battery life there is no detailed battery lifeline in the display, there is a basic one, but there is not a battery info that says "Battery Life 4 hours remaining"
+ Battery there is no removable battery
+ Docking station this player does not come standard with a docking station
Dream Specs -
These items are not cons, just items I look forward to seeing in the next year or two (inevitable upgrades with enough time)
+ Color monitor the current monitor is greyscale, the text is easy to read, but it would very cool to actually see full-color photos and album covers of what is playing
+ 100 gigs with my 20 gig model, you don't get as many songs as the manufacturer suggests, keep in mind, I am downloading my songs at 160 to 192 WMA files and I can store appr. 4,000 songs in the entire player (as of this writing I have not filled my entire hard drive yet, but adjusting for how much space my file are taking I should be able to fill this drive with about 4K songs, much less than the suggested 10K)
+ Smaller, lighter the current player is a good size, but it would be great to see it about 10% shorter and about 30% 40% thinner
+ Battery life the battery life is good now, but it would be great to have a full 24 hour battery life
+ Wireless headphones I believe that wireless headphones are just coming out for the MP3 players, it will be even more convienent to listen to a player like this without the cord of the headphones
+ Voice recognition along with the wireless headphones, it would be extremely cool to have voice activated headphones in conjunction with the device, simple ask for a song and it plays!
All in all, this is a very excellent player and a great example of things to come. The sound quality is wonderful. Most importantly for me, the fact that I can instantly listen to any song from over a 1.3 mil song library via Rhapsody is fantastic. If there were more detailed ratings, I would actually rate this player a 4.5, but simply due to the RTG ability I give it 5 stars here. Remember, this fact is kind of a secret as of this writing. If you go to the Rhapsody site and run a search for all the players that are compatible, this one does not even come up.
So, if you want to listen to all the new CDs, tons of classical, jazz, rock, pop, rap and sountracks, comedy, country and even children's music without having to buy the actual CDs, this player is for you.
Read Best Reviews of Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB MP3 Player Here
Before you start reading all this, just letting you know that I've written this review assuming you have done some basic research on the Zen Sleek and are looking for more information. With that being said, let's get on with the review:----
To start things off, the question I most often read about is the Removable Disk option, so let's start there: The Removable Disk option is uber easy to configure; all you do is go to Extras > Removable Disk and set the capacity anywhere from 512MB to 16GB.
The best part is that you don't even need a computer to enable it! Within literally seconds it was ready to go and I was able to plug it into my PC and immediately start transfering files.
Windows XP/2k machines automatically recgonise it as a Removable Disk drive (just like a thumb drive) and configure it for you (I've noticed that Win2k has everything ready to go a few seconds faster than XP. I haven't yet tested it on Windows 9x, though).
One thing you have to do though is select the Removable Disk option in the player every time you want to utilise it or else the PC will recgonise it as just an MP3 player.
----
A feature I love that's also lacking in the iPod is the Menu button on the bottom right that reminds me of right-clicking in Windows. When in the Main Menu, clicking it brings up some options to reorganize it's layout to suit your needs. Pressing it while in Now Playing brings up a menu that lets you View Details on a song, such as Genre, Biterate, and Play Count. Very useful indeed.
Other options include bookmarking the position in a song (useful for long tracks), saving the song to a playlist, deleting it from the player, and looking up all songs on the player from the same artist. Also whatever menu you're in, you can just press that menu button and adjust the volume. The menu button is a very nice as well as essential feature that the iPod doesn't have.
----
Another nice feature is DJ Mode. It has four modes, Album of the Day (plays a random album), Random Play All (plays every song once in random order), Most Popular (plays the top 20 most heard songs), and Rarely Heard (plays the top 20 least songs heard). Very, very nice.
----
If anyone's worried about FM reception, don't worry, I live a good twenty mintes from the next major city (Phoenix), and reception's great.
However, I owned a Zen Micro before I returned it to get the Sleek, and I found the Micro's reception to be very poor (might've had a bad unit).
By the way, the antenna is the headphone cable, so don't try to record anything from the radio without headphones plugged in 'cuz all you'll get is static.
----
The voice recording feature is nice, but remember, it's good for nothing more than just voice. I did manage to record an electric guitar solo inside a high school gym. However don't expect high quality because one, you can only record at 64kbps, and two, the recording clips and makes annoying blips if what you're recording is too loud.
----
Claimed battery life is 18 hours. The number doesn't lie, but it's assuming you have Smart Volume, as well as Bass Boost and EQ settings disabled. With all these enabled, I got around 9-11 hours battery life.
Lowering the contrast setting to 30% jacked-up battery life to about 12-15 hours while keeping the screen easily readable. Battery Life also depended on how many times I switched songs or played around with settings.
----
Now I guess I should actually mention a bit about listening to mp3s on this, since that's probably the main reason you are interested in an mp3 player. Let me just tell you this, the quality is phenomenal, five to one against the iPod.
With a much higher signal to noise ratio than the Pod's, I was able to crank this baby to max volume (which is very loud, let me tell you), and hear absolutely no distortion. In fact, the sound quality is so good, that I started ripping all my mp3s to 192k and above because I could easily hear the decrease of quality due to compression in 128k mp3s! In fact, I've gone as far as ripping some of my favourite songs as WAV because the Zen Sleek brings out every single detail of my music!
Mind you, I was listening to all my music with the stock buds for a long time and could still hear the difference. Upgrade to high-end buds, such as the Etymotic ER-6i, and prepare to be blown away! Clipping does occur, though, when using over-tweaked EQ settings. Easily fixed by enabling the Smart Volume Mode.
----
Be aware, though, that the Sleek isn't perfect. After just a couple weeks of owning a Sleek, I noticed dust getting caught under the screen. However, a quick gust from a can of electronics-safe compressed air fixed the problem. Real minor issue.
----
All in all, the underapreciated Zen Sleek owns the iPod in all categories. Don't get sucked into buying the $300+ iPod just because everyone else has one; I got my Zen Sleek for $200 USD at Best Buy and I couldn't be more satisified.
----
Rating scale: 0-5 (0.5 increments)
Features: 4
Battery Life: 3.5
Sound Quality: 4.5
Value: 5
FINAL SCORE: 4.5 / 5
Want Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB MP3 Player Discount?
Despite what some other reviewers have said about this device, I have to say that it's nearly perfect. I only say that because, well, nothing is perfect. I have found the Zen Sleek to be an out-of-the-ballpark home run for Creative. They tried desperately to unseat the IPod with this model and I believe they have competed well.The "Pros":
Other than the fact that this is a great looking unit, it is encased in a brushed aluminum housing with white accents. It is scratch resistant unlike the IPod which will scratch if you look at it wrong. The bright blue large display is nice and makes it easy to find what you want.
The battery is long lasting. This thing holds at least a 16 hour charge, but the manufacturer says it will hold an 18 hour. I just don't ever let my player go completely dead.
Great touch control gives you the speed at which to cruise through your music collection. The touch sensitivity control is a nice feature becuase it can be tough to use the first little while. Change the sensitivity to adjust for the speed at which you navigate.
Many reviewers here have really been disappointed with the software that comes shipped with this unit, but I must argue that it seriously couldn't be any easier to rip your CD's and transfer them onto this device. It's rediculously easy and I had no problems. The custom tag editor is easy to use as well. I love that I can take all the music I have downloaded from the net and change the ID3 tags so they are correct instead of transferring the music with bad tags that were written down wrong by the author.
The FM Radio is a delight since having options was never a bad thing. The IPod does not have a radio.
The multiformat transfer. You can transfer MP3's, and WMA's. You have a lot of flexibility downloading legal music from various souces on the net as opposed to IPod which only supports one format, those on ITunes.
The "Cons":
Well what can I say about the carrying case? It's a cheap faux velvet sack with a drawstring to close the top. I'm sure Creative said we should spend more time into making the player good and not focus so much on the carrying case. I think they did that.
That is about it for cons. In my opinion you should really consider this over the much hyped and less optioned packed IPod. And it's cheaper!!
The Zen Sleek is much, much better looking than the Zen Xtra's ever were. This one almost looks like an ipod. It really is quite 'sleek'. It has a great looking aluminium case, a vertical touch pad as opposed to that (in my opinion) awful wheel that the iPods have, and the buttons are nicely laid out.
The Zen Sleek also has a radio with THIRTY-TWO presets built into it! This is great when I go on trips, because I listen to a lot of radio shows that I'd love to keep up on. It's also great if you like listening to your favorite sports team on the radio (Which I do). It also has a microphone, and the ability to sychronize your contact list from Outlook, and a calander with a task list. Good stuff. This thing also has an 18 hour battery life!
Now the bad stuff... the only way to charge your player is to hook it up to a USB cable, and then plug the AC adapter into that. It does charge without the AC adapter however. But, I like to charge my player away from my computer, which means that I have to remove the USB cable every time I want to charge it anywhere else. No big deal..except to get to the back of my computer I have to take it out of a stand it's in. Not fun, but I'll deal with it. It also doesn't come with a case, it comes with a little pouch. I wish it had a case like the Zen Xtra's, because that was perfect for my job. I clipped it onto a rack at work, and it stayed there the whole night. Now I'm worried about it falling. Hopefully Creative will come out with a case that I can buy. However, those are my only real complaints with it.
PROS:
-Great sound quality
-Great price for the same space as an iPod.
-Wonderful, sexy, look.
-INSANE (up to 18 hour) battery life
-Built in radio
-Easy to use interface.
-Transfers songs fast.
CONS:
-Charging isn't very fun (for me at least)
-No real case, just a pouch.
-No color screen (Not REALLY a con, just would have been nice. -I wouldn't pay an extra $50 for it though)
-Doesn't have a user-replaceable battery like the Zen Xtra's. I don't know if you have to send this in to Creative if your battery fails or not...hopefully I'll never have to find out.
All in all, this is a wonderful player, with only a few minor problems. I wish I could give it 4 1/2 stars, but I can't. The only thing holding it back from 5 stars is the horrible way to charge it. If I could pick up another one of these USB cables for under $10, I'll bump it up to 5 stars. The cable is sort of strange... it has a regular USB that plugs into a USB port, but then it has a boxy connecter on the other end that connects to your Zen Sleek. Too bad, I'd just use the old cables from my Zen Xtra otherwise.
Well worth my money. Pick one up today if you're considering an MP3 player.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
Well, 8 months later my Zen Sleek died from Hard Drive failure. I would expect this after 2-3 years, but only after 8 months? What a piece of crap. I went out and bought myself an iPod video. I already like it more than the Zen Sleek. Creative has even stoppe d supporting this product less than a year after its release. How wonderful.
1 Star.
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