- Portable media player fits perfectly in your palm or pocket
- Extra-large 8 GB memory holds up to 4,000 songs, photographs, and album art
- 1.5-inch OLED screen displays rich and vibrant photos, full-color menus, and more at any viewing angle
- Direct CD Recording allows you to record songs directly from an audio source without using a PC
- Player doubles as a voice recorder with the handy built-in microphone
In conclusion, at ~$200 on Amazon, the Creative Zen V Plus is a fantastic flash-based mp3 player. If you go to the gym, don't have too many mp3's, want long battery life, think smaller is better, and aren't an Apple-zombie: this one's for you.
Buy Creative Zen V Plus 8 GB Portable Media Player Now
Before buying this Zen V+ I had the Zen Micro. I was very happy with it but when the earphone-jack went in my second replacement outside of warranty I decided to get something new. In my opinion this is an excellent MP3/Photo/Video player.Screen: The screen is colourful and extremely clear with customisable colour themes from vibrant to cool. I really can't get over the clarity.
Size: I like the size of the player (it's TINY). The brightness and clarity of the OLED screen makes navigation of the menus simple even though the screen is quite small (3cm x 2.8cm). The size and smoothness or the outer-casing along with the rounded edges means that slipping it in and out of pockets creates minimal hassle. Just pulling on the earphone cord can extract the player from a jeans pocket (I wouldn't recommend this but the earphone-jack does seem to be very secure).
Navigation: As already stated the navigation greatly benefits from the clarity of the OLED screen. The navigation buttons are simple to use. They are not touch-sensitive but the buttons work with minimal pressure. You'll have to get used to locking the player with the slider on the left side. Volume is controlled using two buttons on the right side. The 5 function key in the centre is the main control for menu navigation and is very easy to use. The other buttons are the Play/Pause, the return key (goes to previous menu or when held down opens a context sensitive menu) and the Record button which when held down for a few seconds starts a recording session using the in-built microphone.
Recording: The microphone is just as good as the one on the Zen Micro, quite sensitive and perfect for voice recordings. There is also a line-in function which you can record from and it automatically synchronises with the source if it has multiple tracks (ie. it creates a new track every time the source goes onto a new track). The line-in means you can record audio from any source with a 3.5mm earphone jack whether its the radio or a comedy special on TV.
Earphones: The bundled earphones are sufficient. I don't use them but tested them for a while. They're nothing to get excited about and I'd recommend getting some other earphones. I've had great success with the Creative EP-630's. These are still low-end though and I'm hoping to upgrade to something better soon.
Sound Quality: I was very impressed with the sound quality of the player. It is clear and crisp with multiple equlaiser settings and optional bass boost. I found the Disco EQ setting the best. However I don't use the bass boost as it seems to ruin the songs though this may be the fault of my earphones. It sounds very tinny. Some higher quality earphones may correct this. Overall though I found the sound quality to be very good.
EDIT: I bought the Sennheiser CX 300s. The sound quality is now greatly improved and the bass boost can be used without any problems. I would recommend these earphones over the Creative EP-360s. They look similar but the Sennheiser phones are far better quality. Since the lesser sound quality was the fault of the earphones, the player deserves 5 stars for sound.
Photo/Video: For those of you who will use the photo and video viewing function, both seem to work quite well. The photos are transferred by drag-and-drop and an option can be turned on to reduce them in size for best viewing. Video viewing seems good for the size of the screen even though the frame-rate isn't great. Also the size of the converted video clip is huge as the player doesn't play compressed videos.
Other Functions: The FM radio works quite well but I don't use it much. The bookmarking function works very well holding ten bookmarks at any one time. It's very useful when listening to audiobooks or any other long audio files.
EDIT:
No Mains Adapter: One thing I forgot to mention. There is no mains adapter included with this product. You have to charge it from the computer using a USB lead or else buy a "Zen Range Travel Adaptor" costing £19.99. This didn't affect me as I already had a charger from the Zen Micro which is compatible with the V+ and so I forgot to mention it in the review. I think this is very unfair on Creative's part. One should have been included in the package.
OLED Screen:______*****
Size:_____________*****
Navigation:_______*****
Recording:________*****
Earphones:________***
Sound Quality:____*****
Bookmarking:______*****
Photos:___________*****
Video:____________****
FM Radio:_________****
No Mains Adapter:_**
Overall:_______***** (4.4 rounded up to 5)
A truly excellent device. It is well built and very easy to use. The absence of a mains adapter is the only unsatisfactory thing. Still, if you're are looking for a high quality multi-media player I'd highly recommend this product. Good luck With your purchase.
Read Best Reviews of Creative Zen V Plus 8 GB Portable Media Player Here
6-6-2011 update:This really isn't the best place to post this, but I thought I'd give the epitath on that outstanding Cowon iAudio 7 I bought (below). After four years of outstanding sound, the battery life is finally getting flaky. Used to play for weeks on one full charge. Now it's dying in a couple days, even if I don't turn it on. Nothing lasts forever. The now obsolete iA7 outlasted and outperformed anything else I've seen in the years I've had it. If I can't find a replacement battery (seems a wild hope), I'll buy the latest Cowon device.
12-19-09 update:
I've had a 16 GB iAudio 7 from Cowon, two years now. The sound has been consistently much stronger than I described below from the Creative Zen V Plus, and the iPod nano. I've also upgraded to Sure SE530 ear canal phones -very pricey, but I'll scrimp elsewhere for the sound these give. With a high-end recording, say, an >200 kps OGG rip from CD, or at least converted from a DRM-free 256 kps .m4a file (iTunes' format), these sound incredible.
7-9-07 update:
In the last 3 weeks I have scoured the web a ton and learned a lot about lesser-known digital audio players (DAPs). Take heart! There IS a brand out there that still markets to mobile audiophiles: Cowon. Check out their site at . The web vibe on Cowon in general, and their new flash memory based (and therefore MUCH more durable) iAudio 7, sounds extremely encouraging. You can go right to this product's write up at . I'm torn between buying the 8GB model at ~$220, or waiting for the 16GB model their site claims is coming "soon." Cowon also have a DAP that doubles as a personal video player (PVP) called the Cowon D2 (see it at ) with lots of very solid press.
Original review, 6-14-07:
I am a BIG fan of excellent sound. I use music mostly to exercise, and find the difference in my workouts is HUGE when comparing a so-so music playback device to a top-notch one. I've _thoroughly_ tried the iPod nano (8GB) recently, and loved the design, and crisp screen, but hated the muffled sound (returned it). I have been listening to Creative Lab's Zen X-tra (has a 60GB harddrive) for the last couple years on Etymotics ER4's (about as good an earphone as you can get). I have been occasionally frustrated by the harddrive resetting during exercise. You can't even think about jogging with this. But ellipticals, treadmills (power walking), stationary biking, and lifting are all mostly do-able. The sound from that combination is so good, that anything else feels like listening to your music through the neighbor's wall.
But I was very hopeful that Creative Lab's new Zen V flash memory based player (the one I'm reviewing here) would be as good as their Zen X-tra, but without the motion sensitivity.
The good news is: it's tiny, has respectable battery life, the color screen isn't bad (if not as crisp as the iPod nano's), and the physical inteface is pretty much as functional as the iPod's. Also, counter to the claims of the faithful who have not done a thorough and unbiased comparison, the software is no better or worse on the whole than iTunes.
But here's the sad / bad news: the sound is every bit as dull and flat as the iPod nano. :(
Apparently, you just can't get good sound when you compromise so heavily on the size of the mini-amplifier and the power suppliy (i.e., the battery). Remember when music was all about audio fidelity, and not pocket portability? Everyone understood then that amplifiers were not all alike. Today, slick marketing and the hype of the compressed music formats (like MP3) give the impression that all music sounds great from this new platform. But that is so terribly wrong.
We currently have the industry being driven by the large "soft target" money to be made off kids understandably excited about plugging in to their favorite tunes anywhere. But they just don't know what they are missing. For anyone interested in fully ENJOYING their music, not just hearing some facsimile of it, I strongly recommend getting a larger older player like Creative Lab's Zen X-tra, before they are completely gone.
And if you take my advice (get the best ear canal phones too), and so find yourself forever stealing time with your tunes in preference over your old drug of choice (lattes, Red Bull, etc) because the sound now just transports you like nothing before, ... well, then please tell your freinds, so we can form a market they'll notice and start to serve. I for one am getting sick of seeing soft-target marketing drive product development away from better quality offerings.
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I am upgrading to the 8GB model from the 4GB, which I have filled up. I download at a 320bps sample rate (Itunes is at about 190bps), which probably isn't necessary, but I still got over 400 songs on the 4GB player even at that.The sound quality is quite good, and there is plenty of volume available. I upgraded to the Shure headphones which wrap around your ears and thus won't fall out when running, etc.
I am a bit concerned that the lower menu button on my 4GB player seems intermittent. I may be doing something wrong, but often when I push it, it just pauses or restarts the present song like the top button is supposed to do instead of returning me to the previous menu. If it gets to where it does this all the time, I won't be able to use the player. I have not read of others complaining of this problem, so perhaps it is a fluke.
The small size of this player is great for me. I would love to have a 60GB player and put virtually all of my music on it. But if it won't fit in my pocket and not be noticeable, what is the advantage of that? I don't care about photos or videos, but I do find that I enjoy having the album art pop up with the song. It's a connection to the music.
I think the ipod nanos are cute and slim, but who needs Itunes????
I received my new 8gb player. Creative has now changed the 8gb to red trim instead of blue like the 4gb. I was pleased to get going with it, these are great little players....
....when they work. This one didn't. It froze up on me, something that has happened just a couple of times with the 4gb, so I knew how to use a guitar string to reset it. Then it froze again on "rebuilding library". Uh oh...well, then I had to go to the recovery menu and use the "scan disk" to find corrupted files. It froze at 100% of the scan. Next I reformatted, wiping out all loaded songs to start over. This seemed to work, and I had reloaded about 1/3 of my songs when it froze again during song transfer. Same thing, reset and then it stalled on "rebuilding library". This time in desperation I downloaded new firmware from the creative site to see if this would give it a new start. But when I tried to load the new firmware, the player was not recognized by the software. Dead in the water, I called Creative tech support for help. He immediately pronounced it dead. Send it back.
Now it will be weeks before I can give it another try. What a negative experience. Like I said, I love these players and they sound great and are so portable and not tied to stupid I-tunes. But they appear to be a little flimsy. Creative knows about the "rebuilding library" problem, because it is on their website. Unfortunately their solution of reboot, clean up, reformat, reinstall does not solve the problem.
Pros:
Small and yet easy to handle
Good extras: recording
Cons:
After a month's use... I did not find any as such, but considering the size I would say that an arm-band should be included as a free accessory with this product.
P.S.: I have seen some reviews (for the 4GB version) where people have complained that the device hangs when the charging cord is pulled from the PC. I did not notice any such issue. May be creative has improved on the firmware. I would suggest that people facing this issue should check the website for any firmware updates.
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