Creative Zen review

Creative's 4GB Zen has a 2.5in screen and costs less than the equivalent iPod Nano with the same capacity and a smaller 2in screen.

It can play audio in WMA, WMA-DRM, MP3, Wav and - for the first time - AAC formats, which is great news for iTunes fans. Unfortunately, it can't handle the protected AAC files bought from Apple's iTunes Store.

The Zen is dominated by its screen, with control buttons to the right. The menu system is easy to use, and it's simple to scroll through your music collection by track name or artist initial. There's a built-in microphone, FM radio and an SD card slot, which lets you add up to 4GB of extra capacity. This means you can use the player to view photos directly from many digital cameras or double the amount of music you play. The interface has some nice features, such as a selection of wallpaper and menu themes, cover artwork, customisable menu shortcuts and the ability to protect content with a password.

For a device with so much potential as a video player, its abilities are sadly lacking in this department. You can't make video playlists or watch all the videos in a folder in sequence. The Zen can play video files at a resolution of 320x240 in a variety of formats, including MJPEG, WMV9, MPEG4, XviD, DivX 4.x and DivX 5.x. However, as with many portable players, there are limitations to its support for these file types, particularly with the audio track format, and the Zen was unable to play any of our existing collection of MPEG4 files. Video conversion software is included but is frustratingly slow, particularly at high quality.

Colours on the Zen's screen are accurate, and it's easy to view from most angles and under most conditions, although it isn't as bright or sharp as other players, such as the iPod Touch. Audio quality is clean, clear and well balanced, although it sounds a little bright at flat EQ settings. Its configuration menus include both a custom EQ mixer and a variety of effective presets. The headphones that come with the player leak sound and aren't that comfortable to wear, but the sound is relatively good quality.

The Zen's most serious problem is its battery life. A full charge lasted for only 10 hours and 10 minutes in our audio playback test. This isn't helped by the lack of a screen blanking feature, although it does switch off its backlight. The poor battery life is mitigated by a full recharge time of around an hour, but it's still annoying on long trips. Video playback was better, lasting three hours and 50 minutes in our test.

The Zen looks like a perfect miniature multimedia player. It's easy to use and sounds great, but its battery life, average screen and relatively poor video compatibility mean that it fails to live up to its potential.

Author: Kat Orphanides