Customer Reviews

Creative Zen Nano 1 GB MP3 Player Blue

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been looking for an MP3 player for some study materials I have on MP3. The problem is most MP3 players don't allow you to fast forward through a clip, or save your place in a clip when you shut down.

The Creative Zen Nano does allow you to fast-forward and fast-reverse through a clip, you go into the menu and turn on the "cue/review" function. If you turn off the player in the middle of a clip, when you turn it on the next time, it starts playing where you left off. Sweet!

I have a 40GB Creative Labs Zen Xtra MP3 player from Christmas a year ago, but that big thing (although it's a great vacation device) sits at home now that I have my 1GB Zen Nano! Super light-weight, durable, and great battery life, I take this thing with me almost everywhere - to the gym, in the car (my car came with an 1/8" auxilliary input for devices just like this), and lounging near the pool.

1GB doesn't sound like much, but it's plenty of room to store all your favorite "current playlist" songs and then some. If it gets full, just delete some of the stuff you don't like as much.

Two cons (but not worth marking down a star):

1. Get a different set of earbuds. The ones that come with the unit just don't cut it. I got a pair of $20 KOSS earbuds from a popular retailer and they've been great.

2. There was a high-pitched noise whenever the blue LED backlight came on (i.e. whenever you skipped to the next song, etc). Thankfully, there's an option to turn off the backlight permanently (which also saves on battery life), without which I would have had to return the unit because I couldn't have put up with it.

Note: I did return the unit once thinking it was defective because of the high-pitched tone, but apparently all the units have this same problem. I lived with it because I don't mind having the backlight off permanently.

Edit: With apologies to those who found this review, the device I meant to critique was the "Zen Nano Plus" model. It appears as though I've reviewed the normal "Zen Nano" by accident. That said, my review of the Nano Plus is as I wrote above and bears the same hearty recommendation.

This is my 3rd MP3 player - I only wanted it for listening to books that I can download from the library. Ipods don't work because of licensing issues between Apple & MicroSoft - go figure. Bought another MP3 player - it would play books but every time I stopped listening, it would go back to the beginning!

This one works really nice - not quite as slick to use as the Ipod Nano, but works with library ebooks, remembers where it left off and is very intuitive & easy to use. I'd recommend it!

Jane

This is my first portable MP3 player, and for what it's used for it performs excellently.

As far as portability and sound quality, it is top notch. I've used a couple of sets of headphones with it, and they both sound great. The pair that came with it take some getting used to, as they aren't the best. But they are not the worst I've ever had. Battery life is good, so far with medium useage after 1 month I have yet to change the battery.

My only complaint is the interface isn't customizable enough for me. You have a bunch of settings, but can't choose what information gets displayed when the song is playing (not that I've found anyways). It shows the title of the song in the text area and that is it. If if is on shuffle and you want to know the artist, you must choose the Change Folder option and cancel out after viewing where you are at. Maybe it's just how I have my songs arranged/titled, but it would be nice to tell it to display Artist/Song Title on the main display.

But that is a minor complaint, I think. Performance-wise, I am very happy with it.

Great little player, although the menu is sometimes mildly frustrating. Thing is mine got dropped from waist height onto a concrete surface and despite being in its plastic case the LCD busted and the player is dead. That is a little to weak if you ask me but was probably just very unlucky. I'm going to replace it with the same but I guess I'll have to baby it a little more.

Let me save you some time... if your player starts shutting down, tech support will tell you it's a DRM thing and that you have to use a specific program to transfer files, that you have to upgrade the firmware and drivers off of their site. It all works pretty well, although a clumsy process... but if you want your unit to continue to function properly, you need an older driver. Try to find this version: ZenNanoPlus_PCFW_LF_1_10_03 (it's the version before the current one, so it's bound to be floating around out there somewhere... just keep looking or demand it from Creative) - I just reformatted and flashed my firmware using this version and it now works just fine. GOOD LUCK!!! [..]

I should also mention that this would be the PERFECT player if:

1) the little tooth on the battery compartment sliding door didn't break off so EASILY.

2) The firmware wasn't sush a mess (they blame record labels and DRM restrictions...)

3) and the recording quality was something better than, like about 32 kHz wav. 192 mp3 would be better.

Otherwise I LOVE the unit and the ease of operation.

This MP3 player is an excellent value. The music sounds good and for the amount of storage you can't beat the price. My 10 year old son loves it and finds it very easy to use. You have to install the creative software to use Windows Media Player to load songs. It is DRM compatible. It does NOT have line-in recording or an FM player like the previous Creative model. However, it is cheaper.

VFM - value for money

We owned a couple of hard disk type players. Sure enough after the warranty expired, the disk went in one and the headphone connector broke in the other (OK, that was due to my kid's heavy handedness).

Concluded I'd like a player with no moving parts but with enough capacity to provide variety. 1GB of memory does that for me.

This player is small but with an LCD display, has very good features (including radio!), sounds good and the hookup with a PC is very easy to use. Only 1 criticism - it doesn't have the concept of playlists so you have to organize things in folders or specify an order by file name using their little utility, or you hit the random play button.

I liked it so much, I ended up buying 3 - for myself and kids.

I have had this exact unit for nearly a year now and it is one fantastic player. Sure the controls are small, the whole thing is barely bigger than two AAA batteries. Sound quality - I rip my stuff at 64kbs wmv and if you are ripping from the CD it sounds amazing! If you are converting from a lesser quality mp3 to that it can get glitchy sounding.

How much will it hold? I get about 35 - 40 albums at that rate. Of course you can go for quality over quantity and rip at a higher rate.

Ease of use - don't bother with the CD that comes with the unit. This is nothing more than flash drive - plug it in and drop your files in there, you're ready to go.

Lots of options, EQs, normal, shuffle within a folder or shuffle from the whole collection, cue, volume - (it can get plenty loud). When you shut it off it starts back up at the same place, so that's kind of nice for longer files where you don't want to start back at the first.

The earphones that come with it sound great and are sturdy where the earphone connects - the place where they always seem to break.

[..]
This is one killer unit for the price.

Good player for what I wanted it for. It doesn't have any fancy features, and it's a bit hard to scroll through songs to find what you want; but overall I'm satisfied with the player. The software is another story. It constantly stops responding and frequently locks up the entire computer. I don't know if I just got a bad copy or what but I'm extremely unhappy with it. Using the creative labs software makes something that should be simple, very time consuming and difficult.