Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB MP3 Player

by Creative

Product Details

• Item Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000A3N78Y
• Item model number: ZSEFBKSV
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,199 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description Weighing just 5.8 ounces, the 20 GB Creative Zen Sleek digital audio player provides everything you need to take your large music library with you wherever you roam. In addition to MP3s, it also plays WAV and WMA digital file format s--including WMA with Digital Rights Management (DRM) 9 and 10. The built-in FM tuner (with 32 presets) offers an FM rec ording function, which lets you record your programming and tunes from your favorite radio stations. The Zen Sleek also has a built-in microphone and a voice recorder for recording lectures or reminders.

If 10,000 songs isn't enough, simply tune in to the built-in FM radio.

This 20 GB digital audio player will store up to 10,000 WMA (encoded at 64 Kbps) or 5,000 MP3 (128 KBps) CD-quality song s. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery provides up to 18 hours of playback time. It connects to PCs via USB 2.0, which features download speeds of up to one second per song. The equalization feature offers nine acoustic environments, such as "rock" and "jazz," enabling you to customize your listening environment. Other features include a 2-inch LCD with blu e LED backlighting, easy-to-use touch pad control buttons, and upgradeable firmware.

What's in the Box
Zen Sleek digital audio player, earphones, power adapter, USB cable, pouch, CD-ROM with software, printed Quick Start gu ide.

Product Description

Includes: high fidelity earphones, power adapter, sync cable, pouch, installation CD, & quick start guide. Creative Labs Zen Sleek - Sleek is the perfect name for this digital audio player. It's both sleek in body and sleek in style. The 2.3" x 4" x 0.67", anodized, brushed aluminum frame houses a 20GB hard drive, and a large 2" screen. Enough storage space for approximately 10,000 of your favorite songs in MP3 or WMA formats. A ton of music that you can play for an amazing 18 hours per battery charge! Connects to a PC via a USB 2.0 interface (backward compatible with USB 1.1) Supports MP3 & WMA Formats 5-Band Graphic Equalizer Repeat, Resume, & Random Play Also functions as an external hard drive Signal-to-Noise Ratio - up to 97dB Unit Dimensions - 2.3 (w) x 4 (h) x 0.67 (d) Unit Weight - 5.8 oz. with battery

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

189 of 194 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Mp3 Player Ever!, September 26, 2005

By 

Wayne "Omegafiler" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB MP3 Player (Electronics)

After much research I finally decided to purchase the Zen Sleek 20gb Mp3 Player and I'm quite happy with this unit. I also considered the Dell DJ, Zen Touch, and Zen Micro. I also thought about the iPod for a few seconds - but it doesn't take long to realize that beyond a pretty case, the Zen and DJ line just offer so much more, for less $$$!

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.

107 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent MP3 Player, October 4, 2005

By 

Eli Mark (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB MP3 Player (Electronics)

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.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome mp3 Player for an Amazing Price, December 9, 2005

By 

Psythik (Cave Creek, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creative Zen Sleek 20 GB MP3 Player (Electronics)

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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Rating scale: 0-5 (0.5 increments)

Features: 4
Battery Life: 3.5
Sound Quality: 4.5
Value: 5

FINAL SCORE: 4.5 / 5