Creative ZEN X-Fi - Digital player / radio - flash 8 GB - WMA, AAC, MP3 - video playback - display: 2.5"

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Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.1 x 1.6 inches ; 9.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Note: Gift-wrapping is not available for this item.
• ASIN: B001CK96Q6
• Item model number: X-Fi
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,025 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 12, 2008

Product Description

Product Description

Experience your MP3 music as the artist originally intended with Creative ZEN X-Fi - the first MP3 player to restore the quality of compressed music with award-winning X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity Audio technology.Indulge in rich audio where you can hear your music in crystal clear clarity. Take in guitar strumming, crisp cymbal clashes and deep pounding bass as detail lost during file compression are now beautifully restored. The built-in X-Fi technology intelligently moves a conventional left/right earphone stereo source away from your ears, virtually expanding it for an audio experience with a breathtakingly realistic depth of field. You'll feel as if you were listening to your music from a pair of high end speakers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A decent all-around player, January 31, 2009

By	Dale Broadbent "dalewb2" (Fuquay-Varina, NC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It comes packaged inside a thick-plastic sealed blister package. Once that is removed, the primary packaging is revealed - a HARD plastic (about 1mm thick) sealed, clear clam-shell with the X-Fi suspended inside on a transparent plastic platform. It looks really cool... until you try to open the thing. Seriously, people - be careful. You can injure yourself very seriously using the amount of force necessary to penetrate this anti-theft packaging on steroids.

Enough about the packaging.

The player itself is an attractive, slim, glossy black device with a large screen that can do all sorts of things. You can read the specs above I'm sure so I won't get into all the details, but let's just say that it does about 75% of its functions very well. The other functions you'll probably never want to use.

The things it does well: Music, movies, pictures, storage, microphone.
The things it does terribly: Everything else (instant messaging, etc). I have not tried the wi-fi capabilities.

One thing Creative has continued to do well is their support for audible books and other audible media. If you subscribe to Audible, this is a fantastic player for those types of media.

The user interface appears nice, but the awful multi-button interface is the worst-implemented button interface I have ever witnessed. I'm used to it now, but all 12-or-so buttons are identical, feel identical - you can't just grab it and begin pressing buttons - you gotta pay attention to which ones you intend to press - otherwise you risk losing your place in what you're listening to.

Battery life is quite good - I used it on a cross-country plane trip to listen to audio books for a few hours and then played 2 or 3 45-minute videos while on the plane before the battery meter red-lined.

The unit does lock up - I keep a small paperclip in my car for that very purpose. It happens maybe once a week or less and always occurs during start up or shut down. Again, I've just gotten used to it and adpated. It's not too terrible - electronic devices aren't perfect - when was the last time your PC crashed, eh?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good player, August 11, 2009

By	VALMIR SENA (Pernambuco, Brazil) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I enjoy this player very much. Play divx e xvid videos in your resolution, but don't make upscaling. Good mp3 player.
I do the firmware update, and since then the player don't crash anymore.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars As much fun as coal in your stocking..., December 8, 2008

By	B. Crommett "Bri" (Fargo, ND USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I received the 8GB X-Fi as an early Christmas present and was excited to get it. Sleek enough and (supposedly) functional enough (music, videos, radio, voice recording) to make me seriously contemplate leaving the old iPod behind. Unfortunately, even after doing the available firmware upgrade, the player would randomly lock up. Sometimes when navigating between songs, sometimes in the middle of a song, sometimes in the middle of a reboot. When it locks up you need to reset it and when you reset it, it rebuilds your entire database. I've tried re-formatting and reinstalling the firmware, but it keeps locking up. At least 15 times in the last 3 days.

It's pretty...but as buggy as it is...it's as much fun as piece of coal in your stocking.