Creative Zen Touch 20 GB
Product Description
From the ManufacturerAmp up your music with the sleek Zen Touch. The Zen Touch breaks new ground, introducing the first linear touch-sensitive pad controller in a digital music player. Navigate your music collection with astonishing ease and speed. Play all day and all night nonstop with incredible 24 hour battery life--up to three times what's offered by other players. Combine this with a 20 GB capacity to hold up to 16,000 songs, and your musical journey will never be cut short.
Features
- Touch pad control for fast scrolling
- Up to 24 hours of continuous playback
- Up to 97dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio--as good as expensive hi-fi systems!
- 20 GB hard drive holds up to 16,000 WMA or 10,000 MP3 songs
- Create and customize playlists on the go
- Unique search function locates any song, album, or artist
- USB 2.0 for faster transfer
- 4-band custom equalizer and advanced EQ presets let you customize your music playback
- AudioSync lets you seamlessly update your Creative Zen Touch with your latest music on your PC at the touch of a button
- FM radio, voice, and FM recording via optional wired remote control (available separately)
New to Digital Music?
Creative MediaSource (included) converts your CDs to MP3s or WMAs at the touch of a button.
Store Data Files
Included software lets you drag and drop data and music files to and from your Creative Zen Touch inside Windows Explorer.
Music Service Support
Creative's support for WMA and Windows Media Player 10 Series offers you access to the widest selection of music download services on the Internet.
Product Description:
The Zen Touch music player from Creative makes a great first impression. Introducing the revolutionary linear touch-sensitive pad controller that lets you navigate your music collection with astonishing ease and speed. Jam all day and all night, nonstop, with incredible 24-hr. battery life, far more than most players can offer. Combine that with 20GB capacity to hold up to 10,000 songs and it's close to love at first sight. AudioSync lets you seamlessly update your player with new music from your PC at the touch of a button and the 4-band custom equalizer and advanced EQ presets let you customize playback. Now it's love at first listen. Available storage capacity may vary. 1Hx2-7/10Wx4-1/10D".
Product Review
After using the Zen Touch for a few weeks, here are my observations:
1. Most reviewers fail to mention that this is truly an international machine. I have many songs whose ID3 tag uses Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (BIG5, GB) language codes, and the player has no problem recognizing and displaying them--a huge plus for those who carry multilingual music.
2. The player feels very solid on your palm and is smaller (but a bit thicker) than almost all PDA's; it's just a bit wider than a deck of cards.
3. The buttons are neatly placed and faciliates navigation/browsing for music. The menu system is very intuitive and incredibly easy to learn.
4. On the downside, a 3-bar battery indicator can at times be frustrating. When there's 1 bar left, you're not sure whether there's an hour left or 8 hours left (1/3 of the full battery life).
5. Also no drive-letter support and no support, so far, for Windows Explorer.
6. Limited ID3 tag display info for the songs in your player. For instance, an MP3 file's ID3 tag was supposed to tell me the album year; but there's no way to tell once the music is in your player.
If I were to judge:
Design: A- (great form, size, just a bit heavier than ipod)
Performance: A (superb sound for a portable; amazing battery; convenient+fast music transfer)
Features: B (no recording, no line-in, no radio, but again those are not the reasons to get an MP3 player... also no remote)
Service/support: A (responded to my question within couple of hours, friendly support staff, plus 1 year warranty)
Value: A- (there are cheaper players--ie the older Nomads; but for the features/quality this device offers, it's worth it)