Home > Consumer Reviews > Creative ZEN X-Fi2 8GB 3 inch TouchScreen MP3 and Video Player

When I saw this announced by Creative I had a sudden attack of fanboy. I'm not convinced it was a worthwhile purchase.

Changes from X-Fi 1:

It is even lighter, is thinner, but is a bit longer. Out go the useless wi-fi features (even when they worked the battery wasn't up to it) and the unusual buttons, and in come AV-out (a feature on previous players like the Vision:M which outputs video to a TV), better SD card integration and a touch screen.

Here's what I think about the player generally:

Positives:

It weighs only 75g (for the 32GB version) which is light compared to other players. Compare this to:

Sony X Series: 98g
iPod Touch: 115g
Samsung P3: not sure but it weighs a ton

The size and weight make a difference. I can hardly tell I'm carrying it and it packs a lot in those 75g. It feels about half as light again as the X-Fi 1 which is probably a big achievement. Any lighter and it'll be about as light as a credit card. This must be an area where Creative is trying to differentiate the X-Fi 2 from other products, and only the Cowon S9 is a similar weight.

I love the sound quality of Creative players; this player is no different and improves upon the X-Fi features of its predecessor by having a sliding scale for both "Crystallizer" (fills in mp3 loss) and "Expand" (gives music a live feel). Some won't want to use these and it sounds good even without them. There are also the usual EQ settings and equaliser. Creative players can really only be beaten on sound by more expensive audiophile products like the Cowon S9. That's how good this sounds. It makes iPods sound total rubbish, an area in which Apple is starting to lag behind the competition. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio) is a welcome codec addition which does sound really good.

The touch screen works well and is for the most part an improvement on the little buttons on the X-Fi 1. For the techies out there, it's not a capacitive screen, so you have to apply a bit of pressure. But it works well and feels stylish, not gimmicky like the Braille on the X-Fi 1. Sometimes the screen registers a touch with flashes and sound but the player does not respond, which is a little annoying. Hopefully this can be solved with a firmware update. The GUI looks nice and is customisable, but sometimes not very responsive. Album art is displayed where available so this will please a lot of people, though I wish there was a way of turning it off, as my library looks messy with only about 50% art.

The earbuds are quite good and deserve a mention, but I prefer Creative's other EP830 that shipped with the X-Fi 1. They have a clearer sound but less bass. They sell separately for next to nothing, but don't be fooled by the cheap prices; these earbuds are really good. It'll be a matter of personal preference as to which are best for you.

The micro SD card doesn't exactly integrate with the library, but files imported from the card are integrated, which is a step in the right direction. With the X-Fi 1 files were stored in a separate area which was a bit inconvenient. But this does mean that to integrate, for example, a 2GB card, you need to have 2GB of spare memory on the player. This small niggle doesn't really bother me as I don't use SD cards that much, but note that the card reader is for MICRO SD cards, not the "normal" size. I don't know anyone who owns a micro SD card yet, so Creative might be taking a bit of a gamble on these becoming common (but they probably will). It means that like me, if your camera uses the standard size SD for example, you won't be able to use it with this player to transfer pictures. I've just bought a Canon G10 which uses standard size SD cards, not micro. But then again the camera has a far better screen.

Negatives:

There are no dedicated volume buttons. This is unforgivable and soon becomes really annoying. There is loads of space on the right hand side for volume buttons, so why didn't Creative include some? Even the fiddly buttons on the X-Fi 1 were better for adjusting the volume. The X-Fi 2 has only one button on the front, which returns to the main menu, and a small on/off/lock button on the top. Two more buttons for volume would have been most welcome as I don't want to fiddle around with a touch screen when adjusting the volume. I want to be able to adjust the volume without having to look at the player. Don't underestimate this negative feature if such things bother you.

The firmware doesn't seem to be finished yet. My player rebuilds the library every time I switch it on. And like some other posters to the Creative forums, I've loaded files to it which don't appear in the player's menu. Some video files that ought to play don't. I just get the general feeling that the player isn't working properly and I hope things like this will soon be sorted.

Once again this player has very little native video support. The formats it claims to support are through conversion software (in this case the ghastly Centrale) which seems to take even longer to convert video than does the Creative Video Converter that shipped with the X-Fi 1 (Centrale took about 2 hours to convert a 30 minute video and my PC isn't slow). Apparently there are better alternatives available which I will eventually try out. Also I've not been able to play BBC iPlayer content on the X-Fi 2. The X-Fi 1 has no problems with iPlayer. Maybe it's a firmware thing, or maybe like the Zen MX it no longer has native wmv support. I'm not sure which at the moment, but be warned if you like the iPlayer as it might not be supported.

The screen itself is larger than the X-Fi 1 and is a widescreen. The resolution is slightly higher, but one noticeable downgrade is the number of colours. Only 262K compared to a whopping 16.7M. It doesn't look as vibrant as the X-Fi 1 screen but does look higher resolution. A matter of personal preference again but surprisingly for me I prefer the vibrant colours on the original X-Fi. The touch screen also dulls the image slightly, so coupled with the bad video support I don't recommend the X-Fi 2 for those who like to watch videos. I still use my Zen Vision for this, a product several years old which apart from the dodgy viewing angle is really good and has not been bettered in this regard by Creative (apart from maybe the Vision W but this had a lower resolution). Overall I consider the screen to be nowhere near good enough for my needs so I've listed this as a negative.

Undecided:

I've not tried AV-out but I doubt that it's as good as the Zen Vision:M due to the file resolution limitations. RSS feeds don't interest me either, or synchronising calendars. I don't use the microphone much but this one works well, and the player has a good speaker. The X-Fi 2 doesn't have as many bonus superfluous features as the X-Fi 1. Battery life seems average by today's standards and is probably traded for weight, but then the Cowon S9 is a similar weight and has way more battery life (55 hour audio versus 25 hour) but note the S9 is more expensive.

Overall I don't think this is a better package than the X-Fi 1 for my needs, it's just different. I'd highly recommend it if your priorities are sound quality, portability and a stylish user interface. If your priorities are video, ease of use and ergonomics I would advise you to look elsewhere.

Lastly I should add that my player has a small fault that might mean it goes back to Creative. I won't say what it is yet as it's likely to be particular to my player, but I'm about to find out how good Creative's customer service is. Perhaps more on this later.

I bought this to replace an Archos 20GB hard drive mp3 player. I wanted a flash player and was attracted by Creative's reputation for sound quality.

I bought it direct from Creative, it was FedEx'd from China and was with me 3 days later on 24th Sept.

I have used it over the weekend and once you get used to the touch screen it works great, I already have on it over 2,500 songs ripped at 320kbps. Even though it is shipped with half decent Creative earphones I have been using it with my Shure E3Cs and the combination sounds great, having a slight edge over my 8GB 2nd generation Nano. The jury is out on the X-fi enhancements, it definitely makes the music louder and brighter but not sure about better.

The half a dozen you tube clips I have put on the machine so far are surprisingly watchable and clear on the 3" screen.

Overall I am very pleased with my purchase, and at 75g you can hardly feel it in a shirt pocket.

There is alot to like about this player, especially considering the price, which is very good for a 16GB device. It's most important feature for a music player, is the sound quality, and it scores very well in this respect (almost as good as my Walkman, which I consider my benchmark that I have yet to hear any other player come close to), it's well featured, with along with the usual raft of features found in most players, it's also got additional features like RSS reader, FM Radio, Microphone and speaker (so it can be used as a dictaphone), Contacts, Calendar, Task list, TV Out (you need to buy a cable for this).

Format support is also rather impressive: MP3, WMA (with/without DRM), Audible, AAC, FLAC, WMV9, MPEG4-SP, DivX4/5, and XviD.

The display is very clear and vibrant, and the menus are easy to navigate. My only niggle with this unit, is the touchscreen, it's of resistive type, and I found it hard to get it to recognize my selections and gestures, often doing the wrong thing. There is a calibration routine, but it did not really help. In the end I found it better to use my fingernail rather than my finger itself. What's unfortunate is that the touchscreen is the ONLY way to navigate this device, and it really needs to work flawlessly, which I found hard to achieve without practice. However eventually I did get it working, but never to my total satisfaction.

Like previous Creative players, there is upgrade capability, where you can add additional space using MiniSD cards, however like previous creative players, the player does not "merge" the media databases making a seamless browsing experience, you have to select the MiniSD icon in the media to see a separate list of media on the removable card. Including the MiniSD card was a nice thought, but until the software treats it as a integrated part of the player, then it's rather pointless.

The video playback works well, and has good format support. The headphones are of good quality, and the desktop software is not overbearing, it does what it needs to and does it well (although to be honest, it's just as easy to drag/drop media or use Windows Media Player to manage the music).

No proprietary connectors, it uses a standard mini-USB connector, which is welcome change. But like most players, you can't charge AND play music on it, which I still find rather bizarre.

The unit runs smoothly (there was a update that improved responsiveness, and I updated to this before I reviewed this unit), but I did see a problem where embedded some of my WMA embedded album art was not being displayed on the player, I'm sure Creative will fix this at some point.

If you can learn to live with the touchscreen, then this is a great little player, and given it's considerably cheaper (and better sounding) than bigger named touchscreen players on the market (naming no names), it certainly needs consideration for anyones shortlist.

Pros:
Great sound
Well featured
Great Price
Fantastic Display
Good range of formats supported

Cons:
Touchscreen responsiveness/accuracy
No integration of MiniSD memory.

This is a brilliant little player, another great addition to the zen collection. It was delived to my house on the day it was released, and I haven't left it since. The touch screen is amazing, and the only downside is that you can't play games on it.

The touch screen is a little sloppy, but it is very hard to find one that doesn't.

Otherwise, I would reccomend this player to anyone and everyone!!

These days MP3 players seemed to have evolved into 'tech heavy' monsters that are just one step short of being a Blackberry. If you want one of these then go for an iPod Touch. But if you want a player that strips out all the excess baggage and gives just the essentials - music / video /radio - then this (at this point in time) is the one to buy.

The main reason I bought this was because I wasn't allowed to listen to music on my Sony Ericsson mobile phone on a plane recently (even in Flight mode!) and I wanted just a music player. When I saw the spec for this and realised it had FLAC file support, my mind was made up. This is a fantastic little player.

The sound quality is excellent, though the X-Fi Crystalizer only comes into its own when playing MP3s or AAC files, it is not necessary for FLAC files. Even at the lowest setting, on a FLAC file, the Crystalizer makes the bass drown your headphones and the treble pierce through you. FLAC files are fine without it, as by the their very nature they are 3x bigger then the equivalent 320kps MP3 file, making the sound a lot more richer anyway. The Crystalizer is needed on MP3 and AAC files though, especially those at 256kps, as it definitely enhances the sound (though you will have to turn the volume down).

The big negative for this player (and the reason for the loss of a star) is the touch screen, it is quite slow and takes a while getting used to. As other reviewers have pointed out there is no volume button, and it can be a bit fiddley trying to get the right level you want using the screen. Also it can be a little difficult scrolling through lists of items, as if you press too hard or too light, the player thinks you've selected an item, rather than want to scroll past it. This will come with practise I guess.

Creative supply 'Centrale' music manager for use with this player. As you can drag & drop files in Windows Explorer, it has no real use other than to rip FLAC files from CDs and create your playlists. But you don't even need this if you have software like WinAmp. Though it works, playlist creation isn't implemented that well, you can't move items within a list once added to it, you can only delete them. This basically means you need to add songs in the order you want to play them. This is a minor annoyance though.

Overall - this is a great, simple, lightwieght player (about 2/3 the size of an iPod touch) with excellent sound quality. The ability to play FLAC files, and the price for 32GB, gives it an edge on similar players in my book.