Creative Labs Zen X-Fi 2 16 GB MP3 and Video Player with Touchscreen and Built-In Speaker (Black)
- Incredible 16 GB storage capacity with microSD card slot for expansion
- Touchscreen interface and support for iTunes and lossless music
- Built-in speaker for superior listening experience
- 3-inch viewing screen for superior movie and picture viewing
- Slim and sleek design
Creative Labs Zen X-Fi2 Flash Portable Media Player 70PF2492091F1 Portable Video Players
List Price: $ 179.99
Price: $ 115.00
Not Ready For Prime Time,
I’ve owned many MP3 players incl. Creative’s Muvo, Zev V, and Zen. What drew me to the X-Fi2 was the larger screen, the video out, the RSS, plus the touch interface and speaker somewhat.
Display: Very pretty, 400 X 240. Good quality video and images look sharp and bright.
Audio Quality: I did A/B comparisons between the Zen and the X-Fi2, and the X-Fi2 wins. The top end is smoother, and the bass is tighter and deeper, and the overall sound is more open. They’re similar in max volume, but the X-Fi2 sounds better.
X-Fi: I don’t use it.
Creative Centrale: Install it, then forget it.
Audio Storage: Album art is a problem. The art has to be “embedded” in the ID3 tag for it to appear, it’s possible Windows Media Player automatically does this. This can also be done with an app like “Mp3tag”. Which meant going back and doing that to all 350 albums I had on the old Zen. Note that I don’t use any services like Rhapsody, or files with DRM, so for me playback itself was fine.
Viewing Photos: Some jpgs don’t show up except as “?” marks. Not sure why.
Videos: Nightmare. With the avi or wmv that worked fine on the Zen, the audio would break up or the vids wouldn’t be recognized. Creative Central was unreliable and slow, and coverts vids to wmv.
I tried about 6 other converters, and either audio or video was messed up, or just not recognized (XVid, Divx, or wmv). Finally tested Handbrake, and the X-Fi2 was happy playing those XVid files, with very specific settings, about 90% of the time. And when it works, it looks great.
Video Out: Works surprisingly well, but no one will think it’s a DVD.
RSS: Run a sync program from the X-Fi2 when it’s connected to your PC. Kind of a pain, but it works.
Battery: Seems like the charging time and life are on par with the Zen.
Interface: Not easy. A quick light touch mostly doesn’t work. Pressing down a larger area takes longer to process, so sometimes the fingernail trick is best. And sometimes it just takes a long to to respond in general. It also misinterprets gestures frequently. But with practice, it’s usable.
The volume control is not immediately accessible (3 steps) on most levels, and not at all from the main menu. So trying to quickly turn it down on a sunny day (hard to see the display) is almost impossible.
Trying to do things one-handed is difficult (e.g. walking to the train, X-Fi2 in one hand, coffee in other).
Summary: It feels that the X-Fi2 was launched before development was complete. The touch interface is quirky, the video support is very finicky, and the menu design needs refinement. I’m hoping further firmware updates improve things. ITMT, the average user will NOT be happy.
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|Hardware good, software support kills it.,
I had high hopes for this player. Creative certainly advertizes it as the ultimate music machine that also plays video. And that is true, up to a certain point.
SPOILER ALERT: The X-Fi2 is not an MP4 player, seems sort of sad for a product of mid 2009. The device will play .avi files, but if you wrap an ffmpeg in an m4v container, it will not work.
1. The hardware is good, not great. The outer casing is slick metal, and can slip out of your fingers very easily. I ordered the leather case as a bumper bra, and at the time of my purchase, there were no ‘skin’ accessories to enhance the gripping of the X-Fi2. This is a two-handed device, one to grip, one to operate.
2. The Creative Centrale software sucks. There is no other word for it. Don’t expect it to do anything useful (XP SP3). Fortuneatly, it is a mass-storage device, and you can drag-n-drop your files onto the X-Fi2 to avoid it.
3. Don’t use Creative Centrale to encode video. It will not play reliably. The X-Fi2 has a limited compatibility with video files, so a third-party, one-trick pony application is needed to produce compatible video. Download a program, like HandBrake (free), and you will be able to watch great video on the 3″ screen. The key to successfull video, scale the source video down to the X-Fi2′s size (400 x 240). Observe perspective, get as close to those values as your source video will scale, but don’t force them. keep your quality setting at 80& or higher, and the video will look very close to the source quality. 100% quality gives a great picture on the 3″ screen, with all 16 million colors present, and no blocky pixels.
4. Touchscreen. Could be better. Even after issuing a firmware update just for the touchscreen, it still doesn’t track well, and can be frustrating for diabetics who’s finger tips may not get good circulation. You will do alot of swiping.
5. Music. Sound quality is superb, but the adjustments are not. Users must navigate several sub-menus for EQ, detail, and x-fi enhancements.
6. The supplied in-ear phones are comfortable and sound great. They come with a set of 3 different-size inserts.
7. Tuner. Great sound, poor management. Although there are 20+ presets for storing your favorite radio stations, they are not represented by any shortcut keys. You must access them sequentially, scroll through till you find the one you want. SPOILER ALERT: EQ cannot be applied to the tuner without leaving the tuner function, thereby killing the music. This sucks if you like to change genres of music in the same sitting. In order to select your listening preferences you leave the tuner section to access the EQ submenu, then have to go back and re-enter Tuner. Very bad, because it creates a negative exerience for radio listening.
8. Pictures. I haven’t done many pictures, but the few which have been dropped in, need a few seconds to be loaded, then they are ‘instantly’ accessable
9. Battery. So far, I’ve gotten about 7 hours maximum, while watching video at 3/4 screen brightness. I haven’t tried to stay with just music to see how much longer it could last.
10. Voice. The sample recording was of good fidelity, and I could hear background objects faintly (but cleanly) from about 10 ft. Closer is obviously better.
11. Expansion. The expansion slot is a nice addition, but is not without its quirks. Sometimes your files are not listed on the microSDHC card. You can not swap between internal, and expansion slot without forcing the X-Fi2 back to the Main Menu and refresh access. That should bring them up, but it is a step easily forgotten. Not sure why the Zen doesn’t keep the microSDHC slot active, and this requirement is not printed anywhere in the documentation.
Pluses:
Video Out
Micro SDHC slot, recognizes up to 16GB.
Drag-n-Drop, no iTunes requirement(like an iPod would have)
3″ Screen is high resolution, can have great video IF YOU SCALE.
Minuses:
VERY BAD SOFTWARE: Creative Central application is hands-down worst interface I’ve ever tried to use. The irony is, I have Creative mp3 players (Nomad IIc / Nomad Jukebox) from 2003 that have better software, and everything works. This year’s Creative Centrale interface is pure crap.
Clunky operation: touch screen tracking is finicky, plus submenus are needed to access basic music adjustments. There is certainly enough empty real estate on the screen to program a shortcut or two, but there are none.
Tuner: can’t listen to radio station and select EQ at the same time.
When this player has the proper support, it is a fantastic machine. Unfortuneatly, the need to go out for 3rd party support reduces the smarmy feelings I could have, and I seriously hope that future upgrades will eventually make this…
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|Zen X-Fi 2 “ROCKS”,
First of all, I own the Zen Vision: W,the Zen Vision: M ,the Zen Media “Flash” Player 32gb , the Zen X-Fi 32gb player
and NOW the Zen X-Fi 2 32gb player. So I’m am quite familiar with way these players sound,operate, etc.
With the advent of the X-Fi technology there’s Nothing out there that can beat this sound. (I own the Zune HD 32gb player too, slick but not as good sound wise).
This latest player takes a little getting use to as far as the touch screen is concerned. It is NOT as sensitive as the Zune HD, But with a little practice it works just fine. Using your finger/thumb nail as a stylus works great! Using the flat end of a finger,not so much (it’ll frustrate you).
Like I said, having prior experience with the previous iterations of this player will help immensely.
It beats the hell out the tiny buttons (controls) of the X-Fi.
There is a short learning curve with this device. (as with most device’s, including the Zune HD)Well worth the effort as there are many options to tweak to your particular taste. And it’s expandable with it’s memory card, A BIG plus as you can plug in play any media you have what so ever from a SD micro card.
This is the most versatile MP3 “music” player out there.
It this player perfect ? NO,……………. But it’s another step in the right direction.
One last observation, The Creative Centrale software STILL Sux !!! Because,
The ripping program STILL fails (just like the previous version) (errors) after only two consecutive rips………………..
and you have close the Centrale software program and restart. That’s If you’re lucky !
If not, you’ll have to REBOOT your computer to make the program run properly,………………
BUY/GET/STEAL a stylus, you’ll need it !!!
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