Review: Creative Zen V Plus mp3 player

Product: Creative Zen V Plus 2 GB mp3 player
Amount Spent: $138.39 (after $10 gift card) at Best Buy
Pros: Small, Rechargeable Internal Battery, Durable
Cons: Capacity a little low, Controls take a little bit to get use to

I have had this mp3 player for exactly one month. (I’m writing this a little later than I had planned, but I’ve had more time to play with it.) I love it. Where to start …

I mainly use it at work, but I do use it some times at home (I’m actually listening to it right now while I’m typing this up and watching Busch Series qualifying on tv … nothing like multi-tasking … LOL). I also listen to it in the car from time to time since I bought a (6ft) stereo mini cable. That’ll come in handy when I take road trips.

Sound … The sound is great … or at least as good as the mp3 quality. But I’ve been very happy. I’ve generally been ripping my CDs at 128kbps. It’s good enough for me.

Ease of Use … For the most part, it is fairly easy to use. When I first started playing with it, it took a little getting use to … mainly the “joystick”. Once I realized I was being a TOTAL blond … I realized it was pretty straightforward. It is a little annoying at times to have to scroll through everything to get to what I want. It would be nice if you could select a letter and get all the artists for that. But otherwise, not too many complaints.

Durability … I have been VERY happy with the durability of this little thing. I have accidentally knocked it on the floor a few times … once on carpet at home and a few at work on a hard floor. The one time it was a pretty good drop … enough to separate the player from the headphones. 😯 But I picked it up and it kept on playing. That is definitely NICE. I have been more careful ever since … 😀

Portability … It’s small, so it’s very portable. I use the pouch that it came with to take it to and from work. Works very well for me. It holds the player and the headphones with room left. I tried the lanyard that it came with, but it doesn’t work very well at work … it hangs down onto the keyboard. But I have discovered a use for that little ‘coin pocket’ that usually in the right front pocket of jeans … this player fits PERFECTLY in that little pocket. It’s great. Now I don’t have to worry about knocking it off my desk at work.

Battery Life … I haven’t really tested this yet. I listen to it at work … probably around 7 hours or so (depending on how much Justin bugs me during the day … LOL). There’s still a good amount of battery left when I get home (according to the indicator). I charge it every nite to make sure that it won’t die on me the next day at work.

Other Thoughts:
I really like the size of this player. It is nice and small. And like I said above … I love that it fits in that little pocket.

Another thing that I love about it is that it displays any CD art that is attached to the mp3 files. AWESOME. And when I use Windows Media Player 10 to rip my CDs, it automatically associates the CD art to the mp3 files. The only thing I noticed is that the CD art for a couple of my CDs is messed up. I’ll fix that eventually.

The main reason I went with this player was because it has an FM tuner in it. So I can still listen to the radio when I feel like it and then switch over to mp3s. I generally listen to the radio in the morning ’til about 9 or 9:30 (gotta listen to the Froggy Gang Morning Show).

It also works well with the stereo in my car now that I have the stereo mini cable. I just have to remember to turn the volume on the player DOWN after I’ve listened to it in the car. In the car, I have the volume as high as it will go … 25 (I believe). When I listen with my headphones, I have the volume at 2. I did forget once … my ears were NOT happy … LOL.

Any Regrets?
Only one … that I didn’t get the 4GB version. LOL I have the 2GB almost all used up. There are 459 songs on it right now. That’s a good amount, but in order to add any new CDs I buy, I’ll have to take something off. I already had to do that when I bought my last CD a couple weeks ago.

Overall:
I am VERY happy with this little player. It just goes to show you, that you don’t really have to have an iPod to have a nice mp3 player. It just wish I could squeeze more music on it. Maybe I’ll get a new one in a year or so and pass this one on to Lisa (don’t know if I’d just give it to her to make her pay me for it … LOL. Nice sister, ain’t I? :G-razz3: )