Rock in color

Be captivated by the refreshing blue OLED screen of the ZEN Stone Plus as you interact with and personalize your player. The perfect companion to avid sportsmen, the player captures personal bests with its stopwatch function, while letting you run to the invigorating beat of the music.

Choose from any of the six glossy shades, all of which complements the player’s shiny sleek finish nicely. And with its 2GB and 4GB capacity, this lightweight player allows you to indulge in up to 2,000 songs1 as you head for your daily workout or run. Simply switch to radio anytime you fancy a change.
You can even pamper and protect your player with the attractive ZEN Stone Plus Keychain Case or the colorful ZEN Stone Plus Skin with Clip. All these and more are yours to choose from the ZEN Stone Plus accessories range.

The tiny display utilizes OLED technology. It is monochrome, which makes it contrasting enough so that messages are easily readable despite the small font. Display contrast is adjustable. Although the player and the screen are miniaturized, the menu is not deprived in settings. One can choose the current time, date and day of the week to be simultaneously displayed as a backdrop. The customizable button that we have mentioned above can be set to showing the backdrop, turning on the voice recorder or the stopwatch according to user’s liking. Display backlight turns off after a specifiable time. After that one may run into an unpleasant situation - every time a button is pressed it will have to be pressed again, because the first time it only turns the light back on. There are only to choices here - get used to it or don’t turn the light off.

Rock in Color

Small but impressively built, the new ZEN Stone is the answer to ready music on the move. Carry it on you as you dance to the beat of your workout music for this tiny dynamo pulsates with listening power.

Available in six attractive colors, the MP3 Player is set in a glossy finish, designed to suit the aesthetic needs of any user. Featuring user-friendly plug-and-play capabilities, transfer files smoothly from the computer to your ZEN Stone and take pleasure in a selection of up to 500 songs as you bask in 10 hours of continuous audio playback. You can even download the free integrated software Creative Media Lite to enhance your ZEN Stone’s performance.

Creative’s Zen Stone comes in a variety of colors, including black, blue, green, pink, red and white, making it one of the most colorful product lines in the market. It’s a fairly simple product, though. With a glossy and display-free exterior, the Stone screams of its economic price tag. However, all may not be lost, especially since the Shuffle doesn’t have a display either. The device has round edges and integrates a 3.5mm headphones jack and a switch for various play modes (Shuffle and Repeat) and Skip Folder setting. On the front, the unit has a click wheel that is similar to the one on Apple’s Shuffle. Needless to say, Creative product designers have a fancy for Apple products. On the click wheel, you’ll find the standard play/pause (also double as power button), skip forward/backward and volume controls.

Share your music out loud

This credit card-sized ZEN has a stunning 2.5″ color screen and is perfect for music, videos and photos. Enjoy up to 4,000 MP3, WMA or AAC songs, watch up to 60 hours of videos and share hundreds of photos with your friends. Even expand your portable music, video or photo collection by adding additional content through the convenient SD memory slot.

Meet the new ZEN Wav where you can share your music instantly with others through its uniquely built-in mini stereo speakers. Push the dial and let the music kick to life as the player rests snugly in your palm. Alternatively, you can prop the ZEN Wav up on the ZEN Wav acoustic stand - a unique docking station that comes bundled with the package. Without compromising portability, the stand allows the MP3 player to emit rich concentrated sound waves, providing better audio quality and entertainment to the listener.

Find your music a mate

Be bold, be brave, and show everyone who you are! The all new ZEN Neeon 2 gives you infinite freedom to confidently express your individuality. Personalize your player with exciting new Stik-Onâ„¢ themes, and a matching backplate color.

Just as gorgeous as its predecessor, it comes with more power-packed features and personalization options, while maintaining slender dimensions. View your videos and photos in full color on the sharp 1.5″ screen, and enjoy up to 20 hours of continuous audio playback. You can also record songs directly in WMA format from a CD/MD player or anything else with the integrated mic.

Music is arranged by filenames and folders rather than logically grouped by ID3 tags, so it’s a struggle to find songs quickly if you don’t load albums into separate folders. And heaven forbid if your tracks aren’t properly labelled, as the Neeon 2 lists all music by filename rather than tagged song name. Switching between folders is a painful procedure that requires lots of jumping around the menu structure. Worse, selecting a new folder causes the song currently playing to skip a beat.

The Zen Neeon 2 boasts the same GUI as the Creative Zen V Plus. Clean and bright, there are four selectable color themes (white, green, pink, blue) and the GUI delivers an “almost” intuitive experience. It’s “almost”, because while it features contextual menu functions (sub-menus relevant to a highlighted function), it still retains the older jog-wheel used in the Creative Nomad players which favor right-handers.

Put a Face to Your Music.

Charm. Dazzle. Fascinate. And let your personality shine through with the Creative ZEN Neeon, an MP3 player that lets you do just that. With Creative Stik-Onsâ„¢ - decorative skins for the player’s cover - you decide how your player looks. No more boring blacks or washed out whites. Easily change your player’s cover with these wildly colorful skins. You’ll be just as happy with its classic piano black finish, complete with a choice of 10 different brushed-metal backplate colors. Now available in 5GB and 6GB models which hold up to 3000 songs.

The Neeon plays MP3 files as well as WMA, up to 320kbps. It can also create MP3 and WAV files with the builtin Microphone, Line-In socket or FM Stereo Tuner. The 5GB of storage provided is enough for around 166hrs of music playback, and the player doubles as a portable Hard Drive for all your file storage needs.

Customisation is where the Neeon excels. Taking inspiration from changeable mobile phone covers, the player comes with a “Creative Stik-On” — a reusable sticker that can be affixed to the front for an instant makeover. If the included design doesn’t tickle your fancy, you can always choose from 16 other stickers sold separately. With everything from bounteous meadows to leopard skin, you’re bound to find something to suit the day’s mood.

The Vibrance of ZEN MicroPhoto

Be captivated. Be spellbound. Winner of the prestigious Best of CES 2005 award, ZEN MicroPhoto features a revolutionary vivid color display, letting you view photos or browse through music playlists from wildly colorful menus. Choose from 10 dramatic colors - and keep up to 4000 songs or tens of thousands of photos by your side and in your pocket.

reative Zen Micro Photo is a fraction smaller (3.3 by 2.0 by 0.63 inches) than its monochrome-screen sibling, yet it manages to pack in 2GB to 3GB more storage, offering an 8GB microdrive, or about 2,000 songs. It doesn’t pack on any extra ounces either, keeping its lightweight status at 3.8 ounces. And you still get the easily removable and replaceable battery, a standard mini USB connection, and a hold switch. There’s also a choice of 10 colors–black, gray, white, pink, purple, green, orange, light blue, dark blue, and red–though some shades are slightly different than those of the Zen Micro. But the main difference, of course, is the Zen Micro Photo’s small, but nice, full-color OLED screen; it measures 1.6 inches diagonally, can display 262,144 colors, and is viewable from any angle.

Lots of other neat features included with the Zen Photo include a powerful FM radio with 32 presets and an autoscan mode. You can also use the built-in mic for WAV recordings that are of pretty good quality. You can also use pre-installed themes with the Zen Photo that allow you to customize your player’s wallpaper and color schemes. The Zen Photo also comes with many playback settings, such as Pop, Rock, Vocal, and New Age, as well as Smart Volume and Bass controls. You can also sync your contacts, calendar, and tasks from Microsoft Outlook, which is excellent for anyone who doesn’t want to get a PDA, but still wants to keep organized.

For photos, the transfer process was problem free. Using the Media Explorer, our images zipped across the USB 2.0 connection. Unfortunately, the 1.5-inch, 262,144-color OLED display washed out much of the color in our images. Put up against the nano, the Creative’s screen looked muddy. You’re better off sticking with your camera if you want to show off pictures. The MicroPhoto also doesn’t support album art, a strange exclusion considering the device is primarily a music player.

Rock with your favorite music, watch crystal clear full-motion video and enjoy your photos on a beautiful color-rich screen with the NWZ-A818BLK Walkman® Video MP3 player. The slim-line player lets you see it all on its high-resolution 2″ QVGA LCD screen. Small enough to slip into a bag or pocket, the 8GB NWZ-A818BLK Walkman® Video MP3 player can store up to 5,050 songs, up to 30 hours of video or hundreds of photographs, giving you the delight of multimedia entertainment anytime, anyplace. Also available in silver.

Slim and stylish, the NWZ-S618FBLK Walkman Video MP3 player combines a powerful digital music player with a 1.8″ QVGA LCD screen for hours of multimedia entertainment. Listen to your favorite songs, view videos and photographs or listen to your favorite radio stations. Weighing less than 2 ounces but with the capacity to store up to 4,500 songs, 8 hours of video or hundreds of photographs, the 8GB NWZ-S618FBLK Walkman Video MP3 player delivers everything you need to take your favorite entertainment with you.

A crisp, bright LCD screen displays your images and videos in color, and you can choose either vertical or horizontal orientation for the best view. On-screen icons and intuitive controls make navigation easy. And managing your library is simple, too. Connect the Walkman to your computer with the provided USB cable, and you can transfer files just by dragging and dropping. The built-in rechargeable battery delivers up to 35 hours or audio playback, or 9-1/2 hours of video viewing on a full charge.

Key Features

8GB Built-in Memory
High Quality Video Playback
Battery Life
2.0″ QVGA LCD Screen
MP3/WMA/AAC Audio Codec Support
4 Clear Audio Technologies
Time Machine Shuffle
Music Search
Initial Search
Bi-Directional LCD Display

Feel your music, not your player

ZEN Nano Plus is the sleekest, most portable new flash player from Creative. Incredibly thin in design, it is packed with the latest features to meet all your needs. Enjoy the amazing, skip-free audio quality when you’re listening to your MP3 and WMA music. The ZEN Nano Plus comes complete with an FM tuner, Voice recording and line-in encoding for direct connection and recording from any audio source. Directly record your music from a CD player - no computers needed!

The Creative Zen Nano Plus really shines in the features department, especially when you consider its relatively low price. As is becoming the standard nowadays, the player supports DRM-protected WMAs, so you can transfer songs that you’ve purchased from stores such as Wal-Mart Music Downloads. So far, there’s no compatibility with Windows Media DRM 10.0 (for subscription-based tunes), but hopefully we’ll start seeing this in flash players soon. The player also supports AA files purchased from Audible.com and, of course, MP3s.

Transfer audio and data files in seconds with the Drag-and-Drop feature and USB 2.0 support. In addition, Auto Synchronization makes it easy to transfer your favorite songs and albums from CDs through the line-in connector. Experience uninterrupted listening pleasure with an 18-hour battery life1. Hold it in the palm of your hand or slip it into your pocket. Start feeling your music, not your player! ZEN Nano Plus comes in 10 fun, vibrant colors and is available in 512MB2 of flash memory to store up to 250 songs3 and 1GB2 of flash memory to store up to 500 songs3.

The black on green backlit 3cm x 1 cm LCD (18 characters) interface is a very intuitive and user-friendly display using 2 lines of text where each of the main12 functions is identified by an icon. The display orientation can be configured to allow reading whichever way up it is held (in any one of 16 languages!).
There are 6 graphic equaliser settings - 5 preset ( Rock, Jazz; Classical, Pop, and Normal) and Custom. The Custom setting allows manual configuration of a 5-band filter circuit for tonal characteristics of the mid-frequencies.

The alternative music loading method sees you install Creative’s MediaSource software, as well as Creative Zen Nano Plus Media Explorer, MSN Music and AudibleManager. Once you’ve completed that task you can plug in the Zen Nano Plus and use Creative’s website to check that you’ve got all the latest versions, just like you do with your X-Fi sound card.

Key Features:

• Skip-free MP3/WMA player
• 1GB Capacity1 - stores up to 500 songs2
• 512MB Capacity1 - stores up to 250 songs2
• Directly record music from any audio source with line-in
• Tune in to 32 stations and record voice memos with built-in microphone
• Fast music transfer with USB 2.0 interface
• Simple drag and drop music and data files, no software needed
• Store data files such as photos and presentations
• Reversible LCD for left or right handed operation
• 4 Band EQ (Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock) - settings to make your music sound better
• Weight: 0.8 oz without battery
• Up to 18 hrs of battery life4
• Signal-To-Noise Ratio: up to 90dB Frequency Response: 20Hz to 20kHz
• Harmonic Response Output: <0.1%
• Available in 10 electrifying colors

Groove to the Touch

Playing music is fun with the Creative ZEN Touch’s easy navigation. Available in both 20GB and 40GB capacities, it is built to hold 10,000 WMA songs1 and 16,000 WMA songs1 respectively with an incredible 24 hours battery2 life at 128 kbps MP3 or 32 hours at 48kbps. It is the perfect travel companion for any trip.

The primary feature that ushers the Zen franchise into the 21st century is the touch-sensitive Touch Pad, which drastically improves scrolling and navigating through songs and menu options when compared to previous Zen models. Sliding your thumb upward or downward on the slick pad (the manual actually suggests that you gently rub it) moves the onscreen cursor accordingly. As with any good touchpad, the farther your finger wanders from the center, the faster you scroll. Pressing the physical OK button at the top of the pad makes a selection. Furthermore, the pad can be set up for tap selection, meaning you don’t ever have to use the OK button.

Gone, then, is the chunky, clunky metal casing of Zens of old, replaced by a smaller, more curvaceous casing that fits tightly together to give the device a solid, tough feel. It’s still bigger than the iPod. They’re both 10.3cm high, but the Zen is fatter and thicker - 6.8×2.3cm to 6×1.5cm - and heavier: 201g to 159g. But it feels good in the hand - neither too big nor too heavy. And, crucially, it doesn’t look and feel like an internal hard drive, like its predecessors did.

As always, Creative employs a Windows-like, right-click style of selecting and deleting songs and for building playlists. In other words, when you select a song (or an album or artist), a pull-down menu displays a wealth of options. These include Play, Add to Selected, View Details, Delete Track (or Album or Artist), with each set of options slightly different for songs, albums, playlists, and so on. The new Touch Pad helps this two-click process immeasurably, though you can simply click the Play button once to start a track. Searching for specific tracks, artists, or albums is a breeze thanks to the Zen Touch’s alphabetical Find feature. One more useful tidbit: touching the pad in the Now Playing mode will display Selected Music, so it’s easy to find another song.

Music service support

Creative’s support for WMA and Windows Media® Player 9 Series offers you access to the widest selection of music download services on the internet.

• 40GB3 hard drive stores up to 16,000 songs1 in WMA format or 10,000 songs in MP3 format
• 20GB3 hard drive stores up to 10,000 songs1 WMA format or 5,000 songs in MP3 format
• Up to 32-hours3 of playback time on a single battery charge
• Up to 97dB signal-to-noise ratio for the best sound quality
• Create and customize music playlists on-the-go
• Unique search function locates any song, album or artist
• USB 2.0 for faster file transfers
• 4-band custom equalizer and advanced EQ presets let you customize your music playback
• AudioSyncâ„¢ lets you seamlessly update your Creative ZEN Touch with your latest music on your PC at the touch of a button
• FM radio and voice recording via optional wired remote control (available separately)

With a recessed 5-inch wide-screen display and elegant metal construction, the Cowon Q5W looks like a Cowon D2 on steroids. Considering that the Q5W comes in at nearly a pound of unwieldy metal girth–measuring 5.5 inches wide, 3.5 inches high, and 0.8 inch thick–it would also make a decent weapon should you choose to hurl it at someone. Anyone shopping for high-capacity portable video players is likely resigned to issues of size and weight anyhow, so let’s dive into the heart of what makes any PVP worthwhile: the screen.

GPS Navigation: Fantastic. Just plug the unit into the dock, plug the dock into the cigarette adapter, and you’re ready to go. The dock even has an FM transmitter so you can broadcast GPS sound, music, or movie (audio) over your car’s speakers. The actual navigation is great too, with a pleasing female narrator and airplane-esque ding noise. The icons are large enough that you can hit with your finger instead of the stylus, and the UI has a 2D, 3D, and 2D/3D view. You can even listen to your on-board music while you’re navigating as well.

The Cowon Q5W is undoubtedly the most feature-packed PVP we’ve ever reviewed, thanks to its built-in wireless Internet connection, Bluetooth audio streaming capability, Internet Explorer Web browser, Flash game support, and some limited Microsoft application support. The Q5W supports an extensive list of acceptable audio and video formats (including DivX, XVID, WMV, MPEG, and audio formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, OGG, FLAC, APE, MPC), but chokes on AAC, h.264, MKV, VOB, and MOV files.