Creative Zen Touch 20GB MP3 Player

Pros:

1 - 24 hrs battery life (and it does actually achieve this, under the right conditions, which are basically not changing song orders, fast forwarding or rewinding or skipping. Any of these will take the time down a bit, so 18 hours or so is realisitic for normal use). It has the same charge time as the ipod. OK, so you're rarely going to listen to it for that long in one go, but it's nice to think you could.

(Also, the problems with the ipod battery (read the reviews if you don't know about them) are caused by large numbers of charge cycles - basically a full charge which then runs out and is recharged. As this has longer battery life, it won't need charging as often, and so the battery should survive longer than the 18 months sometimes claimed for the ipod's.)

2 - Ability to play .wma files - I'd recorded all my CDs into this format, and didn't really want to have to convert them all to mp3 or aac in order to play them, as I would have had to if I had bought an iPod.

3 - The cool touch sensitive bit is ingenious, and works wonderfully. The 'random' button on the front is useful too - surprisingly, it just plays random tracks.

4 - It's a bit cheaper than the comparable ipod. Not that much - about £15 at the time of writing.

5 - Doesn't come cluttered with games and calendar etc. Yes, I'm putting this as a pro, 'cos the games and notes on ipod frankly just annoy me - it's a music player, not a pda. And if you want to write something, use pen and paper, rather than a fiddly input device. The games are fairly dire anyway. From that point of view the Zen Touch is much neater - it knows its job and it does it.

6 - Some people have complained about the earphones, and said that they're uncomfortable, but I've found them fine. If you're a true audiophile, you might want to get some really good ones, but if you just want to listen to music, the ones supplied will do the job. The bass is a bit weak, but then it is in most sub £50 'phones available.

Cons:

1 - Slightly heavier and chunkier than ipod, but still small enough to fit into your pocket comfortably.

2 - Software supplied with the player is a bit cumbersome and buggy, but it does the job. Alternatively, you can use Windows Media Player to transfer files across.

3 - Doesn't appear as a separate hard drive on your computer, which the ipod does. You can store non media files on it, but you have to go through Creative's software and it's more complicated.

4 - In order to be able to record voice and listen to the radio you need to buy the remote - dunno if Amazon sell it, but the creative website does - which costs around £30 more.

5 - Putting it in its case can sometimes change your track, unless you lock it beforehand. You can't see where the buttons are when it's in the case, but once you've learned where the buttons are, you can skip & pause etc by pushing the buttons through the case.

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Realistically, though, both the ipod AND the Zen Touch are very good mp3 players. I chose this, and am pleased with it, but then again loads of people love their ipods. If you can't decide, go for this one, and use the £15 you saved to buy a new CD or two to put on it.

Please don't forget to rate this review if you found it helpful. Thanks.

I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to an MP3 player, and only then did my troubles truly begin! Where to start!? There are literally hundreds of MP3 players to choose from, coming in a vast range of shapes and sizes! I considered myself loyal to the Sony brand as their values of cutting edge technology, hand in hand with cool aesthetics, have always appealed to me. But like everything Sony, they can cost a small fortune. I needed to keep looking!

I skipped through the other brands; Phillips, iRiver, the list goes on! None of these really appealed to me. You may have noticed I haven't mentioned the dreaded iPod, well that's because I was trying to avoid it at all costs! Firstly, it's a total fashion gimmick! The product is marketed as the coolest gadget to have, but makes no claims to be an actual good quality product! That's because it isn't! A fair share of my friends gave in to Apple's brain washing and bought an iPod. Having played around with them I have to say I'm not impressed. I have to admit, they look the business. It is the coolest looking MP3 player around. It's a very good size; small, compact and very light. But the sound quality was poor, it can only play the Apple media type and the earphones were goddamn awful! But on every street corner, at every bus stop and in every high street you see wannabe cool kids dressed head to toe in the latest 'designer' gear with the white earphones plugged into their heads and the iPod hanging from their belts. You know their listening to some rubbish that's currently in the top ten and they probably don't really like music all that much! In short, the iPod cost's a lot more than it's really worth!

Okay, so that was a bit of a rant, but I was dead set against an iPod. This was when I found my Creative Zen. Okay, it looks a bit like an iPod rip off, but that's not a bad thing. It looks nice and although it's the same size as an iPod, it is twice as thick, so it is noticeably heavier. But for 20 wonderful Gigs of memory, the size is appropriate. This little guy does everything your iPod can and more. A great selling point is it plays WMA's; window media files. These types of files are of a much better quality than any ripped MP3 and the result is a much richer sound. £40 cheaper than the iPod only finalised the deal! The software is straight-forward to use, the battery life is fantastic and the volume head-ache inducing! And that's a good thing!

It's not without it's niggles. The headphones, like the iPod are a bit on the rubbish side. I recommend chucking them in the bin and investing in a good pair. You should look to spend a further £20. This was my chance to reassert my loyalty to Sony and i got a set of Sony MDR-EX71SLW Fontopia Headphones. They're the dog's bits! Furthermore, if you're not used to the touch pad found on the iPod, then navigating the menus will be difficult to begin with. But if you go into the 'settings' menu and reduce the sensitivity to low, you should find it easier to use.

I've got all the music I own stored on this little puppy, and I've used only a fraction of the memory available! Long story short- this is a neat peace of kit, and a steal at £150! If you haven't fallen into the iPod trap and are looking for a sweet little MP3 player, I do recommend this baby. It's worth twice what you pay for it!

the case that comes in the package is ok, but doesnt let you press the buttons when you have your player in it!the included headphones arent too bad, but dont offer much bass. the ipod earphones arent great either. if you're passionate about music youll probably buy new ones.

it was delivered 2 days before the estimate(thanks amazon) and ive been listening to it almost constantly - ive only needed to charge the battery once. im glad i bought it!

however,i was having serious doubts before i bought this player - £170 is a lot to pay seeing as the last portable music player i bought was a £30 personal cd player! also,i had used a 20gb ipod and was very impressed with it. both mp3 players looked equally good in my opinion. i had no experience of a zen touch, and was wondering why it was being offered for a cheaper price yet actually had better features than the ipod(except for weight).i also couldnt find many helpful reviews on the zen touch, because of the opinionated people who either love or hate ipod. so i decided to do some research..

on the creative.com forums (http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board?board.id=dap) there were quite a lot of complaints about hard disk failure and this put me off a bit. then i realised i was reading the section where people post their problems and there are probably thousands of people who own them anyway. there were similar complaints on the apple forums: (http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@600.cvzfaePCGLO.1@.3bb85fdc)

the ipod also offers the 25 minute shock protection which the zen touch doesnt offer,but i think the issue was well cleared up by a review i read:

"Apple's 25 minute quote is a bit silly for two reasons.

1. It depends on the type and encoding of the file you are playing. Normally with a compressed audio file a large part or all of it is buffered in the memory cache of the player (assuming a fairly average length and encoding). Apple's value comes from this, but if you are playing a high quality file and/or high bit-rate file the "skip protection" is significantly less.

2. More fundamental than this, is that hard disk "skip protection" is too easily compared with CD player skip protection. The two are very different, and arguably a hard disk has no skip protection. In more detail, when you bump a CD player sufficiently the head just goes off track and then has to track back again to the position it was at. It's likely that no damage to the player or CD occurs. If you bump a hard disk sufficiently to cause the heads to skip you could potentially be causing serious damage to the player. The heads on a hard disk drive float a fraction above the surface of the disk platter, so a serious bump can cause what's called a "head crash" where the heads literally crash into the surface of the platter and can damage both the platter and the heads. So I hope it makes sense that it's one thing to bump a CD player, and quite a different thing to bump a hard drive based player sufficiently to cause it to 'skip'."

the zen touch does offer 1000-200g shock protection, which means it can withstand a large shock, but not repeatedly for an extended period of time. i tried it out myself- i shook the player vigorously while it was playing and used it while jogging and it didnt skip, so don't be worried about that.

as you probably know, the zen touch's battery life is an excellent 24hrs and much better than the ipod's measly 8-12hrs.

i originally thought the ipods circle touch wheel was better for scrolling but now i prefer the zen touch's vertical touch pad. the vertical scrolling takes a while to get used to, but it is much easier to scroll through large amounts of music because you only need to hold your finger on the top or bottom of the pad to move quickly up or down whereas on the ipod you have to keep 'circling' quickly.

the zen touch also offers the ability to play .wmas which isnt offered on the ipod.

the zen touch may be heavier, but you dont notice the extra weight when it is in your hand or pocket.

you can also buy the remote for the zen touch so that you can listen to and record radio (a feature i wont be using) that isnt offered by apple for their ipod.

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the zen touch and ipod are both very good mp3 players, and i would recommend the ipod for mac users and the fashion-conscious. but, for those who love their music and are more interested in the features offered by their player, i would strongly recommend the zen touch. i am very pleased with my zen touch, and think it was £170 well spent!

i didnt give this product 5 stars because the included software is not very good and has crashed on me several times. i just use windows media player!

ill be happy to answer any questions on the zen touch, email me on michaelmcl@gmail.com