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Creative Zen MX 16GB MP3 and Video Player with SD Card Slot | 
| Brand: Creative Labs
Category: CE
List Price: £99.99
Buy New: £69.99
as of 31/7/2010 02:09 CDT details
You Save: £30.00 (30%)
New (11) Used (4) from £50.98
Seller: Amazon.co.uk
Rating:  91 reviews
Media: Electronics
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 7.9 x 7.1
MPN: Zen MX 16GB
Model: Zen MX 16GB
EAN: 5051964450412
ASIN: B0028RZ22E
Release Date: June 30, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 91
 Creative Zen MX sounds like music to my ears April 19, 2010
C. Buck (UK)
32 out of 32 found this review helpful
==Introduction==
As I was buying my wife a new car with an auxiliary connection, she decided that in order to make full use of this, I could also buy her an MP3 player to connect to it. Ever eager to please, I did my homework online to find a suitable player. She wasn't interested in the iPod range as they were too feature rich and quite pricey for her needs. All she wanted was a bog standard MP3 player which would sit alongside her in the car and just play music. Whilst browsing Amazon, I came across the Creative Zen MX, it offered more than a bog standard MP3 player but without the cost of an iPod. I quickly ordered the device and waited patiently for it to arrive.
==In the box==
When the Zen arrived, I was surprised at how small it was. Measuring 83mm wide by 55mm tall by 12 mm deep, this really is a nice compact player. As well as the device, you get a set of headphones, a USB cable and a quick installation guide. The Zen doesn't ship with a mains cable but this can be bought separately meaning that unless you buy this, you will always need to charge it up via your PC which could prove problematic if you want to take it on holiday with you.
==Installing the software==
In order to synch the Zen with your PC, you must install the Creative Centrale application which manages communications between the 2 devices. This software is actually shipped on the Zen itself which I thought was quite clever as it means there is no need for a CD in the box, nor the need to download the application.
On running the Centrale Installation, you are required to register your Zen for future upgrades and additional warranty support. Once the upgrade has been completed, you are now able to start copying content onto the Zen.
==Tour of the Zen MX==
There isn't actually a great deal to discover about the Zen MX. Approximately three quarters of the device is taken up with its 2.5 inch screen which has a 320 x 240 resolution. This screen is extremely clear and can display upto 16.7 million colours. To the right of the screen are the navigation buttons in the form of an outer square (with directions of left, right , up and down) with an inner square as the accept button. Below the navigation buttons are the play/pause button and the power/standby button. These buttons are self explanatory so I wont go into detail about them.
If we twist the Zen to the left so that the right hand edge is facing us we will see the USB connector which allows us to connect the Zen to the PC. Above the USB connector we will find the headphone socket. Both the USB and headphone sockets are standard ports which means you will be able to use any headphones or USB cable with the Zen.
==What does it do?==
The primary use of the Zen is to play music. The two main music formats are supported (MP3 and WMA) however to my cost after buying my wife a £15 iTunes voucher, the iTunes AAC format is not supported. You can purchase software which will convert these into MP3 files should you wish but this was too much effort for me so we just bought the Cd's in the end and ripped the tracks to MP3 files. The Zen also supports the ID3 tag system which means you get the correct song title, artist and album displayed when the track is playing.
As well as stored music, the Zen also comes with a built in FM radio. As with most mobile phones, you will need the headphones to be connected when listening to the radio as the aerial antenna is located in the headphones themselves. You can store upto 32 radio stations which in my opinion is more than enough to keep you going. These can then be retrieved by using the navigation buttons to scroll through the programmed stations.
You can watch movies on the Zen, although I haven't tried this myself, the unit does ship with a demo video of about 20 seconds. When I watched this, I was amazed at the clarity of the video and the distinct lack of ghosting that I was expecting. When copying movies onto the Zen, the Centrale software will convert the file into Creatives own CTV format.
The final thing you can do with your Zen is view photos on it. I am personally not a great fan of this as, because the screen is a similar size to those on digital cameras you don't really get to see all the detail in a photo. It would be ok to use for one-off photos but I wouldn't really want to see a full slide show on it. JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF file formats are supported.
==Verdict==
My wife and I are really impressed with the Zen MX. We feel the sound quality is as good as you would get out of the iPod (both children have iPods so I can make this statement with confidence). The user interface is also simple and intuitive to use making this a perfect device for technophobes or experienced users alike. As yet, I am yet to find any real negative with the Zen apart from the fact that you cannot play iTunes music directly.
Nice little gadget. January 23, 2010
A. J. Sadowski (Edinburgh, UK)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I like this little gadget. It is surprisingly stylish, has some nice background themes, above all excellent sound quality and is not a pretentious piece of nonsense like the ipod. Works great so far (2 weeks in).
Superb sound quality & library management - some foibles December 23, 2009
A. Mcgillivray (London)
40 out of 44 found this review helpful
Firstly, this review mainly concerns the 8Gb version - my 16Gb MX has some issues & would only get 4-stars: I needed to buy a supplementary 8Gb MX, which did indeed do the business. (see later).
All the major manufacturers produce pretty decent machines; the Creative devices have a longstanding reputation for sound quality and the unique feature of the SD card slot.
For those familiar with the old Zen, the main improvement has been the full integration of SD cards and main memory libraries.
Previously one listened to one library, lost audio while browsing in the other - with only a pretty wallpaper for company.
Now, the MX seamlessly continues with the album's audio while you browse in either library - and identical Artist/Album/Genre index routes are implemented as is full album-art support.
Creative's strategy of main memory plus set of SD cards I find to be an ideal solution to managing my catalogues.
This allows me to mimic a real bricks & mortar library's structure with PC-folders corresponding to music catalogues, these in turn corresponding to devices.
I use 'World' in 8Gb main memory, 'Mainstream' in a 32Gb SDHC card, 'Classical/Jazz' in a 16Gb SDHC card, 'Curios/Videos' in another 16Gb, and so on.
The use of the CD-cataloguer's genres (defined in Id-tags) is quite hopeless once one has accumulated a big library.
My 'Classical' contains genres: chamber, classica, classical, concerto, klassiche Musico, O.S.T., orchestral, religious, symphonic, vocal.
While 'Mainstream' is: alternative, blues, country, electronica, folk, jazz, latin, metal, O.S.T., pop, rap, rock, soul, soundtrack, world.
Genres fulfilled a useful purpose when MP3 players had tiny memories, but with the advent of large libraries, it can become a complete jumble.
So, if your library can be partitioned in this manner, you'll find life much easier to just assign your albums to your desired SD card.
Then you've a sporting chance of finding the album you are looking for (or one in the same vein).
Thus I choose to assign Anouar Brahem's "Thimar" to my "World" partition even though the CD-cataloguer would assign it to "Jazz".
So, I reckon the MX & SD card strategy to be effective.
Well, how does the MX sound compare? I've listened to friends' iPods and not been especially impressed.
They are beautifully engineered but unfortunately most of my friends seem to have succumbed to the marketing hype: their music source principally being 256Kbps or 128Kbps CBR MP3 from iTunes.
Not hi-fi. At least you get 256Kbps VBR MP3 from the Amazon uploads. I've downloaded a couple of albums from Amazon and you do get resolution up to 320Kbps with variable bit-rate.
I realise that you can rip VBR MP3 from CDs for the Apples but it seems pretty a roundabout task for Windows Users.
I won't go into a Lossless format(s) discussion: mainly, they're not suitable for the Zen - files are too large and there's little, if any, audible benefit.
I rip all CDs using Windows Media Player 11 in VBR form with the quality setting at max. This yields WMA files of ~120Mb encoded in the 290-380Kbps range, median 345Kbps.
Classical/acoustic music encodes at lower rates owing to greater soundstage stability.
It is possible to downgrade to 320Kbps max by using WMP-11's "synch". I prefer to drag&drop the files as they stand to MX or SD/MMC.
[Hint: remember to uncheck the automatic synch at Synch Set-up - if you want 'manual'].
The burgeoning HD camcorder market has led to the development of fast, affordable SDHC cards.
I employ a 150X cardreader (£2.99 from Amazon) which yields transfer rates: Write ~8.5Mbps, Read ~ 17Mbps.
I believe "like greased lightning" is an appropriate epithet.
When only transferring a couple of albums to the player I just use the player's SD card slot when I get a respectable ~4.5Mbps.
What can I tell you about the sound? I intended to upgrade my Grado SR60's to the 325is but spotted a special offer from Creative for the Aurvana Air.
These offer wonderful transparency, so much so that my much-loved SR60s have been honourably retired (except when I want real meaty bass).
The reason I mention rather pricey 'phones is not to demonstrate my self-indulgence, but to point out that the source sound quality from the humble Zen is worthy of such headgear.
I used to have a pair of modest EP-830s (since stolen) and was pleasantly surprised at the quality. You don't have to spend a fortune.
One ot the bonuses with the Aurvana Airs is that they come with a beautifully made leather case (for the cable-tidy).
The Zen slips perfectly into this, so a new role.
OK. My issues with the 16Gb version. There's the not very important - slightly slower navigation and the decidedly slower music library re-builds.
The audio & video quality is identical. However I was driven nuts trying to track down the source of a soft "tick" which occured rather rarely and seemingly at random.
This only occured when the source was main memory - very fast SDHC data-source was unaffected.
So, armed with the clue 'why no 32Gb version in the MX-series?', I decided to check the 8Gb version.
Problem evaporated.
I reasoned that the 4Gb address space limit of FAT32 was placing the ambitious Creative firmware under stress with the extra mapping overhead.
I can find no other reports of such a random/rare, but irritating, flaw. So, either I've a defective unit or I'm being excessively fussy.
I still continue to use my 16Gb MX (now 1 year old) with no discernable deterioration. This flaw is rare and in practice it's quite useful having a second device.
I've noticed adverse comment on the Creative Centrale software. I've no problem with this though I only use it when I need to "edit song info".
In this area it is better than WMP-11. Many CDs, especially Classical, have missing info which needs to be manually entered.
A couple of hints [1] set System's Idle Shutdown "off" if you want to keep the player on permanent standby.
With audio & video both locked off there's little battery drain. I only have my Zens perform "music library re-build" about twice weekly.
[2] reassign your Shortcut button to "Switch View" from "Lock"; unlocking stays the same: double-click "up", OK while locking becomes "Menu", OK (after 1st time).
To conclude:
if you happen to be on a tight budget the MX system can be built piecemeal;
if you're in the market for exotic earphones (eg UltimateEars, Shure) you can be assured that the Zen MX will stand up to the sternest scrutiny from the likes of Aurvana Airs;
for the sound quality, tactile, visual and functional excellence - I've no hesitation in stating: 5-stars.
Products I've found trustworthy:-
Bytestor 32GB SDHC Class 6 Memory Card
Transcend 16GB SDHC Class 6 Memory Card
Creative Aurvana Air Earphones
Grado SR60i Headphones 2009 Model
EASYi USB SD Card Reader for SD/SDHC Cards (Supports Windows Vista, ME, 2000 & XP)
Creative Zen MX 8GB January 3, 2010
Bof_cat
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have had the creative Zen for over a year now and it is a brilliant MP3 player with little faults at all. Throughout the year i have had the product i have had it crash on me twice, which meant i needed to press the reset button, which once clicked worked perfectly again. After having it for a year it is starting to have a few minor faults with the buttons getting a bit stuck, but i have used it a tremendous amount in all weathers and have got it wet many times. The menu system is very attractive with the option to use your own picture as a display picture. The music quality is fantastic and even the provided headphones worked for a long time providing good sound.
For this price its a must buy, it simple and does everything that a good mp3 player should do. Watching films is also simple and the picture has good quality for the size of the player.
This is by far better than a lot of mp3 players and especially all Ipods with there fixed Itunes software. Creative use a simple drag and drop system which is much easier. All albums also have the thumbnails of the cover if added correctly making the player look even more attractive.
This is a must buy for people who want a great Mp3 player with great quality and stunning appearance.
Good value for money December 12, 2009
Mr. B. J. Salmon
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Nice big clear display, easy to navigate through the menu, would recommend buying better headphones and experimenting with the graphic equaliser and the sound quality you'll get is unbelievable!! And the SD slot is great to as you can get anything up to 32G cards now. Software that it comes with could be a little better, but generally a great product buy it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 91
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