The review unit for the new Creative Zen was just delivered at my house this afternoon, but I passed it on to Daniel barely an hour after I got home from school so that he could play around with it in camp. In this short span of time, I uploaded some songs and a couple of pictures and movies to the player. Not that I needed to worry if I didn't... the player was already stuffed with digital videos and pictures of Creative products.
I'm not sure if it's because it's just the review unit, meaning less accessories and stuff, but all there were in the box were the player, earphones, USB transfer cable (which is like 10cm long) some papers and the software installation CD. Not even a charger to go? As for stuff like pouches or what not, they're all sold seperately anyway.
Next, using Creative Mediasource, the songs were uploaded just fine. Even the album art managed to get dragged in. Pictures were quickly re-routed to its dedicated folder after a quick confirmation dialog. But the movies...
I successfully uploaded my Ping.sg video ad. That actually took quite long already. I was hoping to put FF7 in to test the player's limits (not that I hope a simple action movie would hit the player's limits already), but was a dialog said that it would not be able to play, but do I want to put it in anyway?
I tried an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway? as a last resort, but it took so long to convert and upload I cancelled it after 15min and 22% progress.
Why convert? I thought Creative was able to support multiple formats.
The answer, given in the more details... section of the dialog, was quite disappointing.
The file's resolution of 512x384 maximum resolution of 320x240.
Then what the hell's the point of having multiple formats? I thought it could drag and drop, and the player would at least auto-resize to its own resolutions. I hate conversion precisely because the file's quality may be lost in conversion. As in, it would not be proportionally good.
That said, I have yet to check out the software CD. Perhaps that would bring some ease of transfer in. Please do.
Lastly, drag-and-drop from iTunes was ok, but one has to go through Mediasource transfer procedures to get the file converted and then transferred. Assuming your file is supported in all factors.
We'll be reviewing it in more detail, probably on Channel65, in more detail, so stay tuned.
UPDATE:
9:26pm
Daniel just called from camp asking for the reset hole. Apparently he slot his SD card in, turned it on, and the player crashed.
Yay.
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4 comments:
omg its that bad?
i smell a zen plus next month, or so.
look out for my review of a made-in-china pmp sometime soon. (usps is slow!)
Perhaps the Zen killer?
Well for one thing, at the press launch they said that this would be a stand-alone product, and there won't be siblings. Two, a Creative spokesman said that this would be the last product launched this year.
As for the crashes and resolution support, hopefully the firmware upgrades will come swiftly to the rescue. Please, Creative? Don't spoil my experience.
wow last product ever this year..
Remember Zen stone? Months later they came out with Zen Stone Plus.
i really hope they don't dampen your spirits. i see most 65bitsters use creative. (i saw NTT carrying a creative last week) :)
Three Creativers and two Applers :)
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