Creative Zen V Plus

As we all know, Creative Labs had a great history in the making of MP3 Players, from the Nomad to the Zen series. Compared to other brands, Creative MP3 players are hardly to be defeated unless the competitors are Apple Ipod, Iriver, Cowon and so on. So, when we are dealing with portable audio players, we need to make sure we know from the top to toe before paying to get the player we demanded. For instance, we need to reconsider whether we really need a flash drive or a hard disk drive for storing audio and video files. The difference between the flash drive and the hard disk drive must be taken into serious account. A flash drive is the memory storage in our daily portable storage, which is the Pendrive. A flash drive is basically smaller in terms of memory space but it offers a higher data transfer speed which holds the highest priority when transferring bulky audio or video files. On the other hand, a hard disk drive is usually larger in terms of the size which results in lower cosmetic values ( Creative Zen Vision ). No offence, but do we really dare to carry a big bulk machine to the outside world with the simple aim of listening to MP3s? I don’t think. So, the storage capacity of the Creative V Plus is based on the technology of flash drive.

Before we get down into serious business, allow me to summarize the differences between the Creative V and Creative V Plus. The “Plus” word definitely add some “plus” values to the latter product which provides a FM radio tuner and a Video Playback function. However, the price is almost the same, adding another $30 bucks more you can have the V Plus if you are thirsty for video playbacks.

Well, the V Plus is actually an MP4 Player that came in solid and tough appearance. According to some MP3 enthusiasts, the new V Plus is the smaller size of Creative Zen Vision. Therefore, many people will definitely go for the V Plus as not only the size is smaller, but the price is also much lower compared to the hard disk version of Vision. The benefit of the V Plus over the Ipod Nano 2^nd Generation is that it offers FM radio and a better Video Playback quality. The V Plus also allows the user to orient the screen display from the horizontal to vertical degree by simply configuring the screen settings. In comparison to the Ipod Nano 2^nd Generation, they both offer a 1.5” inch display which is fairly good for the users to view video or picture playback ( still not good enough to offer satisfaction while viewing Mpeg4 ). The V Plus varies in colours which are also dependent on the storage capacity which classified into 1,2,4 and 8GB where 8GB version only come in black colour ( which is my favourite colour ). Moreover, V Plus is better than Ipod in terms of the power battery. The music playback function in the Ipod Nano can last up to 15 hours continuously whereas the V Plus can take it to a higher degree which is 20 hours of music playback.

V Plus is highly-rated in the sense of the cosmetic values. V Plus is not only cute but it can really cater the needs of MP3 enthusiasts where the design is splendid which results in solid, hard, tough, simple and most importantly not a fingerprint magnet anymore. So, the users won’t be having a hard time to wipe the smudges on the player’s surface while holding it in their palm for long periods.

Fortunately, the functionality of V Plus is simpler compared to other MP3 products where the user can easily perform the drag-and-drop style while transferring the audio, video and pictures into the player or vice versa. However, the V Plus is also bundled with its multimedia software for transferring, editing, ripping and converting audio or video formats. There is also a ZenCast which is quite similar to the PodCast that allows the user to preview, subscribe and buy MP3 online so that they will receive the latest and best streaming audio quality of MP3 songs. The ZenCast works 24/7 around the clock. In other words, the service is available in selected countries around the world at anytime.

The V Plus music playback works on MP3, WAV, WMA and so on. I bet you must be puzzled and having a peculiar thought on your mind, “ Why do the MP3 players still play WAV files since that the WAV file size is so big ?”. Well, sometimes, the hardcore fans of music prefer transferring Wav. Files from the CD into the player without converting them in the first place. This is to get the best quality of the song because when there is no format conversion that took place, so the respective song will experience lossless quality and zero percent compression. So, this the main reason why Wav. Files are still in high demand of making the MP3 players.

On the other hand, speaking of video playback this V Plus can play Mpeg4, AVI, and other sorts of Audible formats. Don’t worry that your Mpeg files are too big to be transferred to the player as the software which is bundled together will ease you in developing your own favourite videos by helping you to convert the formats into the desirable ones.

The picture playback which works on JPEG and BMP files are quite user-friendly as well. The process of playing the pics are so user-friendly that everyone from all walks of life will hardly encounter problems in transferring and viewing the pics on the display using either slideshow or normal show. The user is also permitted to create folders and sub-folders via PC on the Windows Explorer in order to organize and manage the family album or friends album easily. Nevertheless, the user must need to know that the bigger the mega-pixel / resolution of the picture, the bigger space consumption. Let’s say, I am using Canon Powershot A570 to take a 7.1 Mega-pixel photo of a family, the output of the image will take approximately 4 or 5 Mb per pic. Caution : Please be noticed that it doesn’t mean that higher mega-pixel will produce sharper and more crisp images. For this I will explain in the photo imaging section later.

So, the Creative Zen V Plus is also capable of storing 32 scannable presets of radio tuner in the player. So, the user can tune in to from the least to the most favourited channels worldwide and store them into presets for listening convenience. The USB transfer speed is 1.25 MB per sec for each data transaction on the PC synchronization.