Random thoughts of a Disturbed Mind: Creative Zen Nano Plus Review

Thursday, February 23, 2006

[Creative Zen Nano Plus Review]

I've been playing with my new MP3 player for a couple of days now, and I think I'll do a short review of it.

The firmware of the Nano Plus out of the box was 1.00.02. After using it for a few days, I noticed some problems with it.

The sound quality isn't very good. Kelly Clarkson did not sound like herself. There were some tones the player could not reproduce. It was not due to the earphones, because I tried using my Panasonic earphones with the same results. Compared to my old Panasonic, the sound quality of the Nano Plus was pretty horrible.
Once again, there's a problem with the shuffle play function. When you first start playing, the first few songs would be random, then you'd get a chunk of tracks which are always the same, in the same order. After this chunk, the tracks would be random again. This really pissed me off. This means I need to manually skip a huge chunk of tracks everytime I turn it on.

So I went to Creative's website this morning to see if I could update the firmware. As it turns out, they put their software and firmware updates in different sections of their site. Good thing I managed to find both. Anyhow, I updated the firmware to 1.10.03 (what a huge leap!). It was easy, Creative's software/drivers are usually very well-written, easy to use and you can't go wrong.

Now the Nano Plus boots up faster, the sound quality has vastly improved, and most important of all, the shuffle play function now works like it should. The only thing is that it takes longer to switch from MP3 to FM and vice versa, but it doesn't matter that much to me.

I guess I probably need to use it a couple of days more to know if there are still any kinks in the firmware. But after testing it for 10 minutes, I give it a 8/10, compared to a 4/10 I'd have given last night.

^^^ by Locksley @ 12:53 PM. 5 comments.
[Read Comments] [Post Comments]

[Comments]

Hah... at first i thought it was Ipod Nano. Anyway creative is a bit buang... I got my Zen Micro changed for a second time yesterday... Now its a light blue one.. hope the ear phone jack doesnt screw up again.

^^^ posted by Anonymous @ Thu Feb 23, 05:31:00 PM.

I hope nothing ever goes wrong with mine. I didn't get a warranty card! I kept the receipt though. I think if any part of the Nano Plus was to go, it'd be the scroller. That damn thing is so fragile looking and you have to access everything using it.

^^^ posted by Locksley @ Thu Feb 23, 07:33:00 PM.

Anyway Creative HQ redid their CustService.. its now under one roof with a huge yet rather Empty Creative retail store

^^^ posted by Anonymous @ Thu Feb 23, 08:43:00 PM.

Imagine, u could've got an iPod and not had to hassle at all. Better luck next time.

^^^ posted by Anonymous @ Sun Feb 26, 12:01:00 AM.

Yes, I could have gotten an iPod that doesn't come with an user-serviceable battery, and having to pay extra to get a FM receiver adapter.

Imagine that.

^^^ posted by Locksley @ Sun Feb 26, 11:24:00 AM.

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