Creative Labs 40GB Zen Touch: Portable playing power for your MP3 hunger.
Written: Sep 04 '05 (Updated Oct 17 '05)
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Pros: Durable, easy to use, great sound and time between battery charges.
Cons: Mediocre earphones, oddly designed case, no lossless format support.
The Bottom Line: If you weigh the 40GB of storage, the battery life, and the top-notch sound quality against the price you will find that the Zen Touch the winner!
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| christian921's Full Review: Creative Technology Zen Touch (40 GB) MP3 Player |
I am a huge fan of burning disks on my computer to give me the ability to take my music where I want to go. When you are mowing the lawn, running, or doing one of a million other activities that are lonesome and monotonous and you want to listen to your tunes you have a problem. What are you going to do if you are missing a CD player? I need a go anywhere gizmo for my favorite tunes. I started looking into MP3 players and I came across the Zen Touch 40GB by Creative Labs.
The Basics
Creative Labs brings the Zen Touch to the market with two obvious goals. The first being they want you to be able to store a ton of files. The second is that they want you to be able to find those files quickly. These are both big reasons for me to pick up the Zen Touch.
The Zen Touch has 40GB (gigabytes) of storage. That will give you about 16,000 WAV/WMA (64 bps) songs and 10,000 MP3 songs. That is a lot and I have yet to get anywhere close to capping the limit yet. Currently I only have 493 MP3’s on the Zen Touch. To have a hard drive be this big the Zen Touch has to be large enough to fit it. This brings the Zen to a slightly larger than average 4x3x1 inch frame. Add the large 24 hour battery and the unit weighs in at 7.76 ounces. There has to be some sort of payback for having a unit that is able to handle this many files and having a slightly larger and heavier than average player is the price.
On the face of the Zen Touch you will find a nice sized information screen. Measuring 160 by 104 pixels it takes up about a third of the total surface on the front of the unit. There are about seven lines of text depending on what screen you are in at a time. This gives you the ability to see a lot of information on the screen. The display is backlit in an indigo color that is very easy to read in all but the brightest of conditions. You may need to shade the screen in direct sunlight. You can adjust the contast brightness as well as how long the light stays on.
The controls of the Zen Touch are extremely easy to use. There are a total of eight buttons on the face of the unit. Five of the buttons are the same controls that you would see on a standard CD player (play, stop, fast forward, etc). There is also a menu button that brings up the different options available (uploading and downloading, removing files, etc) and an “OK” button to verify choices. The single feature that makes the Zen Touch one of the more unique players on the market is the touch pad located directly below the “OK” button centered on the face of the player. From this touch pad you will be able to page through your music selections. You can either select one line at a time by tapping up or down on the pad. You can also speed up the process by keeping your finger on the pad and the Zen Touch puts the search into high gear. The pad is also sensitive to were you touch. By touching the pad at the very top or the very bottom you will move the cursor faster.
Along the side of the Zen Touch you will find the volume control buttons. You can scroll up as high as 25 on the volume control which is louder than most people can take wearing earphones. Creative Labs advertises the fact that they have a 97db signal to noise ratio with the Zen Touch. I really am not 100% sure what that means but the Zen Touch sounds very good. Creative Labs includes a pair of in-ear (ear buds) headphones. The earphones work but are uncomfortable to me. The ear buds feel loose inside my ear as well.
The Zen Touch uses the new USB 2.0 to interface with your PC. This is the way you will download music files to your player. Creative Labs includes the needed software with your purchase. The software itself is straightforward and easy to install and use. You need only to select the files you want to download and then hook the PC to your player via the USB cable. Downloading is quick, usually under two minutes per file depending on your beats per second (bps). Downloading files does eat the batteries up though. The unit has to work harder and therefore sucks down the juice. I recommend hooking up the power cable to avoid totally depleting the battery with large file exchanges.
Creative Labs makes add on products that will allow you to tune in radio stations as well as record from the radio and record voice memos. This is not standard with the Zen Touch and needs to be purchased separately. A lot of people like this feature and that is why I mention it.
The battery that comes with the Touch Zen is a lithium-ion rechargeable. You will need condition the battery when you first get by fully charging and then fully discharging the battery before recharging. This will assure that you get the longest life from the battery. Once conditioned and fully charge you can expect to get a full 24 hours of use from a charge.
Personal Impressions
Like every other music geek I was looking to get an iPod to listen to tunes while doing my miscellaneous chores and duties that are otherwise silent. I did some checking and the more I read the more I liked the Zen Touch. When I first held the iPod I thought it felt cheap. The wheel used on the iPod was easy enough to use and that was the biggest point for me. I wanted something easy to use but I also something that felt sturdier. Nothing against the iPod, it just felt easy to break.
The Zen Touch gives me that ease of use I was looking for while feeling like it is a little tougher. I can not bring myself to drop it in the spirit of testing but it has stood up to my not so gentle use very well. I have been extremely happy with the Zen Touch less a few minor points.
The carrying case that comes with the Zen Touch is a great idea. It has a clip so you can just hook and go. The problem is when you want to make some sort of adjustments. You will have to remove the unit from the pouch to do anything with the unit because all of the buttons are completely covered by the case. This is not a huge issue but it is a grip for me.
The software that comes with the Zen Touch is supposed to make it easy to drop and drag titles that are to be downloaded. I had two problems with this. First because all of my music files did not have all the information filled out in all the fields they got a little lost. The software grabs all of this information to file it on your Zen Touch for reference later. So if you want to look up an artist, album or whatever you will need this information inputted before you download. If you choose to skip this step your files will get buried and looking for them takes a while. I also had a problem on the first install of the software. My Gateway 9310X locked up during what should have been the first download. I had to uninstall and reinstall. I have not had an issue since.
I have been very happy with the Zen Touch. Even though there are no previsions for lossless music files yet. Creative Labs made the Zen Touch as a reprogrammable unit. That means that if sometime down the road they decide to change things up they can. I am crossing my fingers that they decide to add a lossless format.
If you are looking for a durable MP3/WAV/WMP player that has a ton of storage and is long on batteries I would highly recommend the Zen Touch by Creative Labs. The touch pad is sensitive but once you get the hang of it you will find it to be the easiest control out there today. Add that to the great sound quality and you have yourself one heck of a good deal! The only reason I am only giving it 4 out of 5 is because the FM Tuner is an add-on. I would rather have had it built in. It is still a steal without the FM Tuner!
Vital Stats on the Zen Touch 40GB by Creative Labs
(From information contained with unit and company site)
Supported Formats: MP3, WMA and WAV
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: up to 97dB
Frequency Response: 20Hz - 20kHz
Battery Life: Up to 24 hours of continuous playtime
Interface: USB 2.0 (backward compatible with USB 1.1)
Included with the Zen Touch:
3’ USB cable
One pair of earphones (in ear style)
Installation CD for PC interface
Carry case with clip
AC cord
Manual
Warranty:
The Zen Touch carries a one year parts, ninety days labor limited hardware warranty.
Other On-The-Go Audio Reviews:
Alpine CDE-9841 in-dash CD player
JVC Arsenal AR260 in-dash CD player
Kicker DS60 6.5 inch speakers
Thanks for reading,
© Christian921 2005
*This review has been republished, 100% of the work is my own.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $279.99
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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Member: Christian Stanley
Location: A country mile north of Omaha, NE USA
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