An "ultra-compact, ultra-desirable fashion accessory" is how the marketing people at Creative Labs describe the Zen Nano Plus: a somewhat breathless statement with a distinctly gratuitous use of the prefix "ultra" in my humble opinion. So let's put marketing babble to one side for a moment ... Read review
This item is a sight for sore eyes for any iPod/MP3 user. The iPod is a great little MP3 ... more
player but it lacks one simple function, a loud speaker. This micro speaker will add a whole new dimension to your compatible device, free your iPod. Once connected this item will play your songs out loud through the two incorporated mini speakers. If youre at home, work or just hanging out with friends you can now play your tunes out loud abolutely anywhere. This item will work with any MP3 player which has a 3.5mm socket, one AA battery (sold separately) is also required to power the speaker. Your iPods battery is not affected by using this device and please be assured the quality is excellent.
Postage & Packaging:Free! Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
This great speaker stand not only looks great but also produces crystal clear sound and a ... more
little bass for those demanding tracks. Simply place your iPod or MP3 player into the dock of the speaker, connect the 3.5mm audio cable and just sit back, relax and listen. The sound quality is just amazing with exceptional performance and bass compatible with any iPod. With this speaker super pack you also receive great extras making this an ideal gift. There are three ways of powering your iPod, via your USB port on your PC/Laptop, any mains socket (adapter sold separately) or with four AAA batteries (sold separately). The speakers fold away for easy storage if you decide to travel and are ideal for any environment, so feel free to go a little crazy in your office, bedroom or...absolutely anywhere. This item is a great must have item for anyone who owns any iPod or MP3 player, you will not be disappointed.
Postage & Packaging:£1.95 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
(+) Av Output to plug to a TV, built-in speakers, easy to use. Come with very good earphones (-) Does not come with power supply (easy to charge from the PC though), av cable is sold separately
Advantages: Compact, Ease of Use, Quality of Sound Disadvantages: None for this type of player
...how the marketing people at Creative Labs describe the Zen Nano Plus: a somewhat breathless statement with a distinctly gratuitous use of the prefix "ultra" in my humble opinion. So let's put marketing babble to one side for a moment and look at the Zen Nano Plus from a more critical point of view.
At the time of writing, the Zen Nano Plus 1GB can be yours for about £90 - less if you shop around. Creative have made a big ... ...in a smarmy employee of Creative Labs will start to tell you what a terrific purchase you've made. You'll want to delete this track almost immediately but at least you know it works and at least you know the sound quality seems reasonable.
It's at this stage you'll play about with the volume (just to make sure it works - it does, honest) and the "jog-dial" button. I've never used one of these before but it takes no great ... more
An "ultra-compact, ultra-desirable fashion accessory" is how the marketing people at Creative Labs describe the Zen Nano Plus: a somewhat breathless statement with a distinctly gratuitous use of the prefix "ultra" in my humble opinion. So let's put marketing babble to one side for a moment and look at the Zen Nano Plus from a more critical point of view.
At the time of writing, the Zen Nano Plus 1GB can be yours for about £90 - less if you shop around. Creative have made a big point of making this available in 10 colours, presumable to tie in with your choice of "fashion", though you'll struggle to get this in the UK in anything other than black, white, pink, purple or red. In the box you'll find not only the unit in your chosen colour but a pair of reasonable headphones (in iPod-clone white), a line-in cable, a USB cable, one Duracell AAA battery, and a CD with drivers and software. And let's not forget the obligatory handbook (actually - you probably can forget this).
Cradled in the palm of your hand, the Zen Nano Plus is certainly on the small side - whether this can be reasonably described as "ultra-compact" or just plain old "compact" I'll leave you to decide. Certainly it's not much bigger than a Zippo lighter and its weight without battery is only a few grams - you're not going to feel like your lugging this around, that's for sure. First impressions are reasonable though: it looks well constructed, albeit from plastic and it should be immediately obvious which buttons do what at the outset, what with them being labelled and everything.
Some reviews I read prior to shelling out for the Zen Nano Plus complained about the battery cover seeming quite thin and flimsy and it certainly isn't substantial, but unless you foresee yourself brutalising it, I believe it should cope with the day to day demands you'd make of it - just don't jump on it ok? Indeed, unless you intend dropping the Nano on concrete on a semi-regular basis, the whole unit seems like it will serve you well.
Ok, so we've got the battery in, time to start her up and see what she'll do. Hold the power button in for a few seconds and she'll spring to life. The LCD screen is small, but perfectly clear and lit by a cool blue backlight. If you've got the headphones in a smarmy employee of Creative Labs will start to tell you what a terrific purchase you've made. You'll want to delete this track almost immediately but at least you know it works and at least you know the sound quality seems reasonable.
It's at this stage you'll play about with the volume (just to make sure it works - it does, honest) and the "jog-dial" button. I've never used one of these before but it takes no great mastery. Press it to get to the main menu, shift left or right to select a menu choice: "Play Mode"; "EQ"; "Delete"; "Settings"; "Music"; "Recorded Tracks"; "Microphone"; "FM Radio"; "MP3 Encoding"; "Lock" and "Skip Folder", and press to select the choice and access the appropriate submenu (and no, I'm not going to list all the submenu entries). The power button also acts as a Pause/Play so to switch off you need to hold the power button for a few seconds while it shuts down. It's as easy as that. And I've still not read the manual.
Now you'll want to get some of your music on to the Nano.
When I was looking for an MP3 player I had two over-riding caveats:
1. It HAD to use AA or AAA batteries. 2. I could "drag and drop" MP3s using Windows Explorer.
This is because I have two pet hates when it comes to electronic devices:
1. I'll be damned to an eternity in Hell before I pay the manufacturer of any electronic device a vast sum of money for a replacement battery, ever.
2. I'll spend two eternities in Hell listening to the Bay City Rollers before I install some heap of horse-dung software just to move a file from one place to another!!! What a damn, bloody liberty!
There were other caveats of course, but they weren't quite as overriding as the above, one of these was of course that it had to play MP3s natively and not try to convince me to convert my beautiful collection into something atrocious like, oh, say, ATRAC. "But it's more efficient!" They whine. "Buddy, you've got too much time on your hands," I reply. Oh yes,and let's not forget that there's no attempt to tie you to some ludicrous Digital Rights Management (DRM) music store: I'm not a thief or a pirate. I refuse to be treated like one.
Given these caveats, the Creative range of MP3 players was starting to look attractive and given that I was looking for a flash player rather than a hard drive player the Nano just leapt out at me.
Sure enough, plugging the Nano into a spare USB2 socket resulted in Windows recognising the Nano as a removable drive and in a few minutes (I didn't time it, but it was no more than 'a few'.) I had 144 MP3s all transferred across with room to spare for plenty more. HINT1: You will want to organise your MP3s into folders as it makes navigating in the Nano a piece of cake but you'll discover that for yourself in time. HINT2: You probably won't need the software or drivers if your using Windows 2000 or XP and if you're not using DRM Protected WMA files (it plays standard WMA files natively)
Happy as a pig in a pile of poo, I remove the Nano from the PC and start to give the sound quality a critical listen. I'm not an audiophile, I don't pretend to be, but it's as good as any portable CD player I've ever owned and that's with the supplied headphones. The range seems reasonable and there's no discernable hiss or interference - except between tracks where I detect a faint click - nothing I'm remotely worried about though. Perfectly good, is how I would describe it and more than adequate for my needs - that, I guess, is the most important thing.
If you ever got bored listening to MP3s there's always the built in FM tuner to keep you occupied. The unit found all the available FM transmissions in its scan and the reception is pretty good considering I live in a veritable radio wave black hole, where it's impossible to listen to anything other than FM without a thunderpole the size of blackpool tower.
There's an inbuilt microphone so you can record dictations (or lectures perhaps?). The quality here is fairly poor to be honest but in playback you can tell what's being said clearly - there's a fair bit of extraneous noise though so don't expect any miracles and I would doubt the range of a microphone on such a small scale is up to the job of recording lectures but I could well be wrong - it's worth a try. These recordings are .wav for some reason.
Next up is the line in port and a nice addition in my opinion. I can see occasion where maybe a friend has a great song on his MP3 player that I just have to have, one quick connection later and it's transferred across as an MP3 at a bitrate of 128kbps - not that I would ever recommend you do this with copyrighted songs - I'm talking about songs my friends' band has recorded - hope that's crystal clear (and not remotely sarcastic)?
I figure I'll get about 200 MP3s on this (and some of those are audio books so we're not just talking 4 minute songs here) and that's more than enough for me. All of these are at a bitrate of 128kbps (CD Quality) which does me fine. Obviously if you record at a lower bitrate you'll get more songs on, at the expense of quality, and if you record at a higher bitrate… well, that just seems anal to me so I'll just ask who precisely needs "better than CD quality" (with the honourable exception of those in the industry) and leave it at that. The more discerning amongst you might want to consider 'Normalising' your MP3s before transferring them to the unit - that way you won't be reaching for the volume buttons all the time - the even more discerning amongst you might scoff at the idea of 'Normalising' and instead plump for some lossless gain adjustment. Either way - it's an idea and you should at least google "MP3Gain" before dismissing it out of hand.
So, what's my overall opinion? Is it an "Ultra-desirable, ultra-compact fashion accessory"? Erm… well… with all due respect, I think that's twaddle and frankly, underselling. The Zen Nano Plus is a very usable, quality piece of hardware that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone in the market for a flash player. I'll be changing the headphones at some point - not because they're not up to the job - but because they're white and I wouldn't want anyone thinking I've got a bloody iPod in my pocket.
Advantages: Very light, good features, reliable, good run time Disadvantages: Small memory,
The Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB White is a small, compact and stylish mp3 player. It is originally available in white, but can be bought in 10 different colours. These colours include the very popular red, green, yellow, blue, black and pink. It measures just over 1 cm in depth (thickness), 6.6 cm in length and 3.4 cm in width making it a very slim mp3 player. It weighs just 34 g, which is virtually nothing and is a very big advantage as it is so ... ...surely not even notice.
Creative say they are giving you 1 GB of internal flash memory, but in actual fact it is under 1 GB. 993 MB of internal memory is provided, which is not a lot less than 1 GB (1024 MB). But with the extra memory you could fit up to 10 extra songs. Some people may say you are not getting what you pay for. But that is not a major issue for most users. With the 993 MB of provided memory you can hold up to 250 songs, largely depending ...
yassarikhan786 24.03.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB
Advantages: it's not an iPod, it's a decent MP3 player Disadvantages: no "hold" option; bundled software is excessive
...my most recent purchase, a Creative Zen Nano (in black). I haven't experienced so much joy in saving up to purchase something since buying a Gameboy almost a year after its release. I've been looking for a replacement MP3 player since selling my typical, Hong Kong 512MB one last year. I've always been against buying an iPod, simply because of its status symbol/fad/fashion trend image, not to mention its overprivileged family on benefits price.
Looking ... ...Creative Zen Nano, but for me its biggest selling point is battery life.
STARTERS
The Creative Zen Nano - or CZN, as I'll refer to it - comes adequately packaged: not excessive, not too little. It was a bit tough to open due to the plastic hook which covers the flap.
The first noticable thing as you open the contents is the USB cable; it connects the CZN to your computer. This makes it a bit awkward to use the CZN as a portable removable drive, ...
Headdy 21.03.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB
Advantages: Feature full and affordable Disadvantages: could do with a scratch protector cover
The Creative Zen Nano Plus 512 mb .
< Background to purchase : >
After many a year ( well two anyway ) , I decided to get with the times , ditch the portable CD player and move forward with the purchase of an MP3 player .
I looked at many ( the iPod Nano amongst others - sadly cost & availability said no ) , but in the end kept going back to the first MP3 player that really caught my eye and which was both affordable and from a well respected ... ...the cd provided also includes Creative software to allow management of your Mp3 tracks as well transfer software - neither are required to use the player , but may be of use to someone . I myself do not use it .
< Overview >
The Creative Zen Nano Plus is sleek and ultra-portable . Small and thin in design, it is feature rich and will easily meet most peoples needs. Audio quality is exceptional ( flaws in tracks are easily noticed using the Nano ...
CaptainKidd 25.11.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB
Advantages: Tiny, Records, Line in socket, comes with all cables etc Disadvantages: perhaps TOO small
Don't you hate it when you only get half the story from a retailer? - Argos have seriously undersold this MP3 unit by forgetting to say it records as well!
I was looking for an inexpensive MP3 player for my eldest, as she already had a cheap 256Mb player, I figured that in order to justify a new purchase, something with about a gig was in order - and an FM radio would have been a bonus.
Argos reduced the price of the 1Gb Zen Nano Plus to £49 just ... ...of stock before I discovered this! - no worries - I checked Homebase online (part of the same group of companies) and found that they had them in stock (worth remembering in future), so I ordered a couple.
My PC crashed during the ordering process, and I didn't get a conformation mail to say that my order had been placed, and there was no more stock available - so I ended up buying the Sony NW E-570S (previously reviewed by yours truly).
A couple ...
dobieg 03.01.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB
Advantages: slim, compact, portable, weight, easy to use Disadvantages: battery cover a little flimsy
...easily be held in a creative armband and not get in the way at the gym, and the headphones are really comfy.
About a month after I bought my player, the battery cover clip did break, but I got straight on to Creative and they sent me out a replacement part with no hassle at all (fantastic customer service!)
The batteries seem to last for far longer than the 18 hours stated - my current battery is now upto about 23 hours old and still going strong ... ...mp3 tracks (no idea about wma capacity as I only use mp3), so its not for holding a serious amount of music but then we do have a larger mp3 player for that as well (A creative zen jukebox 20MB)
I highly recommend the zen creative nano plus player. ...
MrsDB 01.12.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Creative Zen Nano Plus 1 GB
1 x audio line-in ( mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ), 1 x USB
1 x headphones ( mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm )
1 x audio line-in
System requirements
OS Required
Microsoft Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP
System Requirements Details
Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP - Pentium II - 450 MHz, Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP - Pentium II - 350 MHz, Pentium II - 350 MHz, Pentium II - 350 MHz
AMD-K6-2 - 450 MHz
Amplifier
Headphones Output Power (per channel)
7 mW
Manufacturer's product description
The Creative Zen Nano Plus is the sleekest flash ultra-portable MP3/WMA player from Creative. Incredibly thin in design, it is packed with the latest features to meet all your needs. Enjoy the amazing, skip free, audio quality when you're listening to your MP3 and WMA music. The Zen Nano Plus comes complete with a FM tuner, Voice/FM recording, and Line-In encoding for direct connection and recording from any audio source. Directly record your music from a CD player - no computers needed! Transfer audio and data files in seconds with the Drag-and-Drop feature and USB 2.0 support. In addition, Auto Synchronization makes it easy to transfer your favorite songs and albums from CDs through the line-in connector. Experience uninterrupted listening pleasure with its 18-hour battery life. Hold it in the palm of your hand or slip it into your pocket. Start feeling your music, not your player!
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