Creative Zen Wav 4GB

A 'mobile phone" without the buttons, my husband calls this MP3 player from Creative. The Zen Wav comes with a built in set of speakers so you can play your music for others to hear rather than through headphones like the other members of the Zen Range.

It has nice sleek looks with a shiny graphite casing and clear screen for easy reading and observing photos and/or movies. Yes not only does it play music, but it can also store ...
...to be up to 30 hours but im sure this is a little optimistic. With the speakers in full efffect, expect the battery life to halve so where possible always use the headphones.

Compared to other members of the Zen range, the only extra this has over them is the fact it has built in speakers. Therefore its biggest unique selling point may also be its downfall. Reducing the market to people who want loadspeakers built lead to poor sales.
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A 'mobile phone" without the buttons, my husband calls this MP3 player from Creative. The Zen Wav comes with a built in set of speakers so you can play your music for others to hear rather than through headphones like the other members of the Zen Range.

It has nice sleek looks with a shiny graphite casing and clear screen for easy reading and observing photos and/or movies. Yes not only does it play music, but it can also store your pictures and films.

Battery life claims to be up to 30 hours but im sure this is a little optimistic. With the speakers in full efffect, expect the battery life to halve so where possible always use the headphones.

Compared to other members of the Zen range, the only extra this has over them is the fact it has built in speakers. Therefore its biggest unique selling point may also be its downfall. Reducing the market to people who want loadspeakers built lead to poor sales.

We bought it so we could take it on holiday instead of a bulky stereo. To be honest it did a great job even if it did need quite a bit of recharging. It is handy for such occasions.

Uploading music/photos/films is very easy. You simply connect it to your computer and it acts like another computer disk. Your computer will then allow you to transfer songs via the cable. You can drag and drop the songs instead of using confusing software like Itunes.
However if you want to move photos and films you will need to install the Zen software provided for you on CD.

It also has a built in FM radio which is a great advantage over the Ipods. The reception is not bad as it uses the included headphones as the aerial. If you need to replace your headphones, make sure they are good quality or your reception will suffer.

You can also use it a bit like a dictaphone as it has voice recording built in as well as a small jack socket for line in recording. Handy for recording instruments or sounds from the computer.

Storage is quite good. It claims you can get 2000 songs on this MP3 player but i think that is a little ambitious. I have roughly 1200 on mine and its quite full. Its 4Gb capacity holds it on par with the smaller of the Ipod devices.

Sound quality is also quite good. I think that you would not notice the sound compression of MP3s unless you have a tuned ear for such things so therefore its just like listening to CDs. Besides on the small inbuilt speakers, you can hardly compare it to crystal clear audio of a state of the art sound system.

Size, its reasonably sized and the weight of the speakers does make it heavier than similar sized MP3 devices. I liken it to an older mobile phone. In fact my husband says it looks like a mobile but without the buttons.
Talking of buttons, the naviagition of the device is from a small 4 directional button on in the front middle location, just below the screen. Its very similar in use to the Sony Ericsson phones.

Accessories are limited to actual Zen products as far as i can see. As it does not have the coverage of the Ipod devices, I guess people are less inclined to make after market products for it. You can buy a home dock and a car charger for it.

Overall its a nice device with decent enough battery even with the speakers in use. A good buy. Its actually quite a bit cheaper than the equivalent ipod. Instead of paying £120 you will pay £70 for the Zen. 

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