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Creative Electronics
Creative is well-known globally as a participant in the multimedia revolution now driving digital entertainment onto the PC platform, as well as introducing digital audio players including the Zen range. Its PDE (Personal Digital Entertainment) products, such as multimedia speakers, digital and web cameras, video and communication products and, especially, its MP3 players use up to date hardware, technology, software applications, and services. Creative launched the innovative X-Fi audio platform, bringing striking audio quality to MP3 music. Creative's personal entertainment products have won various awards including recently the "Best of CES" award for the Zen Vision M MP3 players during 2006.
Understanding MP3 Features
MP3 players come in three primary types that are distinguished by their relative storage capacity. They include solid state memory players with a typical capacity of 64 MB to 1 GB; hard drive models with storage for up to 40 GB; and multimedia model players that also come with built-in, hard drives but with far greater storage capacity and the ability to store and display other forms of media. Most players are designed with LCD screens, essential for searching through or selecting tracks. In general, the screen displays the name of the track, genre of music and remaining battery power.
Normally, for uploading songs to a player, a USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 interface is used. All players aim to store music in the smallest possible space. Apart from the MP3 file format, there are other important file formats in common use. These include WAV, WMA, and AAC. Not all players support all formats and it is essential to check your player for compatibility with the formats to be found in your current (or future!) music collection.
The life of the battery varies significantly with the different types of players. Hard drive and multimedia players consume battery output more aggressively, reflecting the additional functions available, including microphone or line-in recording together with the display of videos and JPEG photos. Solid state memory players' batteries, in contrast, tend to provide significantly extended playback times.
Creative Zen MP3 Players
The Zen Nano Plus includes black, white and dark blue colour options with memory sizes of 1GB and backlit displays. The display facilitates selecting and listening to your favourite songs using scrollable intuitive menus and track listings. These players support MP3 and WMA formats and come with music download and management software and headphones. They do not have the facility to create your own play list, so you need to organise your music tracks before uploading onto the player (using a USB 2.0 connector). If you are tired of listening to music, you have the option of listening to FM radio and recordings created with the built-in microphone. These players have some 18 hours of playback time using a standard AAA battery.
Zen Vision players come with a number of different memory sizes. The Zen Vision M black and Zen Vision M white come with hard drive capacities of 30 GB. These players have LCD screens of different sizes. The Creative Zen V+2 GB black green and Zen V Plus + 4 GB have 1.5 inch LCD screens and the Zen Vision M black and Zen Vision M white offer 2.5 inch LCD screens. These players include USB connections and cables together with file format support for MP3 and WMA. The Zen Vision M black and Zen Vision M white support WAV, in addition to WMA and MP3. Most of these models come with a built-in FM tuner, while some also support JPEG photos and line-in recording.
Conclusion
Although CD players performed well in the past, your choice of music was limited by the number of CDs you could comfortably carry around. The latest crop of MP3 players thus have a number of significant advantages over CD players, not least of which is the compactness of the player itself. Many of the solid state memory players are now little larger than an AA battery! Add to this the ability to simply add or remove songs by connecting with your PC; none of the jumps and skips associated with using even a shock-proof CD player whilst jogging; extended functionality such as voice memo recording, line-in recording, FM tuners and even video and JPEG photo display and you have an enormously versatile device. It is therefore a matter of deciding where your own personal trade-offs lie between size, weight, storage capacity, functionality, battery life and of course cost. In addition, make sure you buy from a reputable retailer and an established brand with a decent warranty.
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