I've owned many MP3 players incl. Creative's Muvo, Zev V, and Zen. What drew me to the X-Fi2 was the larger screen, the video out, the RSS, plus the touch interface and speaker somewhat.
Display: Very pretty, 400 X 240. Good quality video and images look sharp and bright.
Audio Quality: I did A/B comparisons between the Zen and the X-Fi2, and the X-Fi2 wins. The top end is smoother, and the bass is tighter and deeper, and the overall sound is more open. They're similar in max volume, but the X-Fi2 sounds better.
X-Fi: I don't use it.
Creative Centrale: Install it, then forget it.
Audio Storage: Album art is a problem. The art has to be "embedded" in the ID3 tag for it to appear, it's possible Windows Media Player automatically does this. This can also be done with an app like "Mp3tag". Which meant going back and doing that to all 350 albums I had on the old Zen. Note that I don't use any services like Rhapsody, or files with DRM, so for me playback itself was fine.
Viewing Photos: Some jpgs don't show up except as "?" marks. Not sure why.
Videos: Nightmare. With the avi or wmv that worked fine on the Zen, the audio would break up or the vids wouldn't be recognized. Creative Central was unreliable and slow, and coverts vids to wmv.
I tried about 6 other converters, and either audio or video was messed up, or just not recognized (XVid, Divx, or wmv). Finally tested Handbrake, and the X-Fi2 was happy playing those XVid files, with very specific settings, about 90% of the time. And when it works, it looks great.
Video Out: Works surprisingly well, but no one will think it's a DVD.
RSS: Run a sync program from the X-Fi2 when it's connected to your PC. Kind of a pain, but it works.
Battery: Seems like the charging time and life are on par with the Zen.
Interface: Not easy. A quick light touch mostly doesn't work. Pressing down a larger area takes longer to process, so sometimes the fingernail trick is best. And sometimes it just takes a long to to respond in general. It also misinterprets gestures frequently. But with practice, it's usable.
The volume control is not immediately accessible (3 steps) on most levels, and not at all from the main menu. So trying to quickly turn it down on a sunny day (hard to see the display) is almost impossible.
Trying to do things one-handed is difficult (e.g. walking to the train, X-Fi2 in one hand, coffee in other).
Summary: It feels that the X-Fi2 was launched before development was complete. The touch interface is quirky, the video support is very finicky, and the menu design needs refinement. I'm hoping further firmware updates improve things. ITMT, the average user will NOT be happy.
Get more detail about Creative Labs Zen X-Fi 2 16 GB MP3 and Video Player with Touchscreen and Built-In Speaker (Black and Silver).
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