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Gift Review - Zen X-Fi - Creative

There simply is no better way to listen to music on the move than an MP3 player - and if you want to carry your whole library around, you can't beat the New Zen X-Fi. Its massive capacity enables it to hold up to 16,000 tracks in the WMA format or 8,000 as MP3s in its 32Gb memory.

It looks better than the Zen it replaces - more sophisticated and solid feeling, with some of the best supplied earphones I've tried. The screen is excellent and although I'm not totally convinced that Creative's "X-Fi" system produces much better sound, it is certainly up with the competitors.

A new and useful feature is Wi-fi. If you have a wireless network, this will either stream music, pictures and video direct from your PC, or can be used to wirelessly download items to your player. You can also download information (wired) from organizer software like Microsoft Outlook. There's also a built-in speaker that is significantly better than the speaker on most mobile phones.

The only things that aren't ideal are the memory expansion and the nine buttons. Although it's great that the X-Fi will take an SD card to expand its memory (if you really want more than 32 Gb), it doesn't treat it as an extension of the main memory, but handles it separately, which is irritating. The set of nine control buttons look very pretty, but I'd be happier with either an iPod style dial or just a four way control and select, but it's easy enough to pick up the controls, following on in the style of its predecessors in being easy to use without touching the manual.

Though beaten as the best MP3 player by the stunning iPod Touch, the Zen is cheaper, significantly smaller, and holds more songs, so is a better choice if your budget would stretch to the iPod.

Find more Zen X-Fi reviews at Testfreaks.co.uk

MP3 player reviews

Also available in smaller memory sizes with prices from £99: see below.

Gift category - special - costs around £250/$280

8 Gb -

16 Gb -

Reviewed by Jo Read

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