Creative ZEN X-Fi

Full Review

There’s no two ways about it, the Creative Zen X-Fi is a very impressive portable media player that retails for Rs. 10,099.This player sports the same 2.5-inch screen as the Zen and the video playback and overall visual performance is noteworthy.

The interface is navigated with the slightly confusing nine-button unmarked keypad and it took us some time to get used to it. However, after sometime, we could make our way through the various menus and submenus without much effort.

At first, when we began testing our music files on the player, the sound appeared strangely flat without any sonic variations. Enabling the X-Fi Crystalizer made a very audible difference. The tones suddenly became warmer and the bass-lines and guitar plucking in Blues songs stood out distinctively. So do remember to turn it on if you are using this player. The bundled earphones are the Creative EP-830 in-ear plugs which give very decent output. This is a nice addition from Creative as most players come with very average earphones.

For Video playback, the screen is quite bright but not at par with the Cowon S9 or iPod Touch.

The bonus feature of the X-Fi player is a built-in speaker with average sound but low volume. The Zen X-Fi has a built-in memory of 8GB and it also supports SD cards. For Video playback, the screen is quite bright but not at par with the Cowon S9 or iPod Touch. Watching video clips would be fine but the 2.5-inch would definitely not entertain you if you intend to watch a full length movie.

Overall, the ZEN X-Fi is a feature loaded PMP to keep you entertained without asking too much on the price.

Bottom Line

The ZEN X-Fi with the X-Fi Crystallizer and onboard speaker apart from all the regular features stood out with its above average audio and video playback and for a fairly lower price than the rest .