creative

Creative Labs Xmod USB Sound Card for PC & Mac
$79.99
I bought it at a discount price of $19.99. It does improve the sound quality of my laptop (HP HDX16t). However, my earphone (Shure SCL5) is too sensitive. Xmod just makes zzz noise with it. When I use Shure SE110, there's no such noise. Therefore, I recommend Xmod to those who use not-high-sensitive earphones. Btw, the original price is too high compared to its real quality.

Creative Labs Zen X-Fi 2 32 GB MP3 and Video Player with Touchscreen and Built-In Speaker (Black and Silver)
$229.99
I had high hopes for this player. Creative certainly advertizes it as the ultimate music machine that also plays video. And that is true, up to a certain point.

SPOILER ALERT: The X-Fi2 is not an MP4 player, seems sort of sad for a product of mid 2009. The device will play .avi files, but if you wrap an ffmpeg in an m4v container, it will not work.

1. The hardware is good, not great. The outer casing is slick metal, and can slip out of your fingers very easily. I ordered the leather case as a bumper bra, and at the time of my purchase, there were no 'skin' accessories to enhance the gripping of the X-Fi2. This is a two-handed device, one to grip, one to operate.

2. The Creative Centrale software sucks. There is no other word for it. Don't expect it to do anything useful (XP SP3). Fortuneatly, it is a mass-storage device, and you can drag-n-drop your files onto the X-Fi2 to avoid it.

3. Don't use Creative Centrale to encode video. It will not play reliably. The X-Fi2 has a limited compatibility with video files, so a third-party, one-trick pony application is needed to produce compatible video. Download a program, like HandBrake (free), and you will be able to watch great video on the 3" screen. The key to successfull video, scale the source video down to the X-Fi2's size (400 x 240). Observe perspective, get as close to those values as your source video will scale, but don't force them. keep your quality setting at 80& or higher, and the video will look very close to the source quality. 100% quality gives a great picture on the 3" screen, with all 16 million colors present, and no blocky pixels.

4. Touchscreen. Could be better. Even after issuing a firmware update just for the touchscreen, it still doesn't track well, and can be frustrating for diabetics who's finger tips may not get good circulation. You will do alot of swiping.

5. Music. Sound quality is superb, but the adjustments are not. Users must navigate several sub-menus for EQ, detail, and x-fi enhancements.

6. The supplied in-ear phones are comfortable and sound great. They come with a set of 3 different-size inserts.

7. Tuner. Great sound, poor management. Although there are 20+ presets for storing your favorite radio stations, they are not represented by any shortcut keys. You must access them sequentially, scroll through till you find the one you want. SPOILER ALERT: EQ cannot be applied to the tuner without leaving the tuner function, thereby killing the music. This sucks if you like to change genres of music in the same sitting. In order to select your listening preferences you leave the tuner section to access the EQ submenu, then have to go back and re-enter Tuner. Very bad, because it creates a negative exerience for radio listening.

8. Pictures. I haven't done many pictures, but the few which have been dropped in, need a few seconds to be loaded, then they are 'instantly' accessable :P

9. Battery. So far, I've gotten about 7 hours maximum, while watching video at 3/4 screen brightness. I haven't tried to stay with just music to see how much longer it could last.

10. Voice. The sample recording was of good fidelity, and I could hear background objects faintly (but cleanly) from about 10 ft. Closer is obviously better.

This is not a competitor of an iTouch. The Apple product costs $80 more for the same 8GB capacity.

Pluses:

Video Out
Micro SDHC slot, recognizes up to 16GB.
Drag-n-Drop, no iTunes requirement(like an iPod would have)
3" Screen is high resolution, can have great video IF YOU SCALE.


Minuses:

VERY BAD SOFTWARE: Creative Central application is hands-down worst interface I've ever tried to use. The irony is, I have Creative mp3 players (Nomad IIc / Nomad Jukebox) from 2003 that have better software, and everything works. This year's Creative Centrale interface is pure crap.

Clunky operation: touch screen tracking is finicky, plus submenus are needed to access basic music adjustments. There is certainly enough empty real estate on the screen to program a shortcut or two, but there are none.

Tuner: can't listen to radio station and select EQ at the same time.


When this player has the proper support, it is a fantastic machine. Unfortuneatly, the need to go out for 3rd party support reduces the smarmy feelings I could have, and I seriously hope that future upgrades will eventually make this the ultimate media player that Creative advertizes it to be.

Creative Labs Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder with 8 GB Video Storage and 2x Digital Zoom (Black) OLD MODEL
$229.99
easy to use and works great. pick up spare batteries on amazon for cheap!

Creative Labs SB1090 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1
$59.99
I bought this for my work office PC, a 3 year old Dell Optiplex 745, with an even older SB Live Value (El Cheapo) card which I added years ago. I was able to get the SB card running OK under Vista 32 using the KX Project driver, but no luck on my newly installed Win 7 64 bit version. So I popped for the $52 plus shipping for this unit. THE BAD: the Install Disk was BLANK! Logo on one side, obviously never recorded on the data side! I guess that's Creative Labs' way of "helping" you get the latest drivers. THE GOOD: I was able to find a driver on the Web for Win 7 64 bit and after installing it, tweaking the various control settings AND using iTunes' graphic equlaizer, managed to get pretty good sound out of it. I turned down most of the "special effects" in order to get cleaner sound; I like just a hint of reverb in the back channels. I'm running a 4.1 PC speaker system, that I've had for 5+ years and it still sounds good-came from Dell. This box has an extensive group of inputs/outputs and came with enough cables for my hookup without requiring me to buy more. Your system setup, of course, may require some additional audio cables. I've so far not noticed any lags/timing issues using this box. Summary, a good solution for a Win 7 64 bit PC which does not support older sound cards.