Product Reviews

With the LAUNCH of the Zen V, Creative's MP3 player line-up now consists of a staggering 14 models. And as if this wasn't confusing enough, the Zen V also comes in two identical-looking, but differently featured variants, the V and the V Plus. Both are tiny MP3 players with a colour screen, line-in recording and a minimum of buttons, but the V Plus adds an FM tuner and video playback (video needs to be converted into a suitable format first), along with a few pounds to the price. We looked at the more basic V model, reasoning that no one in their right mind would want to watch video on a 128 x 128 pixel screen measuring just 1.5in from corner to corner.

The Zen V is the size of a box of matches and at a mere 43g, will be about as unnoticeable in your pocket. It feels sturdy enough to cope with being bashed about with coins

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and keys, but the glossy black finish does tend to pick up greasy fingerprints. Unlike some of Creative's other MP3 players though, the V makes do with just a few buttons - volume and record on one side, hold/power on the other, and play/pause and back on the front. There's also a tiny joystick for navigating through the various menus and the whole setup works rather well, although the occasional sluggish menu response can be frustrating.

Considering its miniscule size, the V's colour screen is nice and clear (greasy fingerprints aside) and it turns off a few seconds after the last button press to save battery power. The V can't display album art for any tracks being played, but you can load it with photos and view them as a miniature slideshow. Sound quality from the V is very good indeed and we've always thought that Creative's players had the edge over the Apple iPod in terms of audio fidelity. Unlike the iPod, the V can also create and save multiple custom playlists on the fly and as well as storing playlists created on a PC, it automatically maintains its own playlists of 'most popular' and 'rarely heard' tracks too.

At £30 less than the equivalent capacity iPod Nano, the Zen V really is excellent value. But just bear in mind that while it will play MP3s and DRM-protected WMA files bought from the likes of HMV and Wippit, it can't play AAC-encoded music tracks bought from the iTunes Music Store.