Creative Zen X-Fi 2 review

Creative’s Zen players are popular alternatives to the iPod, and with its 3in touchscreen the X-Fi 2 is an obvious challenger to the iPod Touch. It supports a wider range of music and video files than Apple’s player (there’s support for WMA and FLAC audio, as well as DivX and WMV9 movies), and it boasts a built in FM radio. And, as it’s a standard MTP device, you’re not tied to any particular library software.

Sound quality is excellent. On standard settings our test tracks sounded loud and punchy, and Creative’s X-Fi enhancements can add sonic sizzle and widen the stereo soundstage to place you right in the middle of the music.

The X-Fi 2’s weakness is its interface. The touchscreen inevitably slows you down when you want to change volume or skip tracks. But, worse than that, the X-Fi 2 uses resistive technology (rather than capacitive like the iPod Touch), so you need to apply a certain downward pressure for your touch to register. This makes scrolling through a long list of tracks a tiresome business.

Still, videos look crisp and bright on the 240 x 400 display, and the price is appealing for all these features. If you spend a lot of time hand-picking tracks from your collection it may not be ideal, but for those who just want to hit play and go, the X-Fi 2 is a versatile and fantastic-sounding little player.

NB: This review refers to the 32GB model. Also available are 8GB (£87 exc VAT/£100 inc VAT) and 16GB (£113 exc VAT/£130 inc VAT) models.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith