• Home
  • About
  • Contact

Tech Ticker

  • Reviews
  • Mobile Phones
  • Tablets
  • Laptops
  • Gaming
  • Software
  • Television
  • Hardware
You are here: Home / PMP / Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

November 22, 2010 By Kunal Gangar Leave a Comment

Share
Share this
Share
Share on Facebook
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

 

Singapore-based Creative may be struggling to compete with the likes of iPod touch or Zune but they surely have created a name when it comes to the value for money priced music players that belong to the ZEN series. The first ZEN device came in 2007 and since then, Creative has rolled out many more to target the entry-level and mid-range audio player market.

The recent addition to the ZEN portfolio is ZEN X-Fi Style. The ZEN X-Fi Style may not be superior to the X-Fi2 but it promises to give decent features at an affordable price.

Package Contents:
The ZEN X-Fi Style package consists of the player unit; one set of earphones, USB cable and bunch of papers like a user manual and warranty info.

Design:

Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

We assume Creative designed the ZEN X-Fi Style similar to previous-gen ZEN players to maintain uniformity amongst the range. It’s really tough to distinguish the ZEN X-Fi Style from other ZEN players and has similar component placements like the screen on placed on the left hand side with D-Pad, menu, and play/pause etc. keys taking the right side.

Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

The top-side is taken by the power button and mic; bottom-side with the reset; and right-hand side with a 3.5mm headphone/TV-out jack and mini-USB port.

Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

Display and User Interface:

Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

Unlike the X-Fi2, the X-Fi Style’s display drops the touchscreen functionality. X-Fi Style sports a 2.4-inch 262K color TFT LCD supporting up to 320×240 pixels resolution. Agreed, the screen and the resolution are not sharp by today’s standards but are acceptable at the price at which the player goes.

The physical design is not the only thing same. Creative has adopted the same user interface, which if you’ve used any ZEN player before, will know what I’m talking about. Although the UI is easy to pick up for first-time users, I feel Creative could have worked a bit on the UI front to make it more intuitive.

Performance:
Sound is the most important criteria for any portable media player and thankfully, ZEN X-Fi Style doesn’t disappoint. The heart of the audio technology in the player is Creative’s X-Fi technology. Creative’s been integrating this audio enhancing tech for quite some time and it does come handy. Users can tweak the Crystalizer and Expand X-Fi effects in addition to the 8 EQ presets. As far as audio quality goes, with X-Fi activated, it’s pretty good on the earphones as well as integrated loudspeaker. The loudspeakers aren’t that loud but decent enough to be audible in a small room. On the format front, the ZEN X-Fi Style supports MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC and AAC audio formats.

ZEN X-Fi Style has the ability to play DivX, Xvid (in addition to WMV and MPEG-4) files without any conversion. However, with a 2.4-inch screen, they just look too small. Mobile phones today feature larger screen than this. Videos play nicely but tend to pause for a few seconds if you try to fast forward a movie.

Creative has also added a TV-out support, so that you can hook it to the television set. However, the AV cable, outputs content in standard resolution and needs to be purchased separately.

Creative ZEN X-Fi Style Review

Other Features:
Other handy features you’d find in the player are FM Radio, Voice Recorder and RSS feeds support. A user can save up to 32 FM Radio stations whereas a voice recorder will help users to take audio notes.

The RSS feeds support is a nice feature but I don’t think it’s really helpful considering a user needs to first sync the feeds with a PC to read it on the player.

Battery Life:
X-Fi Style has a Li-Ion battery that promises to give up to 25 hours of continuous audio playback or 5 hours of video playback. In real world tests, the player gave about 18 hours of audio and 2.5 hours of video on a single charge, which is still good.

Conclusion:
So is the player worth your money? X-Fi Style’s comes in 8GB and 16GB capacities with the price starting from Rs. 7,000. Now if we compare this with the iPod Nano, you save at least Rs. 3,700 for the same storage capacity. Of course, you won’t get the touchscreen functionality or compactness of the iPod Nano but you get more bang for your buck with features like DivX playback, larger screen and X-Fi technology.

Rating:
Pros: Simple UI, Wide multimedia format support, Affordable
Cons: No expandable storage, Small screen

Share
Share this
Share
Share on Facebook
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn
  • Creative intros Zen X-Fi Style and and Zen Style PMPs
  • Creative intros Zen X-Fi Style and Zen Style PMPs in India
  • Creative unveils touchscreen equipped Zen X-Fi2
  • Review: Creative Zen X-Fi (8GB)

Filed Under: PMP, Reviews

Worth a read

Fujifilm instax mini 41

Fujifilm India Launches instax mini 41 Analog Instant Camera

June 2, 2025 By News Team Leave a Comment

Fujifilm India has launched the instax mini 41, an analog instant camera priced at Rs. 13,999. The device builds on the design of the previous instax mini 40 model, offering updates in aesthetics and functionality. The mini 41 retains the retro design appeal of its predecessor but brings a sleeker finish in black and dark-toned […]

Colorful iGame M15 Origo and iGame M16 Origo Laptops

Colorful launches iGame M15 Origo and iGame M16 Origo Laptops

May 21, 2025 By News Team Leave a Comment

Colorful has introduced two new laptops in its flagship iGame laptop series. The iGame M15 Origo and iGame M16 Origo laptops come with the top-of-the-line Intel 14th Gen Core HX and Core Ultra processors, along with the latest Nvidia 5060 or 5070 graphics cards. Both gaming laptops come with a display that supports QHD resolution, […]

Synology BeeStation Plus

Synology unveils BeeStation Plus with 8TB storage

May 21, 2025 By News Team Leave a Comment

Synology expanded its BeeStation plug-and-play storage lineup with the all-new BeeStation Plus. The Plus series now comes with 8TB of built-in storage, and compared to the non-Plus variant, the BeeStation Plus is 4.8X faster. Synology introduced the BeeStation series for users who don’t want to deal with the hassle of setting up a NAS. The […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

Qualcomm intros Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 Mobile Platform

May 15, 2025 By Apurva Leave a Comment

Qualcomm has expanded its mid-tier portfolio with the introduction of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 processor. As is the trend, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 also focuses on delivering improved AI experiences, which, according to Qualcomm, performs 65% better AI performance with support for Gen AI assistants, large language models (LLMs) running directly on the […]

iGear X-Bass 160 Party Karaoke speaker

iGear launches 160W X-Bass 160 Party Speaker

January 30, 2025 By News Team Leave a Comment

iGear has expanded its party speaker lineup in India with the X-Bass 160. Following the success of X-Bass 60 and X-Bass 100, iGear is upping the ante with the X-Bass 160, which produces 160W of thumping sound. The speaker can be paired wirelessly with another X-Bass 160 and is equipped with trolley wheels, allowing it […]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Subscribe

New Stories

Colorful iGame M15 Origo and iGame M16 Origo Laptops

Colorful launches iGame M15 Origo and iGame M16 Origo Laptops

Synology BeeStation Plus

Synology unveils BeeStation Plus with 8TB storage

Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4

Qualcomm intros Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 Mobile Platform

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

Amazon launches new Kindle Paperwhite in India

ROG Keris II

ASUS Republic of Gamers unveils gaming peripherals

More Stories

© Copyright 2018 Tech Ticker · All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.Agree & CloseDecline