Updated 11 Feb, 2012, 4:06 pm IST

REVIEWS / PMPS / CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY

Creative Zen V Plus

30 May, 2007, 11:51 am IST | Laiq Qureshi | PMPs PMPs

I have been an iPod user for the past two years, and I firmly believe that Creative Mp3 players are the next in line to take over the portable players’ market. But they always manage to leave a few things amiss here and there. Let's check it out.

Design
Creative has tried to keep the V Plus very compact and shiny. The result — what we have here is a player that is approximately as thin as the Zippo lighter. Although, I don’t like the black and shiny plastic finish, and makes the player prone to fingerprints and smudges. Also this makes it look quite cheap and unnecessarily shiny. Speaking of looks, the player that we got for reviewing has this orange band. Looks very tacky.

Going away from the conventional LCD screen these days, the V Plus is equipped with a 1.5-inch OLED screen that shows 128x128 pixels. This I believe helps a lot in conserving battery, which is also one of the plus points of the player (more of this later though). The OLED screen, however, has a very slow refresh rate and this kind of makes it a lot strenuous while watching videos or album artwork.

Below the screen you will find the four-way navigational joystick and the play/pause, back buttons. On the right side of the player, you will find some more orange — the volumes keys — and the record button. The buttons are a bit less responsive than I expected them to be. After a long while of getting used to jabbing the buttons twice at times, I lost faith in them.

Also the keys are placed on the right hand side, which according to me is lame. I’m right-handed and would have found it easier to have the keys on the left-hand side.

On the left, a small slider duals as the start/shut button when pushed delicately towards the right and locks the player when slid in place on the left. The 3.5mm jack is situated on the top alongside the mini USB slot and the mini mic jack.

All in all a not so good-looking player! You also get the player in other colours. If you are buying this, then do go for the one in white. That one too has the orange banding, but it looks awesome.

Tags: Creative Zen V Plus , Mp3 player , 1GB

Would you buy it?

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