Will anybody fall for the Hi-Fi Wi-Fi charms of the Creative Zen X-Fi?

 

Few manufacturers promote their MP3 players on the quality of their sound. Instead the selling points are weight, capacity, battery life, design and even their range of colours.

This seems a bit of an omission considering the main purpose of these devices is to listen to music.

It's uncharitable to suggest that most people buy MP3 players mainly as fashion accessories, although there may be more than a grain of truth in that. But how many of us would have the nerve to go into an electrical shop and ask to test a variety of players? Even if we did the results from a noisy showroom probably wouldn't tell us very beyond the way most players sound lousy.

So it's a brave move by Creative to focus on the audio quality of its Zen X-Fi series. These use technology to fill in the gaps from compressed music such as MP3s and to make the sound seem to come from outside your head. Some people will find this an improvement, partly depending on their taste in music. The problem is sound quality is so subjective.

That said, almost everybody will appreciate the quality of the earphones included with the device which are far better than you'll get with almost any other MP3 player.

The tiny device - smaller than a credit card and not much thicker - has some other tricks up its sleeve notably its wi-fi capability. This means you can stream music stored on your bedroom computer into the living room, listening through headphones or with the player plugged into a stereo.

Rather less useful, thanks to the lack of a keypad, is the instant messaging capability.

But the X-Fi does have a sharp, if diminutive, screen for watching movies, a voice recorder, an SD card slot and even a speaker to properly annoy fellow bus travellers. It may not be the most beautiful MP3 player on the market, but it does offer a lot of features for its price.

There are three models in the Creative Zen X-Fi range – 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. (NB: The 8GB model does not have wi-fi capability.) Prices are currently £79.05 for the 8GB version and £124.61for the 16GB model.

This article originally appeared in The Scotsman newspaper in August 2008

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