Creative ZEN Style M100 8 GB MP3 and Video Player (Black)

• 8 GB internal memory with additional 32 GB available through microSD card slot
• 1.45" TFT screen
• Up to 20 hours of battery life
• Full media player with audio, video and picture playback capabilities
• Built in microphone and clock display

i'm happy with my creative zen m100, however there are a couple of issues with it. one issue worth pointing out in detail is the one of the sd card memory expansion. while i was very aware that music from the internal memory and the music you add via sd card would be separate, i had no idea that the player has to scan the card EVERY TIME you choose to open the sd card library. even when you have not taken the card out of the player. depending on how much music you have in it that could take a few seconds or a few minutes. also, the player is not going to organize your music from your sd card as it does with the music you put in it's internal memory. instead it reads it in files. so i suggest organizing it yourself in files so it's easier for you to sort though your music there.

i still like my player and there are many things positive with it (read the pros), but i think the sd card issue is something that people should know about before purchasing this product.

pros:

1. responsive capacitive buttons

2. excellent sound quality and volume

3. small and lightweight

4. great battery life

5. simple and intuitive interface

cons:

1. sd card integration

2. songs that you choose or the first song of an album/playlist sometimes stutter at the start

3. no gapless playback

4. booting times longer than normal for mp3 players

5. no playlist feature

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In the past I owned several Creative Muvos, which I loved. Fabulous MP3 player. I wore them all out through use. Too bad they don't make them any more. The Muvo had a AAA power source, more flexibility, which I prefer as opposed to a built-in one. Also the Muvo plugged directly into a USB port, thus obviating the need for an additional wire. The fewer parts the better right? Of all MP3 makers I have owned such as Sony, Sandisk, iPod, Zune and more, I like Creative the best.

I believe the M100 was released on Jul-1-2011, so I guess I am on the bleeding edge. After having the device for only a few days, the screen has frozen several times. What's even more fun is that on 2 of those occasions the power button, also apparently frozen, would not turn off the device, so I had to wait for the device to run out of power (a number of hours), then recharged, and rebooted and thus be useable again. What a pain.

Also the the menu system requires a lot of navigating past lesser used features. It doesn't look like much thought has been put into or usability testing has been done here. Before giving up on the device, it seemed to me that the concept of folders, which is how I organize my content, doesn't appear to be supported by the menu system.

Maybe I got a lemon. Maybe some of this stuff will be fixed by a firmware upgrade. I hope so because I don't plan to waste my time with this player unless the freezing issue, at least, is fixed.

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I'm a lover of previous Zen mp3 players--and was looking forward to using this one for downloading borrowed books from my public library's digital audio books portal. There's nowhere to put this kind of download, except into the music category under albums. So far so good. But "shuffle" is the default selection for playback--even after setting it on "normal." So each time I go in to listen to my public library audio book, I have to change the "shuffle" default to "normal." So aggravating! And when I do this it loses my place in the story! Please, please, dear Zen folk--consider such uses in your development. Not all of us are buying audio books--lots of us are borrowing them (thankfully) from our public libraries!

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This player has great sound and looks nice. And the devil with it if that's all it's got.

The software is absolutely infuriating! I load my albums as folders and I cannot view them that way on the internal memory; diddling around with ID3 tags is a pain. BIG FAIL for this player.

The expansion card slot is hit-or-miss; a lot of times the player will hang up instead of reading the card. I HATE resetting the player every time I want to load the memory card. BIG BIG FAIL for this player.

The design includes absolutely no way to hang or attach the player to anything. I am not throwing bad money after good by laying out $25 for a little silicon skin. STRIKE THREE. And another design flaw is that there are touch buttons on every side so that any time the player is touched it pauses the song or goes off into another song or displays all the menu items in Greek!

I bought this basically due to my past experience with Creative Labs gear. It's been all good up to now. But I wasted my money. I hate using it. I hate to even look at it really.

Well, this has been something to deal with. I've been pulling my hair out for days, trying to create a playlist. I finally had to give in and emailed creative support. I have many creative players, so I'm not a novice with these players. Well, it turns out that you have to use a third party playlist creator to make playlists in this player. Can you believe it? There isn't any software sent with this player. Now, I'm going to make it alot easier for whoever reads this review. Since I emailed and complained about this issue to creative, they have now posted an article on how to obtain winamp and also how to use it to create playlists. So now that I've lost 5 years, you don't have to.

Now, as for the player itself. It has touch controls which I like. The sound is ok. I've found that setting the equalizer to the Jazz setting sounds best to me. It's tiny, so I wouldn't buy it for watching video. The screen is about the size of a postage stamp.

All in all, it's an ok music player, but I don't think I would buy another one. Creative has many much better players. I hope this review saves many of you a lot of aggravation.