Creative Zen Sleek Photo MP3 Player Review

Looking for a new MP3 player? It's important not to make your MP3 purchase an in-store impulse buy. People get stuck with pretty awful MP3 players that way. I had to learn this lesson the hard way with my Creative Zen Sleek Photo.

I'm sure that it's far from the worst MP3 player in the world. However, it's really not worth the price you're paying. It should probably only be purchased if you can find it for $50 or less. I got it on clearance from Wal-Mart for about $100.

So, first I'll get the things that I like out of the way. It can hold 20GB of songs and pictures, which I still haven't been able to fill up. But, it's not really hard to find a 20GB MP3 player. It also has a built in FM tuner, which I don't use much because I'm not a "radio person" but I know that plenty of people will love that feature. It also has a sound recorder that I have found myself using plenty of times for one thing or another. Another feature that might be underrated by some is the fact that you can take any picture you have and make it your background. With iPods, you're stuck with the bright blank white background. While, it's hip, sleek and cool, it's just a little boring. You can upload your photos to the Zen and change the background daily if you want, you can also change the color scheme of the text and background.

Now, for the cons. First, I have to mention that it is not compatible with Vista. This is really more a problem with Vista than the Zen, but I could write a novel on all the things I hate about Vista. Luckily, Windows Media Player has an automatic synchronization function that you can use to put songs onto the Zen. While, the Zen Sleek Photo boasts the ability to hold your photo collection, it does not have the ability to play music and view pictures at the same time. This feature has become so frustrating for me that I have lost patience with it and stopped viewing the photos at all. It also crashes quite often and the reset button breaks easily, leaving you to wait until the power dies and then recharging it.

My biggest problem with it however, is not the crashes or the faulty reset button. It is the navigational system. There is a touch strip used to navigate through your song collection. Sadly, the touch strip always seems to be too sensitive or not sensitive enough. You select a song by tapping the touch strip once, like a laptop. However, while trying to navigate to a specific song, it's quite common to accidentally click something else. Even worse is when you finally find the song that you want. Picture this, you want to listen to, "Yellow Ledbetter" by Pearl Jam, but right now you are on "Yellow" by Coldplay. So, you slide your finger down the touch pad, but wait... Now, you're on "Yesterdays" by Guns N' Roses. So, you slide back up... nothing happens. You're still on "Yesterdays." You slide back up again. Now, you're listening to "Yesterdays." You click out, you try to slide back up. Now, you're on "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. You're locked in an eternal struggle to listen to Pearl Jam. Sure, it's not the most noble struggle, but it's pretty frustrating.

So, think long and hard about your choice for a new MP3 player. My recommendation is to forget about the Creative Zen Sleek Photo, it's just not worth it.