Creative Players Quality, Relatively speaking

Question

Pardon this post, but I have bought a bunch of mp3 players over the years (one iPod gen2, Rio, 4 Creative, 2 Sansa). I think I have a fair overall view of how things compare.
A forum such as this one tends to bring out nothing but problems with a player (on this board, naturally, problems with Creative players). This is to be expected, and of course is also used as a mutual-assistance troubleshooting area.
I tend to see a fair amount of product bashing of Creative players now and then. My experience, over several years and a bunch of players, has actually been pretty decent with Creative. Their software (currently Centrale), well, there's another story---but I don't use it and you don't have to, either.
Every player has their strong suit; Sansa integrates their SD card into the library (hey, YEARS ago my Rio S-0 did this, too!). iPod.....OK, can't think of a real positi've for the iPod except that it was "hip" at the time (should have been for $350.00!!!).
My Zen Touch (still limping along with bad HD sectors) sounds the best of any player I've used. My Zen Nano still works fine and has a AAA battery that will never go bad (put in a new one). My Zen 4GB is perfect, aside from that SD card library issue. I have a new Sansa Clip+ that sounds great, is tiny and convenient, but had such horrible battery life (just over 4 hours) that I sent it back (awaiting replacement).
Overall, we can complain to each other about the lack of a feature on a Creative player or whatever, but I have yet to find the one player that does everything, is cheap, has perfect support and software, works with all online services, etc.. Creative, I think, has come closest overall. Just my .02 if anybody is reading these boards and gets the idea Creative makes junk. All 4 of the Creative Zens I've bought over several years are still working. 2 of these are a Zen Touch and Zen Micro. I have Windows 7 on all my computers and they work with that, too, so they also remain compatible with modern software (I use WMP 2 to sync).

Answer 1

I'll second that. I agree that Creative's software (Media Explorer, MediaSource, Centrale) is generally pretty clunky, and tech support is not very satisfying. However, I have found the overall value of my Creative players to be quite good. I've had 5 so far:
. Rhomba 256 MB: The player that got me started with Creative. Nice compact unit, great sound, excellent FM radio. I've never understood why Apple never included a radio function on their iPods until very recently.
2. Zen Micro (can't remember HD capacity): Nice form factor. I really liked the touchpad interface--a good answer to the iPod's clickwheel. Had a problem with the headphone jack, but Creative fixed it without any hassle.
3. Zen V Plus 8 GB: Incredibly compact player that still has a decent screen. I think I've had it for almost 4 years, and haven't had a problem. My wife uses it now to listen to audiobooks or NPR while she jogs.
4. Zen Vision:M 30 GB: Buy.com sent a refurbished unit to me by accident instead of the $30 earphones I had ordered, and they weren't interested in correcting the mistake, so it just ended up being a great deal! This really is a terrific player, with amazing sound, a great display, and a very intuiti've and responsi've interface. At first, I thought the hard dri've was faulty because some tracks would skip, so I shelved the unit for a while. But then when I upgraded to Windows 7 and started from scratch with the player, I found that the skipping problem was gone. Not sure what the problem was--maybe something with Vista? Anyway, the only drawback for the ZVM is its lack of AAC support. Also, it would be so great if Creative or Cambridge Soundworks would start making their Playdock again--I would love to have a speaker dock for the ZVM, but they're all for the iPod these days. I know that Playdocks pop up on eBay occasionally, but they usually go for at least $200, and the bidding can be pretty fierce.
5. Zen 32 GB: My workhorse, and it seems to get better and better. Compared to other players on the market, I think it's still the smallest unit to boast 32 GB of storage. Once again, great sound, compact size, and nice interface. I love the AAC support, because I wanted to consolidate my music library into AAC files only (I'm ashamed to say that I just had to have an iPod, since my car has integrated iPod support), rather than have duplicate AAC and WMA files. Initially, I had problems with AAC files playing on the Zen (audio playback errors--see the Creative support page). But recently, that problem seems to have disappeared with Windows 7 and the new Centrale that was released for the Zen. So now my Zen is close to perfect, with the exception of the well-known SD card nonintegration.
I've been fortunate not to have to deal with any white or black screens of death. I've also found WMP2 support to be pretty seamless for the Zen V Plus, ZVM, and Zen (haven't tried the Rhomba or the Zen Micro). The only thing WMP2 can't do is manage a playlist on the unit, but I can use Centrale for the Zen and Media Explorer for the ZVM.