Digital Trends

Creative Zen X-Fi 8GB

September 11th, 2008 | by Mike Kobrin

Features and Design

The Zen X-Fi is similar in form factor to the Creative Zen, measuring 3.3" x 2.2" x 0.5" and sporting a 2.5-inch LCD, but it has a metallic silver finish on back and a redesigned control layout. The player comes with 16 or 32GB of flash memory and has a full-size SD card slot for expandable storage; a WiFi-less 8GB is also available.

The player's front is crowded with controls arranged in a 9-way directional keypad with familiar back and menu buttons above and shortcut and play/pause buttons below. The buttons aren't backlit, and they're very small, making the Zen X-Fi less than ideal for those with poor eyesight or large fingers.

The power/hold switch is on the back, and the 3.5-mm headphone jack and standard mini-USB 2.0 port are on the right. The full-size SD card slot is on top next to the integrated mic, and there's a tiny built-in speaker is on the bottom for listening without the included in-ear headphones. 

Wireless Features

The Zen X-Fi's standout feature is 802.11b/g wireless, with support for WEP, WPA-PSK, and WPA2-PSK secure networks as well as open ones. Although it lacks a Web browser or wireless sync, it can stream movies, photos, and music over a network via UPnP; setup requires simply turning on media sharing in Windows Media Player. Creative's own media server hosts plenty of free content as well. Unsurprisingly, the player doesn't work with Macs via USB, but we downloaded Twonky Media (www.twonkyvision.com) and set up a UPnP server on our Mac.

Our only gripes about the streaming are that you can't rewind or fast-forward within tracks, and you can't browse the media server while a song is playing.

The player's WiFi radio isn't particularly strong and doesn't do well with walls; the signal dropped halfway when we went in the next room. But we were able to get at least one of four signal bars throughout a 1000-square-foot house, and lower power means less strain on the battery. (Our iPod touch gets a full WiFi signal throughout the same space.)

Once you're on a network, you can create a profile -- complete with customizable avatar -- and chat online with friends via Yahoo Messenger or Windows Live Messenger. Text entry is a bit difficult with the Zen X-Fi's tiny buttons and lack of predictive text, though Creative included a circular keyboard option that makes typing slightly faster.

Image Courtesy of Creative