Creative ZEN X-Fi vs iPod Touch 2G 32GB

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It is a fact, Apple dominates the market for outrageously digital music players via its famous and iconic iPod. Fortunately, competition is no exception! Thus, the Singapore firm, Creative, who is the first digital hard drive, launched late last year its ZEN X-Fi. A device that provides for the first time some of the functions offered by the latest Creative audio chip. At the same time, Apple renewed its line of iPod music players, with the release of the iPod Touch second generation.


While both devices offer the same amount in terms of storage space to 32 GB each, their features but also their design are at odds. One is ultra-flat and gives pride to a generous screen, the other is more compact, more collected and placed on the features of sound processing to convince. The match between these two devices in the following!

Creative ZEN X-Fi: a stylish walkman

Compact, about 70 grams, the ZEN X-Fi comes in a clear plastic box that is reminiscent of the latest packaging iPods. Opening it is a delicate nothing while extracting the clip device of its retention requires some caution and patience if you do not want to break everything.

Level design, the ZEN X-Fi is not going anywhere and if the finish is definitely neat, aesthetics of the whole should not trigger hysteria crowd. When Apple retains materials but it is fragile for its iPod Touch, second or first name, Creative has a plastic hull, silver gray color. The manufacturer is once again the opposite of Apple, since it gives its ZEN X-Fi a color screen (16.7 million) relatively small 2.5-inch diagonal, a very good quality. And where Apple offers only the bare minimum of buttons, Creative provides 13 to the right of the screen, including 9 to navigate the menus. Other buttons are a backspace button, a Play / Pause button and a button to access the configuration menu.

Relatively few intuitive, these controls are poorly positioned and their label is usually confused when we regret the lack of backlight keys: in the dark, see 9 buttons which direction pad is used is an exercise difficult.


On the right side of the player, there is a jack could not be more standard mini USB connector, a reset button and an LED operation. The top of the device has a slot to slide a memory card Secure Digital (SD HC) to extend the storage capacity of the player while a window on the bottom of the unit allows you to enjoy the sound the speaker. Finally and probably the largest aberration in the design of the ZEN, the button-up is located on the back of the device. His modus operandi is odd since you must drag the button down and remain in this position a few seconds to turn on or off ZEN while positioning the button at the top blocks on the current operating mode of the camera and all these buttons.

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32 GB iPod Touch: the joys of touch, applications, interface

Unlike the ZEN X-Fi, iPod Touch 2G is controlled via its touch screen with simple gestures or tapping on the screen. Apple is indeed on its high-end player, the same interface on their phone to success, the iPhone 3G. There are quite logically the same applications with the Safari browser to surf the Internet from his player, the Mail client and management software calendar and contacts. The iTunes Music Store is available online, allowing you to buy a flash new songs while the iPod Touch 2G is open to third-party applications unlike ZEN X-Fi. One key difference here that goes far beyond the simple difference between the two ergonomic portable, since the iPod Touch can be expanded at will, through free and commercial applications including games. Creative could not be said here and Apple has the intelligence to build on the developments made around the iPhone, which many will say that the iPod Touch is an iPhone without phone!

As for the interface ... it is simply not comparable to the ZEN X-Fi. Sober, relatively clear and explicit, the interface of the iPod Touch 2G is also highly reactive and does not suffer any problems ZEN X-Fi. Furthermore, the Cover Flow mode, which is obtained by switching the player will still rage by allowing you to browse your library of finger each album being represented by its cover!

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Performance
In view of the exceptional and regrettable slow file transfer on the ZEN X-Fi during the synchronization operations from Creative Centrale or Windows Media Player, we planned to run some performance measures to oppose the iPod Touch. Problem, it does not support UMS mode, you can not transfer data other than from iTunes. Less comprehensive than we anticipate, our tests should enlighten you a little about the performance of the ZEN X-Fi 32GB facing other players including the iPod Classic here in version 160 GB.

For this experiment we measure, stopwatch in hand, the time required to transfer a file consisting of 267 files, ie MP3, weighing a total of 580 Mo. The results are expressed in seconds, the reading of the graph is therefore reversed. You see, the ZEN X-Fi 32 GB is slow, very slow, since it will take almost four minutes to overcome our 580 MB of data. In comparison, the iPod Classic with 160GB hard drive, handles the same operation in a minute, all round. As for the ZEN Mozaic, the entry level player from Creative, it is also slower than the ZEN X-Fi.

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Conclusion
The time has come for the strengths and weaknesses of the two players that we oppose through this test. Although both positioned in the high-end, Apple and Creative have chosen very different approaches. The first proposes with its iPod Touch second generation version of the iPhone. We thus found the interface to touch the success of the firm apple, with its clean side goes straight to the point, not to mention the elegance of a super-slim design. Faced with the first generation iPod Touch, second generation should have minimal improvements frankly because we simply list a speaker or adding a button to adjust the volume without going through the software.

Almost flawless when it comes to ergonomics, the iPod Touch can boast to be evolving through thousands of applications already available on the App Store. It still suffers from some shortcomings improbable: no search function is an aberration, while the audio capabilities in the field are too limited. Admittedly, the arrival of mobile OS X version 3.0 is expected to provide research to the iPod Touch but it will cost you to acquire this new firmware, a frankly revolting when you know that the owners of 'iPhone 3G will have the same firmware for free? Another regret for the iPod Touch, no UMS mode, which thus precludes the use of portable 32 GB to store files other than music through the Windows desktop.

As for Creative, the ZEN X-Fi had a strong case to convince. While it does not offer multi-touch interface but it is catching up with advanced sound processing, an integrated FM tuner, a voice recorder, an SD card reader, although it comes with a helmet intra - atrial very suitable.therefore, the advantages of the ZEN X-Fi that were more serious side to an iPod Touch which is in terms of musical features any regression in relation to the latest iPod Classic (one thinks of the disappearance of the search function of music, the incompatibility with accessories like remote control with FM tuner, etc). Yes but that's the ZEN X-Fi fishing on other points with excessive slowness with regard to the copying files, a few reactive interface, menus confusing software largely improved.