Zen V Plus - review

I recently purchased Zen V plus (2GB)- mp3 player. The following is my review about the player.
Pros:

• Size - the image on the left is the actual size of this player. It is smaller than ones palm size, though a little thick about an inch.

• Great battery life - the player uses lithium-ion rechargeable battery with charging time about 6 hours (though it gets done much faster in 5 hours or so) and one full charge lasts for 15-20 hours depending upon use.

• the joy stick (center button) is the main button with five way navigation movement, though it looks small and uncomfortable to some people I found it very convenient and easy to use

• The Zen V plus comes along with features like playing videos and radio (though they are not available with Zen V player). It has preset 32 FM channels for radio
  

• It is one of the cheapest mp3 player available for the features and the quality

On the flip side of the player

• Creative brand is not as popular as Apply Ipod hence not a lot of accessories are available. Though one can get couple of them from the creative store things like armband or car charger are not easily available in store. Ebay is a good resource for getting these accessories.
  
• Online reviews like CNET and other places give it a high editor and user ratings to the player, however forums have people complaining with the player running into problems like dead pixel, to the player getting stuck and most common being the player just stops working soon after one year warranty. I guess in my case I will have to wait and watch for the warranty issue.
  
• Though the player has a factory set time and date - changing it might be difficult (user manual gives no information about this). I found out by playing around with the player. I would recommend couple of things to do so that the player runs smoothly and help you change date/time.
  • Get the latest firmware for the player ( this takes care of minor issues and bugs like the player getting stuck) from the creative website
    
  • To change date/time
    
  • navigate to Extras - Date & Time from the main menu
    
  • hold the back button for couple of seconds and menu should pop up giving the flexibility to change date and time, set alarm etc
  
  
• The video quality is not too great probably due to two reasons, one the screen is OLED based display which gives better battery life in the bargain of loosing the picture quality and second the screen size is 1.5 inches so whatever the video is it won't look all that great because it is simply too small.
• Organizing music might be a hassle. I guess this goes for other players too having to download particular software for transferring files on the device (like V plus has Creative Media Explorer) , arranging the files in particular folders etc (isn't the DRM issue all about this). If you just want to dump files on the player without any particular folders then V plus works just fine.

To conclude, if you are looking for a budget small capacity mp3 player you might want to give Zen V plus a thought