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It Arrives!
Earlier today I came home and had a
very pleasant surprise. Waiting for me was a new
Creative Zen
Personal Media Center. You may be inclined to think
"Big Deal, Microsoft is making a MP3 player" but you'd be
quite shortsighted (or shortthoughted) if you stop there. Let me explain:
The device itself is not very large.
If I put my
iMATE on top of it with it's cover on, the size
difference isn't worth mentioning. The Zen is rectangular
while the iMate has rounded edges so that accounts for most
of the difference. The display is a bit larger but not by
a whole lot. Weight wise it's a lot heavier, probably twice
the weight of your average PDA but still pretty light. I
could fit it in my front pockets if I was wearing khakis,
but it was pushing the envelope. When I got it the battery
was dead so I attached the power chord to the cradle and
let if charge for about 20 minutes. At this point it was
2/3 full so it appears to charge pretty quickly. I tried
setting it up at work but only had a Win 2000 Pro machine
at the time. Fortunately our Network Admin is a boy genius
and can always make something work. So we found an XP machine
and off we went. We realized that we didn't have any drivers
for it so we hit an apparent roadblock. I sent Marcus Ash
an email and he told me the good news. You don't need to
install any drivers, you just need
Windows Media Player 10 which, by the way, is extremely
cool. We had a little trouble getting it working on the
first try, but that was due to a screw up on my part. Anyway,
it took Adam about 2 minutes to get it working and I eventually
had to get back to work.
I Started Tinkering
So I hurried home and plugged it in.
I had downloaded WMP 10 at lunch so it was already set to
go. As soon as the USB connection was detected, it
prompted me how I wanted to Sync the files, through WMP
10 or through Nothing. I chose Nothing for the time being.
After that I started playing around with it and immediately
fell in love.
To say that you could be braindead and
move your music around would be an understatement. It was
the easiest and most intuitive sync I've ever done. It's
true, I'm a gadget geek but assuming I wasn't, the interface
is so clear, so easy to use that I really can't do it justice
with words.
This version has a 20 Gig hard
drive so there's plenty of space on it. I loaded up
just about every song I had on my computer and part of Where
the Boys Aren't 11 and that took all of about 6 minutes. I was trying to bombard it and the speed was amazing. I'm not sure if this is partially attributable to WMP 10
or if it's just the device but I was pleasantly impressed
with the speed.
Off to the Gym:
Well, now I had all the Gangsta Rap
and Techno I needed for the next month sitting on my PMC
and off to the gym I went. First thing I noticed,
and the only thing I can find wrong with the device, is
that the speaker is challenged. I can probably double
the volume of it with my iMATE. To be fair, I don't
think it was intended to be a Boom box and if you use headphones,
all is well. Moreover, this was in the middle of rush
hour and traffic was heavy. Later on in the evening
I jogged a few laps around my street and the volume was
fine. Mind you though this is the ONLY thing I could
find to criticise. Once at the gym I got to cracking
on the eliptical machine. One of my friends saw it
and immediately asked if he could play with it. I handed it to him and he was navigating through it like
a pro in under a minute. A few other people wanted
to look at it (as well as Janine and Jenna) and pretty much
everyone had the same opinion: 1- It has set a never
before seen standard for ease of use 2- These things
need to be released on the market ASAP. One guy had
an iPOD and made a snipe comment about indicating "wow,
Microsoft is making something that Apple was doing years
ago, just like Windows". I couldn't
let him disgrace my new toy so I asked him how many DVD's
he can play on his iPOD. "Oh, I didn't realise it
played video" to which I replied "looks like Microsoft is
poised to kick Apple's a33 again, just like
Windows". I used it throughout my workout
so I had it running for about an hour and 15 minutes (most
of which was me walking to the gym). I then took off
and grabbed something to eat, again letting it run the whole
time. By the time I got home it had been on without
rest for about 3 hours. The charge was still holding
at 2/3.
Final Thoughts:
The package I got didn't contain an
owners manual or drivers which concerned me at first. Within
5 minutes I realized there was no reason at all to need
a manual b/c it was so easy to use. I know I keep saying
this, but the whole Sync/Transfer process was so easy, so
seamless it's amazing. I bought one song off of Napster
(That really sounds funny, I know) and it loaded right up. As
we speak I'm trying to download Kill Bill from CinemaNow.com. The
other thing is the interface, it rocks. The navigation
buttons have that killer Blue Neon look a la Orange
SPV E200. There's a really neat little green Home
button that looks quite similar to XP's start button giving
it a very similar look at feel. Then when you get on
the device, watch out. It has all of the creature comforts
of WMP 10, and that says a lot. It's as easy on
the eyes as it is cool. Plenty of power on the background
light too, at night it's like a damned flashlight.
Microsoft deserves some serious props for this. Marcus made
a big point of how easy it was to use and the seamless integration
and there's no doubt, the Hype
is REAL . Anyway I really need some sleep
but have a lot more to write. After all, there's a
Common Language Runtime on it although presently it isn't
exposed. A lot of people are going to have a lot
of fun with these things.