Creative ZEN Touch 2 8 GB Android Based MP3 and Video Player with GPS (Black)

I originally wrote a very positive review for this device. If you want an overly expensive MP3 player with an android OS this is your ticket. This product would have been okay in 2005. In 2011/12 it is just not up to par. The resolution is miniscule in comparison to every similar device. The speed of the device is very clunky. Worst of all, after using it for a little over a month the OS has become incredibly unstable. It has ended up being more frustration than anyone needs in an mini entertainment platform. I ended up giving this to my wife, who knows the frustration I have dealt with in this thing. She is using it as a regular old MP3 player with a little more functionality than a straight MP3 player. My ultimate recommendation is to take a pass on the Zen Touch 2 and get a Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0. The Galaxy is a much better device with all of the features of the Touch 2 with a better camera, a much larger and clearer display with higher resolution, access to the actual Android application store (the Touch 2 cannot access it in any way; you can use the Amazon Appstore only), multi-touch capability, and absolute OS stability. Additionally, the Touch and the Galaxy are at the same relative price point. Spend the extra $30 to buy what you are probably really looking for. The Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 also has the added benefit of actively pissing off Apple because it is better than the iPod and is not bound to proprietary software licensing. in the end I say, don't touch the Touch 2. It needs a lot of work that Creative Labs probably cannot afford. I am sorry if the original review this one is replacing has misguided anyone into purchasing this product.

Ok, folks, I'm an old guy. I don't do I-phone, I-pad, facebook, twitter. I just wanted something to play my tunes on and I hate Apple... More specifically I hate that b**** I-tunes. I had me an old Chinese clone of a first issue Ipod. No I-tunes! And it had a radio. Nice... But it died. I was dismayed by the cornucopia of "devices" to choose from. I looked at Ipod. Wow! Expensive. But I tried one. It sucked. No way. So I did some research and I found this Zen thing. And I got it. And it does a GREAT job of my tunes, but to my vast surprise, it does pretty much eventhing an I-phone does, but without the phone. I don't want a cell phone. I don't want to be at anyone's beck and call. So this thing is beyond perfect for me. It plays music with incredible sound. Same for videos. Same for my home movies. Same for frickin everything. Amazing... And it is so easy even an old fart like me who is basically allergic to all this newfangled crap can still make good use of it... Then I started really checking it out. It takes good quality pictures. It also takes decent movies. It has a clock, calculator, and other tools. Even an old fart like me can buy stuff online with it - and you can in fact browse the web, and quite effectively, too. It has a good FM radio tuner, a voice recorder, video utilities, audio goodies. They did a great job on this thing. Great enough that I went ahead and bought a second one with GPS. Not for the GPS, but for the FM radio tuner... Well, the GPS works, but I already have one in my car, so this one is basically a toy - except that I've already learned more about GPS using this Zen Touch for 2 months than I learned using the car GPS for 6 years. I haven't actually downloaded any GPS app - I'm just playing with the included GPS test app. And unlike all those others who can't get the GPS to work, I have had excellent results with it. You DO have to have it where it can literally SEE the sky. Kind of. Mine seems to work in my home - IF I'm near a window. I'm pleased. Oy... Downloads. I discovered you can download to your PC then copy to the Zen. If you TRUST YOUR SOURCE you can tell it to allow you to install apps that didn't come from a "market". Whatever a "market" is... You can't download from Google or some other app store, but I'm having fun with Amazon's app store application. You can download direct to the Zen from Amazon's market, but I like having that backup safe copy on my computer just in case. Oh, yeah... Just hook the included cable to your computer to charge it and/or move things around. Once attached, it appears as just another disk drive to your computer. Slick! I'm not a gamer. I don't play computer games. Sadly, I downloaded "Medieval Castle Defense" and suddenly I'm hooked on a frickin computer game. Sad... But I'm enjoying it too much. Now... As to the bull about the screen being unresponsive, there's a Latin phrase to deal with it: "Bulbas Defecatus!" If you use a stylus, a pencil, or anything pointy and not abrasive it works GREAT! If you use your finger? What do you expect? You think a FAT FINGER will give you precise control on a little screen? Well, with practice, it WILL... But I tend to use something pointy, especially for that game... And if you question the touch screen's ability, I've done every level of all 9 worlds and have beat every challenge as well. Several times. Better that some with big screen I-pads have been able to do. Hmph. The only con I've had is that it can lock up. Why not? It is a computer, after all. There IS a reset hole, and all you need is a pin (the hole is small) to press reset and you're up and running again. No big deal... Basically, if you're an old fart like me, if you're digitally challenged, if you want a play toy that you won't have to read a manual to be able to use it, get this thingy. It has bluetooth, which means I don't know what, but I have wireless speakers AND headphones for it now and they work great. It doesn't cost that much, and boy, it sure does perform! Try it! You'll love it!

The player itself is very good-looking, however, it has a tendency to freeze. The camera is not very good; it will take pictures but they are not very high quality. I had no problem with using the internet or playing with apps. With music, it was really difficult to fully delete a music file. It had to be deleted from the hard drive of the player and from the library. While connecting player to computer, my Windows Media Player had trouble connecting to it (apparently you have to downgrade to WMP 9 or 10?). I wasn't sure how to search through all of the folders. I ended up returning this and sticking with my MicroPhoto. I thought that the Bluetooth, internet, apps, ability to connect to different things and play different media was very cool and didn't have too many problems, but it wasn't for me. The battery did not last very long either.

I have been using Creative MP3 players for 15 years, all the way back to the 40 Gig hard drive versions. The Zen with its capacity and large bright screen was perfect for family photos. The controls were a little clumsy on the later Xi-Fi version but easily accommodated. An outstanding product overall and was well satisfied for years. This current model however is junk, unusable. The touch screen is dysfunctional and its sensitivity makes it 'not worth the trouble' usable. The screen is somewhat dimmer than earlier models and not even close in clarity, maybe resolution. I waited too long to make the return decision thinking I manage somehow but DO NOT make this mistake. Adding the web browser, a camera, GPS and Wi-Fi were completely unnecessary, a ridiculous decision. A music player is what we are looking for not a personal data collection device. I won't say I completely reject Creative on this basis but pretty close. I will need to spend a lot more time in the future looking and much much less trusting. I hope to replace the battery in my10 year old Zen. At least I have something to disassemble.

While I have had several of Creatives offerings before ( not a mediocre unit in the bunch) I had avoided pursuing an android based mp3 player. Now that traditional or standard non- internet, non phone stamd alone Mp3 players are almost a thing of the past that option was closed. I listen primarily to audio books on these players and do prefer Audible. Creative was indeed always the very best in quality, playback and ease of use. With these considerations I did in November of this year try Sandisk's offering ( bought 4 in 1 month 2 failed completely 1 is now only, mono and the last is fine) give that I returned to creative in the form of the touch 2. The actual hardware and sound is superb. The software is, while understandable average at best. Adding new software at times is a challenge but once done dose perform well, Audible was difficult to initialize ( required usimg create a new account with the old account information) The most appealing feature is it's Bluetooth pure sound capabilities, these are truly at creatives former level, which is superior to most others. Now in the final analysis it am average player but with perseverance it can be a good solid mp3 player. Update after a month of use. ( I updated it to five.stars as well) Now that I've lived with the unit for a little over a month, I thought to include a more complete review. First I have only added Win Amp, a different file app and a 32gb TF car. ( $14.95 on sale). That is all and in this for. the player works extremely we'll. It has never locked up or failed to boot. I am reasonably competent and/familiar withd android and fully expected the single core processor to be slower and have more difficulty dealing with large files such as my Audible library, it reasonable fast and handles all processing needs very well with no lagging. As expected sound quality is superb this after all the main reason for buying a player. What I found most interesting and pleasing is the connection through Bluetooth in my car. The stereo has USB, 3.5mm Aux in as well as Bluetooth. By far the Bluetooth sound is better than any other connection, delivering warm full sound. While the.3.5 works fine it ddoesn't quite have the fullness of streaming, I thought it would be identical but it's not and sound from a USB key played through the front USB connection is another step down. So after a month I'm much happier than I expected to be and thoroughly pleased with my Zen touch 2. Compared to the Sandisk clip+ I purchased 2 of ( one failed 2 weeks) the sound, feel and.durability is better. The Zen takes longer to boot and is heavier and possibly more complicated but all things considered the Zen is by far a better player, especially at the price point. Update at 2 months, as I become more comfortable with the Zen I like better and better. It has not frozen or glitched even once, for an android based item this is somewhat remarkable, it's just part of multiple 3rd party software and the android platform. If there is anything to note it take longer than I would like to connect the Zen to the Dual stereo in my car. It has front 3.5mm input, front USB and of course blue tooth and the blue tooths longer to connect as I say than I like but this isn't out of the ordinary. The telling point is that it produces better sound through this connection than the other inputs. I have no idea if it's the pure sound or what but it is well worth connecting through blue tooth. So at 2 month I am once again completely and enthusiastically satisfied with Creative and the Zen Touch 2 player

I have been a faithful fan of creative, and I was excited to find an Android Device that wasn't a phone. The only remarkable piece for this device is using bluetooth enabled speakers, they sound great. But if you read the rest of my review you will see that it is filled with problems in almost every single area imaginable. I found that the mp3 player on this was subpar, compared to all of Creative's other mp3 players that I have had (I had one break this year, and another one stolen). Many of the mp3s end up playing in considerably worse quality. (ie many of the files skip) If I plug it into the computer to sync it locks up. The battery life is incredibly short. (although some of this has to do with using Wifi, apps etc, it is still amazingly short). The wifi has trouble connecting to many wireless networks. I have yet to have any GPS enabled Apps actually locate me. the GPS, apparently is useless. (and that is what you pay an extra $20 for) The quality of the photos in the camera are awful, and camera app lags significantly. The Android compatibility was initially a problem. There are freeware apps available elsewhere, and creative helps you access them, despite lack of Android Market Integration. I though Amazon Appstore could get me around that, and initially it had numerous problems. After another try several months later, I believe that Amazon fixed the Appstore compatibility, and now it works fine. If the Android Market compatibility is a real problem, downloading Appstore helps one get around that problem. Its truly a shame, Creative's effort here was a big disappointment. Many of the devices functions are manageable, however, considering how mp3s skip it makes it for the disappointment.

Compared to similar products from other major brands out there, the Creative Zen Touch 2 runs about a hundred dollars cheaper than its cheapest competetor. Why is this? Well, in just a couple of days of use, you will quickly learn why the Creative Zen Touch 2 is so much cheaper than other players of its type. The Creative Zen Touch 2 I purchased was the 8GB with the GPS compatibility. What is nice is the SD Card slot. I couldn't resist the idea of putting my 16GB micro SD Card in so I could load up the player with more music. However, the drawback is that when I loaded up the SD card and internal memory up all the way, I experienced serious lagging problems. Even unbearable to someone who has used a dial connection on his home computer most of his life. But, I also know that this issue will occur on just about anything that has some sort of memory storage. So, I deleted a gig and a half of music off of both my sd card and the internal storage (3GB total) and that resolved all of the lagging problems that I had. So far, the device seems solid, right? Well, there are two major annoyances that are the reasons why it is only $89.99. The Creative Zen Touch 2 is an Android device. Therefore, you can download apps and install them, right? Well, yes and no. Creative Zen has a page that they call their "app store" but it is really just a bunch of links to a third party site with random apps that may or may not work with the Creative Zen Touch 2. In my opinion, this isn't really much of a problem except that the Creative Zen Touch 2 (with GPS) does not come with a stock app for use with the GPS functionality. This is irritating! I tried downloading Google Maps but the Google Play Store did not recognize that my Creative Zen Touch 2 was an Android Device and therefore I could not sync it to my Gmail account. I tried some other map apps online but none of them would install correctly on my device. So, I kinda gave up after the third or fourth app I tried installing. The other major issue I had with it is that the music glitches sometimes. Whenever a song finishes playing, sometimes it will replay a split second of the previous song before moving on to the next song. It's kind of annoying but it is not as bad as you would think. I did get used to it believe it or not. haha. Though it is still a major flaw in the player that should not happen considering that this device is supposed to be mainly a music player! Overall, there are those two major problems, however, if you don't let the problems get to you too much, it is worth it just because the price is so much less than other players I have seen new out of the box. It really saddens me to see the decline in quality that Creative Zen has undergone. My previous player was a Creative Zen Vision M and that lasted me seven years before finally shutting down for good. I used to tell people with pride that I owned a Creative Zen when I had a Creative Zen Vision M. Now, I can only tell them that a Creative Zen is a decent economical substitute.

I really wanted this to be a good product, but it isn't. This is without a doubt the biggest piece of junk I have ever seen, it does nothing the product description says, Yeah right! you say, well the thing was frozen most of the time, the apps "forced stop" more often than they worked. It claims to play music and videos, NOPE!, doesn't do that either without freezing up. I never could get the GPS or compass to work even with a paid app. You can't download apps from the Android Market, keeps asking for phone number or gives the message "no device associated with this account". Yes I did update the firmware and all I have to say is, Android 2.2 sucks just about as much as the Zen Touch 2. The folks that give this piece of junk a rating of five stars must work Creative Labs, that can be the only explaination for good ratings and reviews. In the end spend your money on something else...anything else. And if I could have given it zero stars I would have. Oh yeah, the camera sucks too. Nothing good about this so called "multimedia player", it even feels cheap.