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By Edvarcl Heng, CNET Asia
Jun 21, 2006

This is by far the cutest MP3 player Creative has come up with so far. It's small, smooth, colorful and charming--traits not commonly associated with the MP3 world, but which have found a home in the Zen V Plus. Pundits have long been waiting for a iPod nano-sized version of the successful Creative Zen Vision:M, and the Zen V Plus looks to be a plausible challenger to the flash-based MP3 player throne.

Editors' note: The Zen V Plus and the Zen V are both color coded to represent different storage capacities. Orange for 1GB, green for 2GB and blue for 4GB. We originally indicated that the Zen V Plus was capable of FM recording. In fact, it supports only voice and line-in recording. (29/06/06)

Design
Look at it. Sweet is what comes to mind. That's an adjective we rarely use in consumer tech. But the Zen V Plus deserves the tag. Our review unit was all smooth and glossy with rotund curves that reminded us of the Zen Micro, with the only difference being that the Zen V Plus is a lot smaller. At 67.5 x 43.5 x 15.9mm and a miniscule 43.5g, we thought it could have been named the Zen Miniature as well.

	That's one cute player

What makes the Zen V Plus different from the rest of the flash-based MP3 crowd is Creative's refreshing use of colors. The Singapore firm's previous insistence on featuring 10 different colors for each of its MP3 players seems to have livened its brush strokes. The Zen V Plus is an all-glossy affair with green accents on the joystick and the volume rocker, adding a touch of life to its clinical white. The white shade, incidentally, is rather susceptible to dirt and smudges.

The two tactile buttons borrow design cues from the Zen Vision:M's single-piece faceplate, and we are glad the loan ends right there; unlike the Vision:M, the V Plus uses a mini-USB port for connectivity rather than a proprietary jack. We noted, however, that the volume rocker as well as the two tactile buttons can get a tad squeaky. The Zen V Plus simply doesn't possess the same solid tactile quality as the Zen Vision:M.

	Zen Vision:M, that's the man

Despite the resemblance to both its award-winning predecessors, the Zen V Plus is still a lost cousin--it lacks the trademark touch strip. The touch-sensitive control has long been the domain of Creative's flagship MP3 players and a key differentiator between the Singapore firm's wares and its competitors'.

The replacement here is a quad-directional joystick that's designed just a little differently from the ones employed in the MuVo S200 and the MuVo Vidz, but which bears no significant functional improvements. The joystick, despite decent tactile feedback, feels plasticky, at least to us, and to some people even… flimsy. But surprisingly, it's very responsive. Fat fingers, thin noggins, all no problems. The joystick recess and the shortness of the control nub probably help in increasing sensitivity, but we noted that the exposed innards of the nub will probably become a dust trap with constant usage.

	The original Zen design that started the whole thing

The user interface (UI) is very organic and logical. First-time users should have no trouble picking it up. Creative has retained pretty much the same UI used in the Zen Vision:M. Nudging right on the joystick will bring the user one layer deeper into the menu. It's the reverse when we shift right. But this didn't always work. We could not use the joystick to return us to the main menu from the photo gallery, and had to resort to the Back button instead.

Holding down the Return button brings up the contextual menu relevant to the current feature. Again, as we had noted during music playback in the Zen Vision:M, Creative appears to have neglected including an equalizer option in the menu.

The Zen V Plus uses a 1.5-inch OLED screen, and frankly, this is pretty sharp when it comes down to videos.

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