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47 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
Great value player that will meet most needs
By Justin Tyler
I have read some of the reviews here before purchasing the player and in spite of being admonished of all the cons, i decisive to take a gamble for it is price and Creative's brand name. I had a great deal of original difficulties with the Bluetooth feature with the M300 but these were resolved when I upgraded the firmware to the latest one (1.00.16) from the Creative website. There are a lot of things that this player cannot do but for those that it can, it does it beauteous well.
12 of 12 persons found the following review helpful.
Value-for-money compact player that delivers
By Molotov Mocktail
FIRST THINGS FIRST / TIPS:
1. Download the latest firmware from Creative's help webpage. What I got was in all probability the middle batch at 1.00.09. The latest firmware is 1.00.16 and comparatively easy to update.
2. Don't press the so-called "buttons" with brute force. Just make sure your finger taps the markings gently and you'll be fine.
POSITIVES:
1. Very easy Bluetooth pairing routine (enter the universal default code of 0000). It remembers your paired widgets after switching off and automati connects to the last paired device (it does take among 5 and 10 seconds to reconnect and begin streaming your music thru BT)
2. Commands (play/pause/track selection/volume) don't lag by way of Bluetooth and overall, the player works perfectly with my car speaker and headphones
3. Drag-and-drop songs into the "Music" folder. I hate itunes style syncing so this is actually in truth useful.
4. Good battery life for my commutes and long/medium haul flights
5. Mac aid (officially it only supports Windows but I could drag-and-drop songs from my Macbook Air into the player, as well as from my Windows PC of course)
6. Simple, easy-to-use interface even without calling for the manual
7. FM Radio but only with a wired headphones connection
8. Value for money
NEGATIVES:
1. Short USB cable (ok to charge by way of your PC's USB but not too practical from a wall socket)
2. Average quality included earphones but I guess not a single soul in truth uses stock earphones anyway so this might not bother you that much
3. Mediocre video but on such a tiny screen nothing's going to look good. Probably the screen's only meant for album art (there's a video included with a making something publicly available of a heap of Creative merchandise but it's so tiny.. why do they even include it??).
4. No FM Radio over Bluetooth (this function requires an antenna, which are your wired earphones... so you can't stream radio wirelessly)
EVALUATION:
It's not a perfective product but at this price point it does deliver what I need (Bluetooth and drag-and-drop capabilities). Obviously there are flaws but are in general those that I won't lose sleep over. If you're looking to stretch your dollar (nothing to be penitent of in this economy!) and don't like to get ripped off, this is the product for you. If you like to splurge, you'll know that there are other more glamorous options.
13 of 15 humans found the following review helpful.
Good player for the money
By TomK1
The Creative Zen Style M300 is a decent little MP3 player with ambitions to become a low-cost substitute to the iPod. Out of the box, you get the player (which is nicely styled), a USB cable, and a lot of headphones. Truthfully, I didn't undertake the headphones, as they're basic, cheap in-ear headphones. For comparison sake, I applied my Koss PortaPros which I've listened with for years and they gave me a basis for comparing it to my collection of mp3 players.
The packaging promises a lot: in addition to MP3 music, you get Bluetooth connectivity, videos, pictures, audiobooks, and FM radio. A great feature set, and for the money, packs rather a punch.
The touch screen is simple, intuitive, and reasonably sharp and bright for it is size, it is one of the best features of the player. Most humans will find their way around this player in beneath 30 seconds, it is that intuitive.
As you connect the M300 to a Windows 7 PC, the player looks like a portable drive, and in truth it acts that way. If you want, you may just drag and drop songs. The instructions say you may use WinAmp if you want; I like using MediaMonkey as it will mechanically convert songs to the suitable format (MP3). The players instructions assert it will aid the old-style Windows DRM formatted music; as I have any copy-protect music, I didn't have an probability to test that feature.
The sound was satisfying with sufficient volume, and good clarity. The touch screen gives you the capacity to adjust the EQ to suit your music and listening tastes.
However, be careful if you fill the player completely; while it will not lock up, it will not boot up, claiming you have it too full. I had to use Windows Explorer to delete a few songs. From then on, I employed the Micro-SD slot to add to the capacity.
The FM radio is somewhat sensitive; I use it mainly to access the in-gym broadcasts of the TV sound, and it worked fine for that purpose.
Audio books work fine, provided they're MP3 format.
Video works okay provided: (a) You don't mind looking at low-res video on the tiny screen (b) you have an avi file that you would like to use that (c) may be converted to a format I'd never heard of, SVN. In fact, the converter Creative furnishes on their web site would charitably described as "in development"
Bluetooth is a puzzle to me, and one that left me most disappointed. I assumed that Bluetooth would let me connect with a computer and transfer files. To put it simply: it does not work that way. In fact, the computer will only from time to time see the M300, and when I connected, I couldn't actually do anything with it. After digging through the instructions a bit, Bluetooth is only for connecting speakers to it, or in the case of your car, if you aid streaming stereo music through your car's stereo, it works great.
Battery life is outstanding (I got 9 hours listening to music), and it charges quickly.
So what may you say in regards to this player? If you compare it to an iPod, you're actually not being fair. This player is 1/3 the price, and while it lacks the polish of the Apple product, it does everything you need it to. In fact, it is become my bestloved player for taking to the gym. The combining of low price, good feature set, wireless connectivity to cars with Bluetooth, great sound and long battery life make this worth a look if you're more concerned with usable features than style.
Provided your expected values are reasonable, you'll like this player.
NOTE: I had to upgrade the firmware of the player to improve the stability of Bluetooth. Your version may come with the most recent firmware, but if it doesn't, you may go to the Creative website. Upgrading is trivial.
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