| | |  | | Home » Creative ZEN Style 300 MP3 Player 16GB (Black) | | | | | | | Description: | | Pure music on-the-go that's simply stylish Experience pure music and start your own fashion trend with the ZEN Style 300. The ZEN Style 300 is available in three different capacities: 4GB, 8GB and 16GB. Featuring a sleek and bold design with easy-to-access buttons, this tiny wonder will never go out of style. Playback your precious memories in detail and clarity on its 1.8" screen while enjoying your favorite tracks. Features include plug and play, a built-in speaker and even a FM radio! You are able to share and influence others or be the live wire of any party with your tasteful sense of fashion and truly stand out of the crowd. There's more! The ZEN Style 300 is so lightweight you won't even know you have it on you and you would still be able to update yourself on the latest trendy spots and fashion wear. With such distinctive and dynamic features, there is no other worthy of comparison. Have a personal sense of fashion and style with the ZEN Style 300. Relish in one now.  | Sleek and stylish
Make a fashion statement with the ZEN Style 300. A one-of-a-kind player, the ZEN Style 300 is a striking sight to behold for entertainment on-the-move. |  | Impressive built-in speaker
Be the party live wire. Bring the house down as you share your music out loud with the powerful built-in speaker. |  | Photos, videos, music
Make full use of the bright 1.8" TFT 64k-color screen by watching videos of the funniest moments at last weekend's wild party or viewing snapshots of your recent holiday! |  | Drag and drop capabilities
Complicated driver installations or proprietary software aren't necessary anymore! Simply drag and drop your MP3 files from your computer to your ZEN Style 300 and play! Maximize its capabilities by using it as an external storage device to store files and documents. |  | Ideal for travel and commute
Handy and lightweight, carry the ZEN Style 300 around with ease and enjoy non-stop entertainment, with more than 32 hours¹ of continuous audio playback. |  | Built-in FM radio
Stay in touch with everyday news and get traffic updates with the integrated FM radio. Take your pick from the 32 customizable station presets. |  | Record and play
Create voice memos wherever you are - at an important meeting or in a lecture theater. Play the clips back at your convenience anywhere you want! |  | Multiple audio formats supported
Multiple audio formats such as MP3, WMA and Audible 4 are supported, so that you can listen to your music. Download Creative Centrale to rip, transfer and manage your media content easily. |  | Your lifestyle tool
You can use the ZEN Style 300 as your personal organizer. Whip it out from your pocket to display the time, as a handy alarm clock, or even to view your calendar and contacts. |  | Create the right mood
Set audio effects to enhance your overall pure music listening experience. Choose from 8 EQ presets or customize your own EQ options, and enhance it all with bass boost and smart volume effects. |  | Good listening practices
Creative cares about your hearing. Learn more on how to listen smart. |
¹ Based on 128kbps MP3 files. Actual battery life and audio and video playtime will vary with use and settings. Battery has limited recharge cycles. | | | Features: | |
• Built in alarm
• Integrated FM radio
• Personal Memo Recorder
• Built in Speaker
• 1.8" LCD TFT Screen
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 4.08 inches | | Product Width:
| 6.0 inches | | Product Height:
| 1.46 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.33 pounds | | Package Length:
| 5.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 3.3 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.7 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.1 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 60 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 60 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 44 found the following review helpful:
 So Far, So GoodJun 16, 2010
By EJ Cuevas
Pros: Simple to use, fantastic sound quality, nice and compact, keeps me from becoming an iTool.
Cons: No button lock function, a little explanation on how to import video would've been EXTREMELY useful.
Let's get one thing straight: I did not want an iPod. I did not want to be stuck using iTunes for every damn function when a simple drag and drop will suffice. All I wanted was an MP3 player that I could plug in, move music to it, and that would be the end of it.
That said, this is a fantastic little MP3 player. I finally was forced to get a new one since my original 4GB Zen model from 2004 finally died (mournful taps plays off in the distance). The onboard speaker is actually quite potent even when the volume is maxed, and the microphone does a pretty fine job itself when you have use for it. The navigation buttons (the square setup towards the bottom of the player) are responsive and aren't finicky to deal with. The other buttons have a good click to them as well - my one main concern is the choosing to have the play/pause button as the power toggle as well. It being the most used button out of all of them, I can foresee it being worn out in a hurry.
On the cons listed above: the buttons actually take just enough pressure to engage them, so carrying the thing in your pocket won't present a constant "oops" factor, but it would've been nice to lock them with a switch anyway. As for the video import, that requires some software freely available from the Creative website. But let's be honest, anyone trying to watch videos on a screen that's barely 1 inch by 1 inch is either trying to become permanently cross-eyed or feels they're not getting every cent out of their contact/glasses prescription.
Ah, yes, and let's not forget the storage capacity. I have a music collection that takes up... ok, one complete hard drive. But do I need to carry around the entire collection everywhere I go? Absolutely not. 8GB is more than enough to throw my favorite albums/bands/tunes on and listen to it on the go.
Final Word: If you have need for a light on the frills, heavy on the music and easy to use and transport MP3 player, this is it. It's a music player, and that's all it really needs to be.
ADDENDUM:
I should also mention that the earbuds this product comes with are worthless... but such is the nature of earbuds. I, myself, prefer to combine the Zen with some clip on headphones from Sony that I've had for years. Those headphones also have the added wonderment of a retractable cord into each clip, but I digress. Don't judge the sound quality of the Zen based on the earbuds.
55 of 58 found the following review helpful:
 Still some bugs to work outJun 23, 2010
By K. Manuel
"colcat"
I listen exclusively to audiobooks that I download from the state's library site using Overdrive. Overdrive manages both mp3 and dwma formatted files, each about an hour long.
In the past, I have used the creative muvo, sansa clip, and Sony (the screen quit, and it was too costly to replace even though it was still under warranty, shame on you Sony). I have been most happy with the zen Mosaic, and I will use this as a basis for comparison on this review.
Button Layout (style 300 wins) The Mosaic buttons were designed to be stylish, not functional. If the Mosaic is in my pocket and I receive a phone call, I must take it out of my pocket, look at the player to find the button and press it. The Style has a better layout and I can find the most important buttons (on-off, volume, forward/backward) by sense of touch.
On-Off Button (Mosaic wins) On the Mosaic, you slide a button on the side of the unit. On the Style, you press down the button on the far right of the line of buttons under the screen. The difference is in how fast the unit starts up. If you have used the Mosaic in the past 20 minutes or so and then turn it on, the unit plays almost instantly. The Style requires you to press the button down for about 7 seconds before it starts up. It takes the same amount of time if you had used it one minute ago or one month ago, definitely a step down from the Mosaic.
Lock Button (Mosaic wins) Unlike the previous review, the style does have a lock feature. You press down the menu button (the second one from the right on the line of buttons under the screen) and press the square toggle button up once and press the center button. This works, but is more time consuming and complicated than the Mosaic, where you slide the on-off button up for a couple of seconds to enable the lock. Turning off the Moziac when the buttons are locked is also easier. You just slide down the on-off button and hold it until it turns off. With the Style, you must press a button and then follow the instructions on the screen....and then then press and hold the on-off button.
Pause Button (Mosaic wins) I can't help but believe that this is a bug in the style that hasn't been fixed yet. When you press the pause on the style and then get delayed so the unit automatically turns off, when you turn it on again, it starts at the beginning of the track and not where you paused it. (this run-on sentence is why I was not an English Major) This is very annoying when you are 45 minutes into an audiobook track. On the Mosaic, the player starts up where you paused it in all situations.
Transferring Files from Overdrive (Mosaic wins) When I transfer audiobooks to the Mosaic using Overdrive, it creates a new folder in the music directory with the author's name. If you transfer multiple books from the same author, the books are created in separate folder within the author's folder. Pretty slick! The only irritant is that the folders are sorted in the authors FIRST name. With the Style, it dumps the individual tracks into the root directory. I then get an error that the license is not valid and the book will not play. I must manually move the files into the music subdirectory. Even then, you end up with hundreds of individual track files to sort through when deleting a book I am finished using. I contacted Creative support about this problem. Since they make both the Mosaic and the Style 300 and the latter model is supposed to be an upgrade of the former model, I thought that someone at Creative had solved the Overdrive issue on the Mosaic and could also fix it on the Style. (another run-on sentence) No luck. Despite several email exchanges, they had no clue what I was talking about and their final solution involved me manipulating ID3 tags and such.
Final analysis. I like the radio and speaker on the style, which isn't on the Mosaic. For functionality listening to audiobooks though, the Mosaic wins. Hopefully these will be fixed in future firmware upgrades, but for now, I'm sticking to my Mosaic.
23 of 23 found the following review helpful:
 Great little MP3 playerJul 26, 2010
By Kathryn A. Parker
"music guru"
I bought this about a month ago and have had no real problems! After my Archos 605 died, I went around Amazon looking for a decent, under $100 MP3 player with a flash drive. After deciding to leave Archos (their cheap players didn't get great reviews), this looked the best for its price, the Creative Mozaic had good reviews and CNET liked both players. I've used Creative before so I wasn't very worried about interface (user or PC).
It has great sound quality (very typical for the Creative players I've had over the years), including the speaker. Seems fairly durable, I've dropped it once (onto carpet, not concrete) and it was fine. The FM player is an added bonus, but requires headphones to get reception and the scan is horrendous. It will pick up the usual local radios, but you have to scroll through and then program them in by hand. Per usual, Creative's included software was horrendous, but it syncs through Windows Media Player easily and you can drag and drop. The display is very decent for its size and price. I wouldn't recommend watching videos on it, but who wants to on a screen that small? Unlike some reviews, you CAN lock the buttons, but only during play time. A specific slide hold button would be a good addition if they do an update eventually, but the buttons aren't overly sensitive so its not going to turn on in your pocket.
Pros:
-Good Sound quality
-Great price
-Easy interface (I'm 19 and have used Creatives before, so it wasn't an issue like it seems to be with some)
-Battery life
-I'm not worried about my hard drive getting warped, scratched, etc. (I came from an Archos 605)
Cons:
-Bad Creative software
-FM scan sucks (but Radio overall if decent, just know your local stations)
Neutral:
-I love the memory size I got, the reality is I don't need to carry around 30 MB (or 16 MB for that matter) of music at one time and would rather save the money. However, having the availability to get a higher memory was nice.
-No hold when powered down.
-Earbuds suck, but packaged ones typically do, so no surprise.
-Speaker. I'd be happy to drop a few bucks off the price to lose it, but I wanted the ability to have a radio if I so wanted.
11 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 I was wrong - I do not love this thingSep 26, 2010
By Carol J. Birkland
Initially, I loved this thing. Using WMP it was easy to rip and sync. However, when it came time to create playlists and transfer them, everything went to hell. I downloaded Creative Centrale - the software that is supposed to manage music, etc. It just does not work. I have registered the product. My computer recognizes the device, but when I try to transfer a play list I get the message that there is no device - when the device is sitting there hooked into my lap top.
I did everything that e-mail tech told me to do.....of course there is no phone number to talk to a human being. I reinstall Creative Centrale....nothing.
It seems the only way to create playlists on this thing is to totally ignore any software and manually create the playlists only on the device itself....which is a HUGE pain.
If I could send this thing back, I would. Everything else about it...the look, the sound quality, I like, but there are serious bugs here and just go on the internet to hear all of the static about folks having this same issue.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Better than expectedDec 24, 2010
By Sharon Moskovic
"Metal_MIlitia2"
I have purchase many MP3 players from creative and for the most part I have been satisfied with my purchases. I have gone through 3 zens already so this time around I figured I'd go with a less expensive model because I assume that this one will break down after a few months like the others. Well I've only had it for a day but I must say that I am impressed with what I got for just 70 dollars. This is an awesome player for that cheap. The battery life seems to be amazing (32 hrs?) and the built in speaker is powerful and 16gb is a good amount of memory. There is no hold button and the "on/off" button is now the "play" button. One of my biggest problems with the older zens was the ridiculous software that came with it. It was very complicated and was retarded, my songs would get renamed, there would be spelling errors in the title tracks, random album artwork would display that had nothing to do with the track that was playing... That has been eliminated with the new "drag and drop" style. You open up the zen as a hard disk and drag the songs in, no headaches anymore- that is good know. The unit looks pretty cool and it is SMALL, roughly half the size of the x-fi but that is not an issue. The buttons are almost the same layout as the old zen (not the x-fi w/ 13 buttons). Simple to use and works great (so far), looks like a good purchase.
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