Customer Reviews on Amazon.com

1. 25 of 34 people found this review helpful

   By James Ko on Amazon.com 31 December, 2010

   I returned mine

   I was thinking of numerous headlines for this review:
   
   1. Not ready for prime time
   2. Wait for version 3.0
   3. You get what you pay for
   
   Ultimately, I settled on "I returned mine"
   
   I actually wanted the Dell Streak, even though I don't need/want its phone capabilities, but the price/size ratio is daunting, so when the Ziio came out with a bigger screen for less than half the price I pulled the 'buy' trigger.
   
   Out of the box, well, I wasn't in love with the white color, but since I was going to put it in the black leather case (well designed, btw) it was fine. I fired it up and it seemed to work fine. Unlike with my experience with the Creative Zen X-Fi 2 the touchscreen was responsive, highly satisfying, maybe even a little too responsive when scrolling. I got it to connect to my wireless router, after punching in the password about three times. I even managed to download the BBC News app.
   
   The problems started showing up the moment I began to download pics, videos and music to the thing. (BTW, 16 gigs is inadequate, what's the excuse when the Zen X-Fi2 comes with 32 gigs?) ZiiExplorer could not see anything that I had downloaded. It was only after a reboot that the contents showed up, even then ZiiExplorer was sluggish and not at all intuitive. Even after the reboot half of the images did not show up, the Ziio had to think about it for awhile before everything showed up. ZiiMusic fared better, with every song showing up and it worked fine, if not quite as responsively as it would on the Zen. Jack of all trades, master of none.
   
   ZiiVideo. I downloaded the Thor 1080 Quicktime trailer and it would play, but no sound. I fiddled with the volume controls. I ticked off every box on the Pure Android Audio controls. It was only after a couple of reboots that the sound returned. A Shania Twain WMV video repeatedly caused ZiiVideo to crash, this after pixelating like mad.
   
   A couple of days later the Ziio stopped recognizing my wireless router. It would say the connection was "remembered" but, curiously, "out of range". The router was sitting no more than two feet away. It would see every other wireless connection in my condo/neighborhood, however. When it was working the browser was just OK, but not real intuitive, so I was hoping Opera (my preferred browser) would make a version for Android. Reboots did nothing to solve the problem.
   
   I don't know if it is Android or the hardware, but things quickly went sideways. The on-screen keyboard shrunk itself for no apparent reason, squeezing itself into 1/3rd the usual size. The home, menu and return buttons either lost or switched functionality. Pressing home brought up the menu, pressing menu did nothing, pressing return brought up the shrunken keyboard.
   
   Creative needs to up its game in the support department. I repeatedly visited both Creative.com and CreativeZiio.com looking for support. Unbelievably, Creative.com's support page didn't know about the Ziio, while CreativeZiio.com is woefully lacking in both content and support. I ultimately did reach a support guy and his first email suggested I free up memory and he asked if I could connect previously. I already had said it could.
   
   Bottom line, I'm hoping my unit was a lemon but I wasn't inclined to turn it into lemonade.
2. 13 of 17 people found this review helpful

   By T. G. Bentzley on Amazon.com 23 November, 2011

   Save your money

   I've been a Creative labs customer for over 25 years. I've owned several SoundBlaster boards and currently have 3 of their mp3 players. Because of my positive experience with their mp3 players I purchased the ZiiO 10 inch tablet. It's been a major disappointment. I had trouble getting a sdmicro card to work with the unit. I even bought one that is on their "recommended" list. Battery life is very poor, watch a video (1 hour), play some games and listen to some music and you need to recharge after 5-6 hours. I owned the unit for 6 days then the on/off button stop working, the battery was fully charged but the unit would not turn on. Needless to say I return it!
3. 4 of 5 people found this review helpful

   By Boyd King on Amazon.com 12 February, 2012

   Expensive Angry Birds Game!!!!!

   I bought this thing thinking that it would be able to run all the android applications. However, there are only limited applications that are compatible and Android Market is not able to download unless you hack this thing and shell root.
   
   Applications can only be downloaded from the Ziio site and they have a very small selection of unpopular apps. Tried to use Getjar, but they arent much better.
   
   Dont even think about netflix. Not compatible.
   
   Gave it to my six year old to play angry birds and bought a real tablet.
   
   Dont waste your money.
4. 4 of 5 people found this review helpful

   By flatlander on Amazon.com 15 January, 2012

   Screen cracks easily

   The glass on this product cracks very easily. Both mine and my brother's are broken, and neither of us treat our posessions poorly. I'm SO disappointed that after only one month of use, this tablet is now garbage!
5. 1 of 1 people found this review helpful

   By Yerba Fallasee on Amazon.com 9 March, 2013

   Six months later it was toast

   I convinced my daughter that this would be a better way to spend her $160 than a refurbished iPod, which was what she really wanted. She worked so hard for her money, that I wanted her to get the most for it.
   Right away, this tablet was not as responsive as she expected. It needed to be turned off then back on fairly often due to apps that would freeze. Then the power switch stopped working about four months after purchase.
   It didn;t help, of course that she lost the power cord at that same time. Please realize that a new power cord from the company at that time would have cost us $40. This device can be charged through the mini USB.
   Speaking of the mini USB, my daughter bought a keyboard to plug in when she bought this device, but plug in keyboards do not work with this device. A nice afterthought.
   The clock kept resetting,causing trouble with all the apps.
   And now it charges and turns on, but will not go off the home screen. I have searched the ziio site, but have not gleaned any helpful information.
   As far as I'm concerned, this item was a waste of money when it was $120, and it is twice that waste now.
6. 3 of 4 people found this review helpful

   By Indy James on Amazon.com 27 March, 2012

   Don't buy

   I bought this for the media use including the Apt-x capability. Long story short, it is the least used among my 5 or more tablets. Why? This device is locked in to proprietary software. No Android Market. What you are left with is a budget device that you cannot really enjoy because by being greedy, Creative managed to limit their customers to options that are way below what the Android ecosystem offers. The build quality is also sub-par. The upgraded firmware is buggy. Ergo...don't buy. 1 star is not an exaggeration.
7. 5 of 7 people found this review helpful

   By 2207marlow on Amazon.com 18 January, 2012

   Worst Post Sales Service Ever!!

   I purchased the Creative Ziio 7 16gb tablet as a 2011 christams gift for my son. It took about 8 days to be shipped to me. On Christams day it was placed on charge after my son unwrapped it, as per the start-up instructions. It was clearly faulty as the screen would not boot up once fully charged. My son was gutted, and it needed to be returned. This is where the fun starts! Creative have NO facility for you to ring up a customer services team. If you want advice on a product, want to return an item for a refund, or want to make a complaint, its hopeless and it became apparent over the following weeks that they just arent interested and make return of an item and refund of your purchase fee as complicated and drawn out as possible. You wait days for them to respond to any online query - you cant return an item until they send you a return authorisation code and print-off address label, so you are delayed waiting for that. When they receive your item they do not confirm receipt, despite what royal mail tracking may be telling you about delivery date. They insist...would you believe..that you must send them a 'scanned' copy of your return postal receipt, otherwise you cannot reclaim the postage fee. Then, to top it all, they tell you that you must wait a further 30 days from them receiving the item back, before you will have the monies refunded to your bank account. The whole experience is truly dreadful and I urge all readers - BOYCOTT THIS COMPANY AND DO NOT BUY ANY PRODUCTS FROM THEM WHATSOEVER.
8. 2 of 3 people found this review helpful

   By fred m ball on Amazon.com 16 January, 2012

   no working device

   devicelocked up afetr firts use and was not usable , not able to turn device off to reset it not able to go forward, so i was very unhappy with this device, i usually like creative products but this was a bust
9. By Fernando C. Cardoso on Amazon.com 6 May, 2013

   well it was one of those awful tablets from the beggining of the tablet era

   to think about it now that it is a 2 years product is an exercise more about our production system than about the gadget. i got it in the fresh moments of the tablet "revolution" and even then it was awful. those guys found a way to sell bad hardware in an apparently fair format and creative was a know name in the middle of the copycat market (i was surprise the brand i remembered from the soundblaster and multimidia kits was still alive). the android system shipped with it was not the real thing but an imitation without access to the google store and so on. pretty slow stuff too. it was holding papers in my home when i recovered it and thought about leaving this few words that probably nobody will ever read!
10. By ZurisMommy on Amazon.com 14 August, 2012

    No Go

    This tablet is pretty useless. You'd be better off using your cell phone to access the internet because that's about all this tablet does. Forget about adding any apps and within 8 months its completely dead. Barely used it because of the lack of functionality and it still crapped out in less than 8 months. I should have forked over the extra cash for a Kindle or IPAD. I bought it for my father for Xmas and I am so disappointed that it's a worthless gift.