I remember when I first moved to Japan, flying over the Pacific, Zen in hand. I knew that it would be a long flight, followed up by years of riding around in trains. That's why I bought a Zen. It had a bigger screen than an iPod, a battery that you could change, and it used standard cables.

It served me well, but like all personal electronics I carry around with me everywhere, it broke after a year or so. Enter the second Zen I bought. This one had a wider screen, but was otherwise identical to the first. I loved it! There's not a train line in Tokyo I didn't ride with it.

But alas after an unfortunate drop, it too died. I found myself returning to Creative to buy my third Zen--this newest model called the Zen X-Fi 2.

Well the Zen X-Fi 2 sucks. It really sucks hard. Like major donkey balls. Okay I'll give you the details.

At first it seemed cool. Touch screen, light weight. The X-Fi 2, as you can see from the picture, is actually the size of the old model's screen. Yet I still found it big enough to be comfortably viewable. Then I tried to watch a video on it. At first I thought it was a problem with the video file--the movie kept on skipping and jumping.

After repeated tests, it become clear. The Zen X-Fi 2 is a piece of crap. Sure if you're watching a drama where there are just people talking on screen, it looks fine. But any sort of sudden movement or random action causes the damn thing to freeze, skip and jitter.

The piece of crap couldn't handle the intro to Big Bang Theory--which is one of my favorite montages. Why would Creative make two previous Zens that could play it just fine, then a piece of crap device that couldn't?

Neither can it play the introduction to The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, or even Family Guy without skipping. Bottom line is if you're planning on watching video of any sort, stay away from this now tainted product line.

Mourning the loss of the Zen--a once great product now fallen.