Why I buy this one ?
- Superior Home Theater sound quality for all your music, movies, and games
- Rich, high-fidelity, 24-bit audio with 256 times the clarity of your basic notebook sound
- Enjoy music, movies and games in virtual surround on headphones or full surround on 5.1 or 7.1 speakers
- Make your digital music sound dramatically better with EAX ADVANCED HD Music Tools
- Experience game sound effects so realistic that you'll feel like you are actually in the game

howard_tech offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

Price : $229.99 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

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Price : $249.99 Usually ships in 1-2 business days

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Price : $349.99 Usually ships in 1-3 weeks

What our customer's say!

"Excellent card, watch compatibility issues", I got this card for my laptop, a not very expensive one. If I had known some compatibility issues before installing it, I would have been done installing in 30min. But here is the compatibility issue: Windows Vista. I assume it works perfectly in other OS, but in Vista you need to download the drivers, for which there are two options:

-The official one, from Creative Labs. Most of the advanced settings don't work, lots of error messages (I also got a blue screen while installing).

-Non official: easy to find online, an .iso image with just what you need to have more options and software.
Contras: Doesn't include Surround Mixer, Speaker calibration utility, THX console or Equalizer.
Pros: some other options do work, like EAX console and emulation, also includes game compatibility software. (never got a blue screen while installing)

Personally, I installed this non-official ADAPTED creative drivers version, and I'm really happy with the sound (got it working in 30min) and hopefully getting a 7.1 speaker system soon.

Would I recommend it for vista users?
...get a 100% compatible card if you can. You'll be able to use all the software included.

Would I recommend it for XP users?
ABSOLUTELY. It's THX Certified!

"When laptop speakers won't cut it", I've had this card since it was new to the market because my laptop is all I need as far as computing but those laptop speakers just don't cut it for my music passion. I bought some speakers that just plug into the computer but it just doesn't have the capacity to transmit the sound without error so I decided to buy this card and WOW ! it encodes the music into such a pristine state that I have actually had people compliment the sound of my music as better than the exact same CD they have. If you appreciate sound for music or games this card will complete your life.

"Do you need an adapter?", I never got to use mine because I was unaware I needed an adapter to use it on my laptop. Be sure to check the specs. The adapter isn't cheap!

"Creative PCMCIA Card", Great sound, fantastic features.I am using it with DVD playback on my Laptop. Eexcellent product.

"Great addition to my notebook.", This card clears the sound right up on my new logitech z-2300's. Easy enough to install, and the audio software is easy to operate.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Superior improvement over laptop soundcard", I am no expert on soundcards for laptops, and there are many good high quality ones out there. What attracted me to the Audigy 2 was that it was THX certified and offered surround sound. This is not to say that anything not THX certified is bad, but, being a non-expert, I thought this was a safe choice to make.

I'm glad to say that I am extremely pleased with the soundcard - even with the most basic of speakers you can immediately hear the improvement. The great thing is that you can take two sets of computer speakers (or active speakers if you are a hi-fi person) and have one set acting as front speakers and the other as rear speakers and you have a surround sound system (if you don't mind the wires and the need for two power points!). The sound card has an optical input, an optical output, and three minijack connections (one for a subwoofer, one for front speakers, and one for rear ones).

I would recommend (as with most products) downloading the latest software from the Creative website. The latest version can play flac files, which is perfect for me (flac is a lossless compression format like MP3, but unlike MP3 there is no loss of quality). The software also comes with tools such as a graphic equaliser, THX setup (so you can control the volume of each speaker independently based on the angles and distances they are placed), and the standard player and organiser. There are many, but two of the best features that I have found are the ability to cross-fade between tracks, which gets rid of annoying gaps between music tracks that can sometimes occur, and the ability to slow music down but keeping the pitch at the same level. Why the second? I'm learning to play guitar, and it is a superb tool for slowing down those fast solos or awkward rhythm sections for you to play along to.

The only problem I've experienced is that I notice the software can be a bit processor intensive, and my firewall has taking a dislike to it when I try opening web browsers when the player is running. Well, the firewall just needed an additional rule to accept the software, and you can stop unecessary processes, such as the one to continuously monitor folders for new music - you can add music manually.

All in all a great addition to have, especially if you enjoy using your laptop for music or films.

"Great Sound Card", It turned my laptop into the sound that I get on my PC with Audigy 4-- a great product---what they say it will do --- it really delivers

"Excellent sound upgrade for your laptop", I have been using an older laptop as a player for my collection of CDs backed-up to an external hard disk (using lossless Monkeys Audio compression). I used to connect the laptop to the HT receiver via the headphone port. The sound level was low (needed to up the receiver volume way beyond other sources) and the quality was OK.

The card was easy to install, and I first tested it with analog connection to output stereo signal to the receiver. There was, anyway, an increase in signal level and in quality. But I was questioning, at this point, whether the card was worth the investment.

I then got a toslink optical cable (reversible to mini-plugs on both sides) and connected via digital out to the receiver. I was afraid that digital out would only work for playing discs from the laptop's player. But no! All sources come out digital. And now it rocks. Music came alive, detailed, at a volume very close to my DVD player (a bit lower than the CD player though). I'm not sure I'd be able to perceive a difference from the same CD coming from the Marantz CD player.

In summary, well worth the investment when using the digital out connection

"High cost, poor quality", I bought the Sound Blaster PCMCIA card rather than cheaper models because I figured I would get a better sound quality and less problems than a simple USB plug in model and I needed it for my laptop, which has limited USB ports. I wasn't even looking for quality equivalent to my sound card. I simply needed sound from my Gateway laptop because the sound card was no longer working and I would have to replace the entire motherboard to fix it.

Unfortunately, I have been extremely disappointed with this product. First, I had to run it in "standard" rather than "advanced" mode to get it to work. Perhaps with more fiddling I could have gotten it to work in "advanced" mode, but for $100 I expect a plug-and-play. Secondly, even in "standard" mode, I sometimes get all kinds of pops, static and distortion (I tried multiple headphones and speakers, so its the card, not the speakers). There appears to be no rhyme or reason for when it decides to work and when it does not.

The biggest problem I've found is that if I bump the card, which is easy to do since it sticks out about an inch from the laptop, it sometimes causes the computer to crash (the computer is a 2004 Gateway 450RG laptop, running Windows XP Professional). Not just hang up, but a blue screen appears that tells you a fatal error has occurred and the computer promptly restarts so that you lose whatever you were working on in addition to the annoyance of having to restart. It would be one thing to have the Creative Labs software hang-up or crash, but there is no acceptable reason for a $100 hardware card to cause the computer to crash and restart.

I give it one star only because it does produce decent sound most of the time (in "standard" mode) - but what causes it to work poorly the rest of the time remains a mystery.

"Works adequately for Karaoke performances.", I purchased this product because I discovered through the use of an oscilloscope that at sufficiently high volumes, the Pulse Code Modulation in my laptop clips the audio signal of the headphone output above a certain amplitude, producing unacceptable distortion.

The Audigy 2 ZS Notebook offers a decent undistorted volume, but I give it three stars because (1) the Wave Table Synthesis offered with the product (Creative SoundFont Synthesizer) seems to be slightly inferior to the generic Wave Table Synthesis (Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth) available as an option on my laptop. (2) These parameters have to be reset every time I boot up and there seems to be a glitch in the system when I insert the sound card after having booted up. My MIDI player doesn't produce any output under this condition.

The last sound card I owned was a Turtle Beach PCMCIA card which I used with my Packard Bell laptop running Windows 3.1. Turtle Beach seemed to have it all together on this sound card and I've not heard any sound card since which has come up to the quality I enjoyed with that one.

Oliver