Creative Zen Micro Review

The Creative Zen Micro is clearly intended to be a competitor to the Apple iPod Mini. So, are the new colours and designs seriously cool, or totally garish, and overall how does it stack up to the iPod Mini?

Creative seem to have examined the iPod Mini and tried to improve slightly on every area of it in order to gain a competitive edge. It's impossible to know which came first, in terms of who decided to make a mini first, but since the Mini was touted first to the public and launched first (albeit late and not costing the headline grabbing £65 that Steve Jobs, the head of Apple, said it would), it's probably safe to say that Apple lead and Creative followed suit. Is that important? No. What is important is how they compare.

Here is a direct comparison of the key areas:

So, specification-wise, the Zen Micro does not have the obvious edge it had over the original iPod mini, which only came in 4GB, cost more and had only 8 hours of battery time..

The 5GB Zen SE now has 1 GB more capacity than the 4GB mini and the 6GB Zen has the same as the 6GB iPod mini. 50% less battery capacity (12 hrs Vs 18 hrs), but, crucially, the battery in the Zens is a removable battery, and the Zens still have a built-in FM tuner as standard.

All the players use the latest mini hard disks to fit a lot of capacity into a small case. There are other considerations, of course, such as usability and build quality. The build quality of the Zen micro is very good.

When it comes to transferring files from your computer to the Zen Micro a major disappointment is revealed. Luckily it's the same disappointment that comes with every Creative model. You need to use Creative's own rubbish software to transfer the music or data: You can't just plug and play, drag and drop. There is no getting around the need for extra software to drive your Micro in order to connect it to your computer. You can however use Redchair instead.

Creative's player has a vertical touch pad, similar to the vertical slider of the Zen Touch or the scroller of the iPod. Which you prefer is a matter of preference but both mean that there is no bothersome lifting of your digits while you navigate the music and there are no gaps around the buttons to get stuffed with fluff, or biscuit crumbs, and it's harder for buttons to be pressed accidentally.

The Zen Micro has a similar screen to the full Zen. It isn't colour but does have an attractive blue backlit display making it simple to find the tracks and artists you want.

Something everyone says about the Zen micro when they see it: "It's a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be."

To be frank, the touch controls are slightly less responsive than we initially expected, but that would be something that you wouldn't notice after a day or so.

The Zen Micro is available in more colours and has a glowing neon style outer rim that lights up while it is playing. To tell you the truth, the neonesque trim didn't do much for us, but then we're not 12 years old anymore. The film "Tron" was cool when we were 12 and it's almost entirely neon.

The Zen Micro plays WMA, MP3, and WAV files, and is compatible with MSN Music, Napster, MusicMatch, and other online music services as all real jukeboxes should be. Regular customers will know that we have a particular dislike for marketing pap that turns up as fact along with new jukeboxes. Creative have been particularly poor at telling the truth about the number of WMAs you can reasonably expect to listen too on your MP3 player and they clearly see no reason to change their ways as "Zen Micro will store up to 2,500 songs in WMA or 1,250 in MP3 on its 5GB hard disk" You can store them, but you cannot listen to them. At the most you get about 30% more compression using WMA over MP3. That does not result in double the number of tracks! Hilariously they persist with the lie through all the new models of Zen Micro

The portable audio player features FM radio and voice record/playback capabilities - something that you have to pay extra for with other jukeboxes, including all makes of iPod. The micro has some of the nice touches that mean the difference between a gadget and a useful device:

• a sleep timer and alarm, lull yourself to sleep and rock your ass out of bed.
• built-in address book,
• calendar, and to-do list (through Microsoft Outlook).
• Belt clip. For cowboys.

Battery News

The Zen Micro's Battery is now inferior to the iPod Mini's. 12 hours playback versus the iPod mini's 18.

The Achilles heal of LOCKING the battery into the design has been avoided by Creative. They have made the battery replaceable, so now if you are unlucky enough to have a battery fault, you can replace the battery at relatively low expense instead of replacing the whole jukebox at great expense. You can also double the playing time of the Zen by bringing along a spare battery (sold separately).

Conclusions

From a purely technical point of view the Creative Zen Micro seems to nail the iPod Mini still. Both are similarly priced. Which you choose depends on how much you want to own an iPod with its superb build quality and iconic status over a similar specification player that is available in more colours and is designed to be noticed. Honest opinion: you get more for your money and you can do more with the Micro.

The Creative Zen Micro is available in the following colours:
Silver | Black | White | Dark Blue | Red | Light Blue | Orange | Purple | Pink | Purple | Green