Zen Micro: Creatively Packing In More Features but not in a iPod Zen state yet.
Written: Nov 24 '04 (Updated Mar 27 '05)
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Pros: $249 gets 5GB, FM radio, built-in mic, removable battery, comparable size to iPod
Cons: Touchpad interface needs some work, design hit or miss
The Bottom Line: If ease of use is your number one concern, take a closer look at the iPod mini... if features are, the Zen Micro is the more value packed player.
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Creative Labs Zen Micro (5 GB) Black MP3 Player |
It's inevitable that the iPod would get some serious competition... and it is just as inevitable that all future mini-hard drive players be compared to the iPod and the iPod mini. Until some MP3 player bests the iPod, this will always be the case for mini-hard drive based MP3 players. You can pack in more features but looks, feel, and usability still rule the day.
Creative has introduced the Zen Micro in a swirl of 10 colors with the intent of taking down the iPod mini. Well, there are some things that Creative has done better than the iPod and things that it can't touch on the iPod.
Short Take
In the end, I think the iPod mini just edges out the Creative Zen Micro. The strength of the iPod mini has always been the intuitive controls through the click wheel. I don't think I've found any interface on a MP3 player easier to use that the iPod click wheel... period. The Zen Micro is using a tweaked version of their touchpad technology from the Zen Touch. It's decent and beats many other interfaces on other MP3 players out there but still it pales against the iPod mini in that respect. The learning curve and adjustment period to the Zen Micro's touch pad interface is much steeper than that of the iPod and still needs to be tweaked.
However, the Creative Zen Micro offers quite a number of features that equal or crush the iPod mini. Actually, it is quite a list of things. The extras on the Zen Micro make it a very compelling player for the masses. You have built-in FM tuning with 32 presets, a built-in microphone for dictations, the ability to make recordings of FM stations, and about an extra 1GB of space for music or files. Don't forget the removable lithium-ion battery and the 10+ hours of battery life the Zen Micro gets from a full charge. Add to this sound as good as or slightly better than the iPod mini, the Zen Micro is at least competitive.
It now depends on how much the features of Zen Micro take precedence over the ease of use from the iPod mini. I do suspect that the more inituitive controls of the iPod mini will win over customers over the Zen Micro but those that the additional time to accustomize themselves to the Zen Micro's touchpad will find a very strong MP3 player indeed!
Pros:
Almost 5 GB of space (you lose a little of the 5GB to formatting of the drive and the operating software), FM tuning, built-in recording features, small size, removable lithium-ion battery, approximately 10+ hours of battery life, and compact pocketable size.
Cons:
The build feels a bit cheaper than the Rio Carbon and cheaper than the iPod mini, Touchpad interface not as good as iPod's Clickwheel, some of the colors available look too neon-like with the Zen Micro's blue backlight for the screen and the controls. First runs of this product will come in black, silver, and dark blue.
Bonus:
If you are able to buy one of the first 35,000 units, you will get an extra lithium-ion battery in the package! It makes the first 10,000 Zen Micros a limited edition run in a way.
Styling the Zen Micro Way
The Zen Micro is Creative's latest mini-hard drive MP3 player with dimensions of 3.3" x 2.0" x 0.7" versus iPod mini 3.6" x 2.0" x 0.5". Nearly comparable size... where the iPod mini is slightly taller and a bit thinner. The Zen Micro had a better feel if you have big hands compared to the iPod. The Zen Micro weighs 3.8 oz which is slightly heavier than the iPod mini (3.6 oz.). The Zen Micro is made of plastic however giving it a less solid feel than the iPod mini's brushed aluminum casing. Only the front is colored (up to 10 colors to choose from although only 3 are available that I know of at the time I write this). For the most part, there are very few extra switches on the Zen Micro... the unit is controled strictly through the touch panel (Unless you buy the wired remote). The top of the unit holds the few extras in the form of a power/hold switch as well as the headphones/wired remote jack and USB 2.0 mini-jack.
The display is roughly the same size as the iPod mini with a blue backlighting... the same blue backlighting extends to the buttons on the touchpad and the front edges of the unit. It gives a trendy neon lit look. The text on the display was quite clear although the iPod mini's whiter backlight made the iPod mini slightly easier to read in comparison. For the spec conscious, the screen is a 160x104 pixel screen.
The back of the unit has a removable panel for the removable lithium-ion batteries. Yup... you can actually change the batteries in the Zen Micro. This is a major design win over other mini-hard drive based MP3 players like the iPod mini, Rio Carbon, and Archos Gmini 400.
How About Facing the Music
With the same MP3 loaded into my iPod mini and the Zen Micro and using the same headphones for both units... I think the Zen Micro slightly edges out the iPod mini. Creative rates the Signal to Noise Ratio at 98dB and I believe the iPod mini is 95-96dB. Technically, the Zen Micro is slightly better than the iPod mini... so you probably won't notice. Microsoft's WMA music file format is a pretty good format... but I still prefer Apple's AAC based format. Apple's AAC playback seemed crisper to me... but this is user's preference. The Zen Micro can pump out the tunes quite loudly.
One note, the included ear buds stink (Okay, after a month with the Zen Micro now... the ear buds aren't that bad... I think their a little worse than the iPod buds in any case). Think about getting a better pair to go with the Zen Micro.
By the way, since the Zen Micro is a 5GB player versus the iPod mini's 4GB, you can store just a bit less than 1 GB of music files over the iPod mini. That can be a great boon to many.
As of now, the Zen Micro only supports MP3, WMA, and WAV music file formats only.
Controls?
Everything goes through the touch pad (unless you bought the wired remote from Creative). The touch pad is broken up into 6 sections... play, fast forward, reverse, the selection slider, options, and back (for the on-screen menu). The sensitivity of touch pad can be adjusted but I did find the slider to be significantly harder to use than the iPod on my first couple of uses (I would install the latest firmware which improved the touchpad interface quite considerably). You would repeatedly slide your finger or thumb down the slider to scroll down your list of songs/choice/menu options. The nice thing is that the slider allows to to get close to your desired song even in a big list... but it was difficult navigating the list for a single line at a time (This became easier with the firmware updates). I still feel that the iPod and iPod mini still has the best interface for cycling through a large list of songs... hands down. With Apple patenting the scroll wheel and the click wheel interface, no one is going to copy it for quite a long time. Overall, the touchpad is decent but not outstanding (the recent firmware for the Zen Micro bring the touchpad to average to above average with the iPod clickwheel still being my standard).
Note that the above was written with the Zen Micro running firmware 1.00.05. The controls tightened up a bit with firmware 1.01.03 (which is a good thing!) and I'm much happier with the control scheme now.
Menu choices are standard Creative fare... and more or less similar to many other MP3 based players. Some choices can be buried under layers of menus but overall, it's not overly annoying. Note that the menus are rather customizable (though the extras selection on the player) and the Zen DJ option is quite nice to have (shuffle play through your whole collection, play the most recent songs, play the ones you commonly listen to, play the ones you don't listen to... note that the random play often repeats songs you've just heards while on random play).
By the way, like the iPod and iPod mini, the Zen Micro has no direct volume controls. It is controlled through the slider... and this can be a problem it you have difficulty in adjusting to the sensitivity of the slider (and blow your ears out). The volume controls run up to 25 levels... level 12-15 is more than sufficient level with supplied earphones (if there is no other ambient noise in the area).
FM?
Like many other Creative MP3 players, you have a FM option. In the Zen Micro, it is built-in instead of a wired remote add-on. You can have up to 32 presets. For the most part, reception is decent... just about what you would expect on a walkman, CD player, or flash memory based MP3 player. Remember that the earphone wires act as the units antenna... so you don't get much reception if nothing is plugged into the headphone jack (unless the radio signal is exceptionally strong (this begs of why you wouldn't have something plugged in since you can't hear the radio station otherwise!). Regardless, the FM tuner is quite nice to have.
In addition to listening to FM stations, you can directly record them to the Zen Micro. Unfortunately, they are saved in large WAV files... which Creative claims that the Zen Micro will allow about 10 hours of recording on an empty Zen Micro. Regardless, if you need your FM, the Zen Micro is a ridiculously strong contender in this catagory.
The autoscan feature will pick up stations with a strong signal only... so using the autoscan if you're in basement is a bad idea! It is rather easy to set the frequencies on your own and save them to one of the 32 presets.
Voice Recording?
You can dictate into the Zen Micro via the built-in microphone. Unfortunately, it is still saved into the WAV file format limiting recordings to a max size of 10 hours if the unit is completely blank. This is another nice feature over the iPod but takes a step back from prior Creative players like my older Creative NOMAD II MG which saved to a compressed file format.
Record quality is excellent especially when speaking directly into the microphone. I felt that it best picked up speakers up to 12 feet away if you wanted the recording to sound clear. Note that far away speakers can be easily muffled by noises closer to the Zen Micro.
Extra Options?
The Zen Micro equips an alarm clock just like the iPod mini with the addition of waking up to FM stations as well. It makes a good portable alarm clock like the iPod mini with portable speakers.
The Zen Micro Media Explorer software allows you to sync MS Outlook information into the Zen Micro. It also allows you to somewhat use the Zen Micro as a USB hard drive.
As A Hard Drive?
If you choose this option on the Zen Micro menu, you can take a portion of the Zen Micro's hard drive as dedicated storage space (cannot be used for music playback files). Up to 2 GBs can be alloted (leaving you with as little as 3GB for music files... well lower than 3 GBs really). This partition on the Zen Micro is formated to be read by Windows as an external drive. Any songs placed on this partition cannot be read by the Zen Micro however!
This is where the iPod mini trumps the Zen Micro... the iPod mini doesn't require a seperate partition to use the player as a hard drive. If I cleared the iPod mini of all music, I could use almost the entire 4GB for moving files between computers. Yes, I know that something most if not all people wouldn't do... but it does mark the greater flexibility of using the iPod hard drive space. Although Creative has made strides in this department, it still has a way to go... I still need to use Notmad Explorer (a third party program) to move non-music files on and off my Creative Jukebox 3 (Creative's packaged programs at the time I thought were horrible at this!).
The USB connection is a 2.0 connection and seemed slower than the iPod USB transfer rate when using the Micro as an external hard drive. The transferring of music files was rather speedy through the Creative software or Windows Media Player 10.
Battery Life?
Weaker than advertised... that's for sure. The removable battery is a great perk but Creative's estimates seem to be quite off. I got 8-8.5 hours of life on the Zen Micro on the first full charge... nowhere close to the 12 hours that Creative advertises. Repeated tests moved battery life up slightly to 9-9.5 hours tops. This was based off pure MP3 and WMA file playback. Note that I have not yet charged the second battery as of yet and tested that one. Now after several weeks and about 20 charges, I had the battery life go anywhere from 6 hours of use (over 24 hours) to about 8 hours (over a 24 hours period). Note that my last few charges were done with firmware 1.01.03 in place which improved some of the charging issues that some people had with the Zen Micro (lower battery life when the Zen Micro is plugged into the power adapter before the power adapter is plugged into the socket). I had firmware 1.00.05 when I got the Micro. The Zen Micro has settled in on 6-7 hours of battery life during charges 20-30.
Note that I have not updated to the current firmware which is version 2.00.12 which supports Microsoft's PlaysForSure/MTP protocol for services like NapstertoGo... I didn't feel like uploading my original songs and playlists back into the Zen Micro if I did the upgrade from 1.01.03 to 2.00.12. Currently, my battery life is stalling a bit, I am getting 4-6 hours of playback with 24-36 hours of standby at best. After a full charge, my battery meter will usually read no bars in less than 24 hours if I had NOT used the player at all... all I had done was charge it and leave it in the "off" position for approximately 24 hours. I'm quite disappointed with the battery's performance so far.
Creative's numbers may be based off combined use of the playback, record, and FM features of the Micro.
Other Software?
Nomad Explorer and Creative MediaSource are okay programs but still seemed a bit aged for Explorer and cluttered for MediaSource. The Nomad Explorer does allow syncing with MS Outlook and allows the Zen Micro to act as a semi-PDA. The Zen Micro seems to work well with Windows Media Player v10. As of yet, the Zen Micro doesn't work with too many other WMA music players like MusicMatch and I haven't gotten it to work with the REALplayer. As of now, I use Windows Media 10 for all music file syncs with the Zen Micro.
What's in the Box?
You get so-so earbuds, a white wall power adapter, a USB 2.0 cable, a belt clip and kick stand that attaches to a white holster, a pouch (looks like black pantyhose and as thin to boot), and an installation CD. Headphones and the wired remote may be your only things you would think of getting with Zen Micro... and if a real decent case ever comes around. The holster device makes it rather hard to access the power/hold switch... the headphone and USB jacks are easy to access with the beltclip/stand/holster device.
Price
I paid $225 from Buy.com for the Zen Micro. There was no sales tax and no shipping and handling charges. There is a separate 4% discount through www.ebates.com that isn't counted in my price above. You can read my epinion The Art of Buying... Getting your money's worth!. It is a bit dated but many of the tips still apply.
What Do I Think in the End?
The Zen Micro is certainly feature rich... but the iPod+iTunes combination is hard to beat in terms of integration, ease of use, and the interface/controls on the iPod. The use of the iPod mini as an external hard drive is much easier and better than the Zen Micro. The Micro FM tuner and built-in recording abilities trump the iPod mini. The removable batteries also give the Micro a solid advantage (even though the battery life isn't as good as advertised). In the end, the Zen Micro is a solid player although I've had both good luck and bad luck with the quality of Creative players. The Creative Nomad MG II has lasted me years (and is still working today after 3+ years... or is it 4+ now?). The Nomad Jukebox 3 has had a couple of glitches over the years I've had it but it still works rather reliably. Some of the Zen and Zen Xtra players have died on me. It depends on what you want from your MP3 player... features versus ease of use. Although those of you who are new to the MP3 player market will likely feel that the Zen Micro is easier to use than many hard drive based players to the market.
Overall, I still think that the iPod mini is still the better music player but the Zen Micro is still an above average MP3 player and certainly worth a very close look!
Competing mini-hard drive players on the market that I've reviewed include
Apple iPod Mini second generation 6GB iPod is the latest iPod Mini from Apple. Boasting a battery life of 18 hours and more space for the same price as the original iPod Mini. However, you lose the AC adapter and the Firewire cable.
Apple first generation iPod Mini 4GB MP3 Player. Apple dropped the price of the iPod Mini 4GB version 2 to a low $199 now and updated it with brighter colored casings and a reported 18 hour battery life! No color screen though... but for $249 you get a 6GB drive iPod Mini! If you can find the first generation iPod Mini, the price will be around $179 to $199 and you get the AC adapter, Firewire cable, and USB 2.0 cable but the first generation iPod mini is rated for only 8 hours of battery life (although I've pulled off 10-12 most of the time).
iRiver H10 5GB MP3 player. A color screen and more feature rich than the Zen Micro... but also $50 more expensive for the same 5GB.
For those of you who are wondering about the Sony PSP's MP3 capabilities, check out my review here. It is an okay MP3 player overall... but not a first choice for primary MP3 playback.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 225
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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yusakugo
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Member: Rich Go
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Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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