What is this?
With a removable 12-hour battery pack, 5GB hard drive, FM radio, voice recorder, organizer, DRM 10 compatibility, and ten colors to choose from, the micro-Zen is aimed to compete with Apple iPod Mini.
Creative Zen Micro 5GB ReviewFebruary 10th, 2005
Pros: 5GB storage; FM radio; simple interface; removable long-lasting battery; voice recorder; sleek design; PlayForSure-ready.
Cons:Lack of a remote; limited availability of accessories; questionable quality control; no games; Windows exclusive.
Verdict: The Creative Zen Micro is fast, colorful, and has a wonderful interface that allows for quick access to all functions. If you don't encounter any of the defects we did, the Zen Micro 5GB is a good choice that outperforms the competition in almost every aspect.
Creative's uphill battle for the MP3 player market continues into the realm of micro jukeboxes that are virtually the size of cell phones. The Creative Zen Micro holds key features over Apple iPod mini such as an FM tuner and voice recording, but after having been on the market for three months, the lack of accessories is a concern.
Package Content - Creative Zen Micro 5GB
- High fidelity earphones
- Li-Ion battery
- Extra battery (marked Limited Edition packages only)
- Power Adapter
- USB 2.0 cable
- Belt-clip & stand
- Pouch
- Installation CD
The Eye Catcher The Creative Zen Micro's design shows the evolution of the Creative HDD MP3 players. Rather than having a button for nearly every feature, the Micro has only seven including the power / lock switch. Layout of the six buttons was well thought out. The top three buttons are for controlling the current song or playing a selected item; the bottom two are for backtracking menus and easy access to more options; and smack dab in the center is the scroll bar.
The vertical scroll bar only has three sensitivity settings, with quite some distance in between that proved to be either too sensitive or too little. This isn't to say that the scroll bar is a flawed design, as it saves space by doubling as the select key and helps to avoid Repetitive Stress Injury since you can just hold the bar at the edge to scroll really fast in one direction. The main menu can also be customized to include certain features that would normally reside within deeper menus, as well as reorder menu listings.
The backlight is a thing of beauty, lining the sides of the player and illuminating the LCD in a cool aqua blue. Be careful though, since the entire faceplate is just one tinted piece of plastic, the backlight will shine through the scratch, a curse that has befallen our player (Thanks to someone's oversized carry-on luggage).
Synchronization Creative now has two separate firmware versions for the Zen Micro. The traditional firmware requires that Zen Media Explorer be installed to transfer music to the player in an Explorer-like environment, although Creative also has the MediaSource Organizer for file transfer, song playback, and burning audio CDs without visualizations left out. Installing either software package will infest your computer with offers from America Online.
The second firmware enables the Creative Zen Micro as a Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) enabled device worthy of Microsoft PlaysForSure seal. This ensures compatibility with Napster To Go and other future subscription-based services. With this firmware, you can opt to install nothing relying completely upon Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player for transferring files. With the MTP firmware, you can still use Zen Media Explorer after an update for synchronization, although MTP firmware support is not provided for MediaSource at this point in time. Strangely enough, many of the ID3 tags on our songs weren't recognized when used with the Creative software, whereas using WMP didn't produce this error. Also, when using the MTP firmware, you can choose to have certain playlists synched automatically upon connecting the player.
FM Tuner Plus Synchronize with MS Outlook
Creative Zen Micro can do much more than just play MP3s and WMAs, with the inclusion of an FM tuner, something the iPod series has been lacking for years. While great for finding new music to buy or listening to morning talk shows, the tuner has a few disadvantages. For one, unlike playing music off the hard drive you cannot back into menus without the radio shutting off. Recording FM broadcasts is as simple as clicking the option button, but a short waiting time takes place before the Zen actually starts recording in WAV format. Next to the mini USB port is a small hole for the microphone, again recording to WAV after a slight delay. Recording quality is decent and clear, but do not expect to record a teacher's lecture across a classroom, it isn't very sensitive.
Microsoft Outlook users put some order back into their lives with the ability to transfer their contacts, calendar and tasks list. Sadly, even though the Creative Zen Micro has a method of inputting text, creating new tasks or calendar events on the go is simply not possible. One thing that Creative forgot to include in the extras category was games. Any game, even cards would be fine but sadly there are none included with the Zen Micro or available for download. Hopefully Creative will address this feature request in a later update.
Partition Craziness; Benchmark Finally, within the extras category is the ability to use the Creative Zen Micro as a USB Mass Storage Device for carrying along your personal files. However, unlike competing players, the Zen must set up a separate partition specifically for data, and this can only be set as 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, 1.5GB or 2GB. When using the latest beta firmware, a 4GB option is also available. While not as accurate to the file as we'd like, using a second partition for data may just be a requirement of Microsoft's PlaysForSure seal.
To test transfer times, we deleted all the contents of the Creative Zen Micro and uploaded our large collection of our favorite artist's songs via Windows Media Player 10. It took 4:50 to transfer 886MB of songs, or about 24.45Mbps. Because every hard drive handles small and large files differently, we erased the drive again and threw a large video file at it. It took 13:28 to transfer all 3.6GB to the 4GB data partition, about 36.96Mbps. As a random fact, the Zen Micro uses Seagate 5GB ST1 that can be found on the same company's miniature USB hard drive.
Removable Battery for Endless Tunes Sound quality is clean with the included earbuds. Although we prefer using actual headphones for the extra kick of bass and comfort, the supplied earbuds held their own, outputting just the right amount of bass and mid-tones. Though, the treble was slightly overpowering. The tones can also be tweaked with the use of eight equalizer presets, or make your own 5-band equalizer adjustments.
Surprisingly, the earbuds fit so well that they actually stayed in place (and the Zen kept playing) when subjected to the great pastime of extreme snow shoveling during central Ohio's worst snowstorm since '78. It should probably be noted that when using the player in an active environment, be it snow shoveling or jogging, Creative recommends "You should not subject Creative Zen Micro to continuous shocks, such as those that are likely to occur while you jog or run." Seemed fine to us.
One of the main advantages the Zen Micro holds over the iPod is a removable battery. When one gets low, you can just swap in the second. Creative claims that each battery can hold a 12-hour charge. So upon our initial testing with the recommended 3 hours of charging, we were able to get a solid 11 hours of playback without the equalizer. Obviously, using the backlight frequently, turning on the equalizer, or skipping songs would lower the battery life.
Where's the Accessories? Odd as it may seem, Creative still has yet to ship almost all the announced accessories for the Zen Micro in the Americas, let alone add them to their online store. While it may not seem as such a big deal at first, accessories can improve the life and usability of a product in numerous ways. Having a car adaptor, extra battery charger, and a belt clip that protects the face of the player would be extremely handy in daily living. The only accessories shipping so far are the wired remotes and batteries; however we were unable to locate any for sale at the usual retailers such as CompUSA.
Inexcusable... The Creative Zen Micro has one major potential flaw that a few users on the company's forums have discovered including us. After creating a data partition for speed testing, the player would crash every time it was connected to another computer that was simply powered on. "Cleaning up" in recovery mode, formatting, and erasing the firmware were of no aid. In the end, the Zen had to be RMA'ed back to Creative. Upon receiving the replacement player, within 4 hours the headphone jack lost all audio on the right side, a widespread problem according to Creative's own user forums.
Your Mileage May Vary Overall, the Creative Zen Micro 5GB is fast, colorful, and has a wonderful interface that allows for quick access to all functions. If you don't encounter any of the defects we did, the Zen Micro is a good choice that outperforms the competition in almost every aspect. However, if you happen to lay hands upon a defective unit, good luck dealing with the RMA department and waiting through the downtimes. If Creative put some more effort into the parts that go into the Micro, we'd pick another up in a heartbeat. Until then, back to Howard Stern while we wait for our third unit.
- R. Scott Clark, Consumer Technology Editor
Where to buy Creative Zen Micro 5GB?
User Review(s)
"Excellent MP3, lousy radio." Gorgeous styling, excellent sound, okay battery life, user removeable battery, 5GB storage, in a small package. Even the power supply is nicely designed, and the PC software is easy to install and use. The slider is a bit fiddly, though just about useable when set to high sensitivity, but nowhere near as useable as the Apple IPOD wheely wotsit. The supplied headphones are naff, with poor sound and loads of wind noise, so replace them with something decent such as a Sennheiser PX100. So what's bad? Well the radio is truly awful due to atrocious reception. I cannot receive major national UK stations such as Radio 4 for goodness sake, and I have tried in three UK cities. For comparison my Sony pocket radio can pick up R4 on two bands. So, nice MP3 player, shame about the radio. Recommended with a caveat. From Leif Goodwin, May 29, 2005
"great!" Ok, i dont know what the guy before me was talking about...but you CAN see the blue line around it. if you look right at it, and if the backlight is on, you can see it. its pretty cool. sound quality is top-notch, and the design is awesome. i highly suggest this to anyone who dosent want an ipod mini, or an ipod for that matter. From Mike, January 12, 2005
"Sound is good though" After spending a few weeks with it, I have decided to put my initial judgements aside. It's a pretty good MP3 player. Yes, the advertising is a bit false - you can only see the blue lighting of everything when there is low light. The play button is brightly lit, so it's always visible. The sound is excellent too. From Alex Chiu, December 01, 2004
"Nice, small, pictures lie." The thing is, while the pictures you see on Creative's website show that the thing has like, blue light overflowing everywhere, truthfully you don't see it at all. The play/pause button is always blue lit, but the screen is more of a white than a blue. As for the rest of the buttons and that blue line, that's all fake. You can barely see it. I claim this to be false advertising -_-;; From Alex Chiu, November 22, 2004
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. Zen Micro 5GB Specs
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Dimensions
3.3" x 2" x 0.7"
Weight
3.8 oz. w/ battery
Natively supported music format(s)
MP3, WMA, WMA (DRM)
Signal to noise ratio
98 dB
Battery life
12 hrs.
Storage
5GB built-in hard drive
Storage expansion type
None
FM tuner
Yes (via FM recording in WAV)
Voice recording
Yes
Software
Creative MediaSource, Zen Media Explorer
Remote included?
No
Inputs / outputs
Headphone jack
Extras?
Belt-clip & stand, cloth pouch
Screen
--
Photo import?
--
Natively supported video format(s)
--
Max output
--
Line-in recording?
--
Power source
Removable Li-ion rechargeable battery
Warranty
One year
Extras Lost a USB cable? Get a replacement USB cable.
Running out of USB ports? Get an extra USB hub.
You may need a new USB card to achieve Hi-Speed USB speeds.
Confirm with our USB 2.0 FAQ if you have Hi-Speed USB on your PC.
The Creative Zen Micro's design shows the evolution of the Creative HDD MP3 players. Rather than having a button for nearly every feature, the Micro has only seven including the power / lock switch. Layout of the six buttons was well thought out. The top three buttons are for controlling the current song or playing a selected item; the bottom two are for backtracking menus and easy access to more options; and smack dab in the center is the scroll bar.
Creative now has two separate firmware versions for the Zen Micro. The traditional firmware requires that Zen Media Explorer be installed to transfer music to the player in an Explorer-like environment, although Creative also has the MediaSource Organizer for file transfer, song playback, and burning audio CDs without visualizations left out. Installing either software package will infest your computer with offers from America Online.
The second firmware enables the Creative Zen Micro as a Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) enabled device worthy of Microsoft PlaysForSure seal. This ensures compatibility with Napster To Go and other future subscription-based services. With this firmware, you can opt to install nothing relying completely upon Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player for transferring files. With the MTP firmware, you can still use Zen Media Explorer after an update for synchronization, although MTP firmware support is not provided for MediaSource at this point in time. Strangely enough, many of the ID3 tags on our songs weren't recognized when used with the Creative software, whereas using WMP didn't produce this error. Also, when using the MTP firmware, you can choose to have certain playlists synched automatically upon connecting the player.
Finally, within the extras category is the ability to use the Creative Zen Micro as a USB Mass Storage Device for carrying along your personal files. However, unlike competing players, the Zen must set up a separate partition specifically for data, and this can only be set as 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, 1.5GB or 2GB. When using the latest beta firmware, a 4GB option is also available. While not as accurate to the file as we'd like, using a second partition for data may just be a requirement of Microsoft's PlaysForSure seal.
One of the main advantages the Zen Micro holds over the iPod is a removable battery. When one gets low, you can just swap in the second. Creative claims that each battery can hold a 12-hour charge. So upon our initial testing with the recommended 3 hours of charging, we were able to get a solid 11 hours of playback without the equalizer. Obviously, using the backlight frequently, turning on the equalizer, or skipping songs would lower the battery life.
Odd as it may seem, Creative still has yet to ship almost all the announced accessories for the Zen Micro in the Americas, let alone add them to their online store. While it may not seem as such a big deal at first, accessories can improve the life and usability of a product in numerous ways. Having a car adaptor, extra battery charger, and a belt clip that protects the face of the player would be extremely handy in daily living. The only accessories shipping so far are the wired remotes and batteries; however we were unable to locate any for sale at the usual retailers such as CompUSA.
