Just got my Creative Zen Micro last night, and I am loving it!

[neoteric lefty]

Now, I am not going to go bash the iPod. It is a great product in its own right, but after doing a lot of research, I decided to go with the Zen Micro. I have had a smaller, flsh-based mp3 player for jogging, but I hated running out of memory when I wanted to put new songs on.

First off, the thing is tiny. The iPod mini is supposed to be smaller; I don't know how it could be :) There were no stores in the area that had one of them on display, so I had only web pictures to go on. I was thinking it was going to be the size of a pack of cigs. Nope! Much smaller. A bit bigger than a Zippo lighter. The screen is your standard LCD screen; about 4 lines of text plus a status line on the top and bottom. The backlight is where the aesthetics really shine. It is a gorgeous blue color and illuminates both the screen and the buttons, as well as as the border around the face plate. Even better, the backlight doesn't just turn on and off when in use, it fades in and out. I know that this doesn't sound like much, but it really adds to the whole look of the player. The Zen Micro is available in 10 colors, which means that only the front face is in that color. The rest of the player is a glossy white. I went with the black version, just because that was the only one available to me at the time. I wanted the silver, but I am glad I went with black. It looks sleek against the white and blue backlight.

The player itself is pretty straight forward. You can create playlists, sort by artist, track, album, genre, and such. Standard fare. One note, I definitely need to organize my mp3 collection (all 3.5 gigs of it). Instead of the touch-wheel (I don't know what Apple calls it), the Zen Micro has a vertical touch pad to scroll up and down. It took about 5 minutes to get used to it, but now I love it. Less thumb movement than the iPod's that I have tried. One cool feature is the FM tuner built-in. Works wonderfully. There's also a voice recorder, but I haven't tried it. Read in many reviews that it works well for up close but not in a noisy room or far away from the intended subject. We'll see.

The software included is your standard fare as well. A firmware upgrade allows you to sync the unit up to Windows Media Player 10. IMHO, screw both options, because the Zen Micro has drive letter support (Well, it isn't a drive letter, but it is viewable in Windows Explorer without drivers). Basically, find the songs you want, drag them to the Music folder on the unit. You can even drag and drop folders into Music directory with no problem. With a firmware upgrade, you can also put data onto the unit without having to repartition the hard drive on the it.

I'll quit jabbering on. I love the unit, the only minus is that there is once in a while a 1-2 second delay between tracks. I think this is normal due to the fact it is a hard drive based mp3 player. I guess I got spoiled by my old flash memory player. Other than that, I have absolutely no complaints. My advice to anyone that like music at all, get a portable mp3 player. Whether it be an iPod, Zen, or whatever unit it may be. It makes my bus rides bearable, keeps me going during my hikes between classes. Best $200+ I have spent in a long while.



NOT MY HAND!!! :)