Creative Labs Zen Micro 5GB Review

Summary

Apple's iPod is truly a testament to the power of good engineering. What started out as a new design approach to a relatively old idea, the iPod has turned into a phenomenon unlike anything the tech world has seen in recent years. Who would have guessed that a portable audio player from a computer company would set a new standard for others to follow.

Creative Labs, a company which has been in the portable audio market for years, has had to adapt to the iPod craze by developing players that emulate the look and feel of Apple's digital success. The Zen Micro by Creative Labs is arguably the best looking iPod clone on the market. Featuring more storage space for the same price as Apple's iPod mini, the $249 dollar Zen Micro will appeal to those that want more compatibility with music services and audio formats. The Apple iPod is hard to beat for a reason; does the Zen Micro have the right stuff? Read on to find out.

*Edit 1/24/05 - Firmware version Creative Zen Micro *PlaysForSure/MTP Firmware 2.00.12 was used for this review

*Edit 2/1/05 - Score was raised from a to an 7 due to resolved problems the new firmware update fixed

Features and Design

Creative Lab’s Zen Micro comes in ten different colors, from black and orange to blue and the infamous white, there is a color that should appeal to everyone. Our review unit came in the white variety with an out-of-the-box look that rivaled the Apple iPod mini from a distance. Featuring a silver touch sensitive control pad on the front of the player, you can control the Zen Micro by simply tapping an area of the pad just like you can with an Apple iPod. But other than its looks, the similarities stop there.

Which color will you choose?

Utilizing an IBM micro drive manufactured by Seagate, the Zen Micro comes with 5GB of storage compared to the 4GB found in the Apple iPod mini. The Zen Micro has a number of features that separate it from others on the market as well. This includes a built in FM receiver and voice recording capabilities as well as the ability to store not only music but data on the player, including synchronizing your calendar and a to-do list with Microsoft Outlook. The 12-hour battery which comes with the player is removable so you can replace it easily; perfect for those long flights. The Zen Micro also has a built-in sleep timer that will wake you up to the song of your choice.

Although the Creative Labs website does not do a great job telling the user what music services the Zen Micro is compatible with, it should support any service that utilizes Microsoft’s WMA DRM (Digital Right’s Management) technology which includes Microsoft’s MSN music service and Napster. And because it uses Microsoft Plays for Sure media transfer protocol, you can synchronize your music library with your PC using Windows Media Player 10.

The Zen Micro supports playback for MP3, WMA and WAV audio formats. There is no word on whether Creative Labs will be adding support for Ogg Vorbis or other audio formats. The Zen Micro is not compatible with Apple’s iTunes music service and software which is expected since Apple has not licensed its DRM technology to any other company yet. With the built in microphone, you can record up to 10 hours of voice recording in the WAV audio format. And lastly, there are 10 equalizer settings which include acoustic, classical, disco, jazz, new age, pop, rock, and vocal.

Design-wise the Zen Micro is a very attractive player. The screen is backlit by a light blue light and the menu font is very easy to read. All of the cables and accessories come in the same white color as the player keeping the look very consistent. The ear buds are attractive looking and heavy giving them a feeling of quality. There are two ways to charge the Zen Micro, you can either plug it into your computer using a USB 2.0 interface or you can plug it into a power outlet using the included A/C adapter. When the player is charging, it emits a pulsating blue glow informing you it’s in charging mode.

Performance

Although the Zen Micro comes with a USB 2.0 interface, we found music transfer to be much slower than we expected and noticeably slower than other hard drive based music players we have tested in the past.  We transferred the same album to both the iPod Mini and the Zen Micro, and the results where surprising.  They both use USB 2.0, but the Zen Micro seemed like it was transferring at USB 1.0 speeds.  The iPod Mini took about 2 seconds to transfer each song, where the Zen Micro took between 8 to 10 seconds per song, depending on size.

The ear buds that come with the Zen Micro are of very high quality and probably the best sounding ear buds to come packaged with any audio player out there. The player itself features a 98dB SNR (signal to noise ratio) according to Creative Labs, although we are not sure of power output levels.  Unfortunately for as good as the ear buds sound, they physically hurt our ears after an hour of prolonged use. We had several people try them out and everyone found the size of the ear buds just too large to use for long periods of time