A closer look at the Creative Zen Micro.
There's quite a range of handset portable audio devices out there, most notably, the Apple iPod... On this site, we're far more interested in Creative's new Zen Micro because as well as playing MP3 audio files, the ZenMicro has something extra, notably FM radio... This page take a deeper look at why this is a great buy...
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Creative Zen Micro Overview:
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Creative Zen Micro
Creative's Zen Micro appeared in November 2004, and is a great alternative to the Apple Mini Ipod. As the name suggests, it's micro-sized and fits naturally into the hand, placing the touch-sensitive control pad in the perfect position for navigation with just one finger. The Zen Micro will store up to 2,500 songs in WMA or 1,250 in MP3 on its 5GB hard disk, and its easy-to-remove rechargeable battery delivers up to 12 hours of high-quality digital audio. FM radio and voice recording further extend its versatility. The Zen Micro is ideal for use with on-line music services and Windows PCs, supporting downloads at up to a song per second via its USB 2.0 port.
The stats
- Storage: 5GB hard drive
- Size: 51mm x 84mm x 19mm
- Screen: 160x104 pixel resolution, White LED backlit LCD
- Battery: Removable, rechargeable lithium-ion (12 hours)
- Weight: 3.8 oz. (inc battery)
- Signal-to-noise: 98dB
- Holds 2,500 songs on 5GB hard drive
- Get up to 12 hours playback on a single charge
- Plays MP3, WMA, WAV files
- FM radio - listen to and record radio stations. Supports storing 32 station presets
- Built-in microphone for up to 10hrs voice recording
- Access over 2 million songs through Zen supported music services
- High fidelity earphones with dynamic bass response
- Contacts, Calendar and To Do List
- Functions as an external hard drive for backup of computer files
- Backlit LCD displays track info
- Repeat, resume, and random play
- 8 EQ settings (Acoustic, classical, disco, jazz, new age, pop, rock and vocal)
- Sleep and wake timers
- Customisable main menu, so the features you want are right at your finger tips
- Works with both USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 (for a faster connection). USB cable included
- Belt clip / stand
- Better value than an iPod Mini
- Available in 10 electrifying colours (Black, White, Silver, Dark blue, Light blue, Red, Purple, Citrus orange, Lime green and Pink)
| Availability:
The Creative Zen Micro is available from the following places:
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Mini Review
We've had our hands on one of these little beauties for just under a week, and are very impressed. As stated in the advertising blurb above, the Zen Micro naturally going to be compared to the iPod Mini - and compared very favourably - It's smaller, has an FM radio and have 5gigs of storage space (verses the iPod Mini's 4Gig).
As has been stated in other reviews, the navigation is a little unexpected - most of the work is done via a central up/down slider, and the sensitivity out of the box wasn't set to what we thought was the best setting. After an hour or so of use, you get used to the quirks of the navigation, and from then on, it's actually pretty clever, although manually searching for a keyword is still a long process of scroll-and-accept. Most of the lower half of the front panel is touch sensitive, so the Lock switch on the top has to be set to prevent accidental touches when in a pocket (I can't help feeling that an auto-keylock, such as those on a mobile would be a nice touch!)
Audio quality is superb and can't be faulted, and the features built-in make using the device a dream.
Recording and Radio
As we're a site dedicated to TV and Radio, we opted for this model as our favourite due to the fact is has an FM radio onboard - well, we all get sick of hearing the same old MP3 tracks, and catching the travel news on the train is really useful. The Zen can also record the FM it's listening to, for listening later - great for recording shows at work and catching them on the train home. The Zen Micro has 32 nameable FM presets.
Access to your tracks
We're also a fan of the way that you can select what to listen to - you can obviously play through all of your MP3s and make use of playlists (that you create on the device, or copy over from the PC), but you can also browse by genre (Rock, Pop, speech, etc... the information's encoded into the MP3 files) - you can also play selected albums, search by artist, or use the rather nifty DJ mode (that can randomly pick an album of the day, do random play, play your most popular tracks, or offer you a "rarely heard" selection.
Get
organised
The Creative software can be used to copy across your address book, to-do tasks and calendar entries from Outlook - another bonus. Oh, and the Zen Micro can also be used as a USB storage device, so you can use it to transfer files, documents, video etc for use on any PC with a USB port (you can specify how much of the 5Gig you want for this storage - between 128MB and 4GB)
Connectivity
The PC software supplied with the Micro is pretty good, but before we got going with our review Zen, we upgraded to v2.00 of the firmware, which meant we could use Microsoft's Media Player to handle copying our tracks across - definitely our preferred option.
Copying songs across was a piece of cake, and faster than we expected - partly down to the USB2.0 compatibility. The stated figure of 2,500 songs makes an assumption that Windows Media Audio (WMA) is being used. For MP3 files, the figure is likely to be closer to over 1,000 tracks - but that still more than enough to hold an impressive amount of audio.
No
real downsides to report - With the possible exception of the battery
life. It's rated at 12 hours by Creative, and some reviews we're
read state that this is achievable... although we're seeing around
8 hours of practical use. The Creative website states that the battery
life is reduced if you're making a lot of use of the hard-disk (and admittedly
we're hammering the hard drive on ours), but surely that's what you
want to do with a device like this? Ultimately, this isn't much of a problem
though, as our device came with a spare battery, and the USB lead (a standard
mini USB) can be used to charge the Micro (for times when you're not lugging
the mains adapter with you). Fortunately, the battery is removable and
very easy to change - unlike some other MP3 players we could mention
Summary
We're very impressed. This beats
the iPod Mini hands down on features (FM radio, removable battery, support
for WMA format, voice recorder and Outlook Contacts/Calendar synchronisation),
and is very good value for money. Its style, pulsating blue light, and
the tiny size make it a great conversation piece too.
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Our Zen (from the BT Shop) came packaged with the following:
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 We featured MP3 players in Show 11 of our online radio show. Listen to the show online, or download it to your MP3 player. Listen to Show 11 | Latest Show | More Info |
FAQ
This section includes the answers to frequently-asked questions we've received...
| Firmware upgrade? |
The software controlling the Zen Micro is referred to as Firmware, and be updated by downloading the latest version from Creative's site. This can be installed via USB.
To check your version of software,
from the main menu, scroll to System > Information. |
| Can I jog with my Micro? | The official
line from Creative is: "You should not subject Zen Micro to continuous
shocks, such as those that are likely to occur while you jog or run",
however according to threads like the one on Nomadness,
it's not much of a problem, and the micro has been used when running,
mountain biking, snowboarding, etc.... with no ill-effects. Giving
a definite "yes" or "no" isn't easy, so the choice
has to be yours - obviously Creative are keen to cover themselves.
The Zen Micro makes use of a hard-disk with moving parts, so excessive shock can cause damage - but most of the large-capacity MP3 players (such as the iPod) all use hard-disks, so there's little to say that the Zen Micro is any better or worse than other devices out there. if you're concerned, consider an MP3 player with a solid state drive (no moving parts), although these often have much smaller memories. |
| How do I copy music to the Zen? |
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| Existing CD collection | The Zen Micro
is supplied with Creative MediaSource software, which can be used
to 'rip' audio from your CD collection. Instructions on using this
software for CD burning can be found in the Zen manual. Creative's
MediaSource application supports CDDB, an Internet database that can
automatically add title/artist and album information to 'ripped' audio
files, meaning that you don't have to type track information in manually
once you've burnt your CD audio files from the CD ROM drive to your
PC's hard disk. You're not tied to Creative's software for managing your music... A range of other media managers / CD ripping packages can be used with the Zen Micro, including Windows Media Player 10, Easy CD Creator and Audio Grabber. These support Internet track information databases such as CDDB and freedb. |
| Can I use iTunes? | The official answer is 'no' (*)- but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're a fan of iTunes Thanks also to site visitor Lisa for adding the following: "At least in the new versions of iTunes, you can go to the Edit menu, click Preferences, and under Advanced, Import, you can choose the file type to save imported music (from cd's) in. You can choose between AAC, MP3, and also AIFF, Apple Lossless, and Wave formats. You can easily convert any music already in iTunes to MP3 by selecting the song(s) you want to convert, right-clicking, and selecting Conver to MP3 from the menu. The songs are saved in My Music/iTunes by default (view the location by going back into the Preferences menu, it's under Advanced, General tab. You can also right-click the headings in iTunes and add the "kind" heading to see the file types, and sort by that heading to quickly convert all AAC files to MP3, then resort and delete the AAC files entirely if you only want MP3 files. |
| Podcasts | Expand your listening pleasure on your Zen product by downloading podcasts onto your player. A podcast is an audio file available for download and transfer to your device. They're often updated regularly and are a new type of broadcasting set to change what we listen to. You can subscribe to channels of interest and get updated recordings synced to your Zen on a range of subjects.
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| Supported OS |
Software to support connectivity between Zen and the PC is available for download from uk.europe.creative.com/support/downloads/ - this includes the Zen Micro Media Explorer package, which supports:Microsoft® Windows® XP, Windows 2000, Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 98 Second Edition. |
| Playlists |
We've had a couple of questions about how the Zen Micro handles playlist creation, so here's a quick overview. It's possible to create playlists "on the go". This can be done as follows:
To access a playlist, go to
Music library > playlist from the main menu. |
| Storing data | You can use the Zen Micro to store data as well as music - for example to transfer documents between home and work. From the Extras menu, select 'Removable Disk' and allocate an amount of storage to be used for data - you can select a size between 128MB and 4GB. When you connect your Zen to a PC via the USB cable, the data area of the drive appears in My Computer as a removable drive. |
| How much can I store? | The depends on the format you store your songs, and the sample rate that you use. As an approximate indication of what the 5Gig Zen can hold:
Numbers approximate - assumes 4 minute songs, 50 minute albums |
| Better than a mini? |
We think that the Micro beats the iPod mini for a number of reasons
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| Recordings? |
Like most MP3 players, the
Micro doesn't have a line-in socket so can't record direct from
a hi-fi system or tape player. Music tracks have to be copied via
a desktop computer in one of the supported formats. |
| Microphone | The built-in microphone can be used to make recordings in WAV format. Files created on the Micro are sampled at 64kpbs, 4 bit, mono files in IMA ADPCM format. Test recording (37k WAV file). To retrieve recorded material, connect to your PC, then browse to the Media folder. Your recordings are in the "My recordings" folder. |
| FM Radio | The built-in FM radio supports 32 station presets, and uses the headphones as an aerial. The FM reception is acceptable, but it's not as sensitive as other handheld personal FM radios we've tried. Radio recordings are made as stereo WAV files. The format is 22kHz, 4bps, bitrate of 177 kb/s. Test recording (13 seconds, 292k WAV file). |
| Headphones |  So,
what are the headphones like? They're OK - nothing special, but pretty
well-made. After using ours for a few days, we swapped back to our
Sennheiser MX500 earbuds (the inline volume control makes the difference).
The freebies with the Zen are perfectly fine, and a good comfy wear,
but our darker headphones with the volume control have meant that
the Zen earbuds are sitting on the shelf. For a larger pic of the
Zen headset, click on the image on the right. Although
there's nothing wrong with the supplied headphones... if you're looking
to get more for your listening pleasure - consider getting some Sennheiser
headphones - either a set of top-quality earbuds, or if you're budget
can stretch to it - a set of noise-cancellers - especially recommended
for train or plane travellers! More on the Sennhesiers on our Accessories
page |
| Not working? |
Some ideas if you're having problems:
If you're not still not able to start the Micro, or you find you're stuck in the Recovery menu - the final thing to try is connecting to the PC. Connect via USB and see if the PC can recognise the drive. If it can, take a backup of all of the files on your Zen Micro. As a last resort - you can try re-installing the firmware onto the Micro. This will result in the loss of all data on the device. Otherwise, if you have a dead unit, consider returning it to the place of purchase, or contact Creative to get your machine repaired. If the Zen is less than one year old, you should be able to get it repaired under Creative's warranty. For details on how to do this, go to uk.europe.creative.com/support/warranty , or you can call +353 1 4333200. |
| Video on a Zen |
Available at launch for around for £250. More on our Creative Zen Vision:M page |
| Recovery menu |  There's
a hidden 'Recovery' menu that lets you defragment or format the hard
drive, reboot, or reload the firmware. This is for advanced use only,
and you're advised not to play around with these options unless you
know what you're doing.To access this, take out the battery, hold the switch in the 'on' position, and with this held to 'on', reinsert the battery. A menu will appear. |
| Home Hi-fi? | If
you're looking to connect your Zen Micro to your hi-fi to play back audio from your home hi-fi system, then note that the only audio output, is the headphone socket.  You'll need to connect from the 3.5mm headphone socket to two male phono plugs. This will let you to connect to your stereo's line level AUX input, although note that you will need to turn the headphone volume down to a low setting to avoid overloading the line-in.
You can find a suitable lead at AdvancedMP3players or Maplin (Part: L32BA) |
| In car? |
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Here's what to do if you've accidentally set your machine to a different language and want to reset to English:
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| Mains supply | We've been asked whether the UK power supply can be used outside the UK. We're not experts in such things, but if it helps, the UK power adapter states the following: Input 100-240VAC ~ 50-60Hz, 0.3A. Output: 5V 1000mA. If these values are compatible with your destination, then with the appropriate socket adapter, there should be no problem. The power adapter lead terminates in a Mini USB plug. |
| What about my old records? |
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| Accessories? |  If
you're looking for accessories for your Zen, such as spare batteries,
headphones, and the remote control referred to in the manual, we've
found the adapter and batteries available on AdvancedMP3players.co.uk
and Amazon.
There are also some on ebay.co.uk.A selection of accessories are available from Creative's UK site, or by calling the Creative freephone number - 0800 376 7954. They can supply spare batteries for around £27 by mail-order. |
New for 2006 is the Creative Zen Vision:M. This has the following impressive specs:
If
you want to listen to your MP3s in your car, there are a couple of options here. Probably the most elegant is to make use of a little gadget called an FM re-transmitter. These plug into your MP3 player,
and transmit the audio from your player a frequency that you can tune your car
radio into. Until December 2006, use of these was illegal in the UK, but Ofcom has now overturned this law, making the use of CE-approved short-range FM transmitters legal. Take a look at the range on offer from 
The other option is an audio
car adapter - these plug into the headphone socket of an MP3,
walkman or portable CD player, and the 'dummy' cassette gets inserted
into your car stereo's cassette deck - the sound will be played through
your car's system.
Got a huge vinyl collection tucked away in the loft? Get yourself an ION USB turntable that connects to your PC - You can use this to transfer your old singles, albums and even 78s to MP3, WAV or WMV format - ideal for your iPod or MP3 player. Bundled software allows to you copy music at double speed, and can automatically remove crackles and noise from your records.Useful links:
- Nomadness.net - Unofficial site for Creative's MP3 players
- Nomadness Forum - Discussion forum for the Zen Micro
- Audible.co.uk
- Wide collection of comedy and audio books available for download
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Got a question? If you're thinking of buying a Zen Micro or Zen Vision, and have a question about what the Zen offers? Create a post in our Mobile Audio forum and we'll try to help |
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