Creative Zen Micro 5 GB MP3 Player Orange

That's right...the Zen Micro is the very 1st mp3 player I've owned. I'm a CD kind of girl, with probably 200+ CD's in my collection. (Since I buy a lot of used CD's, I can usually buy anywhere from 2-3 CD's for the price of a new one.) I have about 500+ mp3s, but these are usually just for listening to at work or home. It wasn't until my co-worker bought himself an iPod that I began to consider getting one myself. I had a few requirements for my mp3 player: 1. It had to be small, compact & lightweight for exercise. 2. I wanted an FM radio. 3. I wanted to be able to change the battery myself. 4. It needed at least 4+ GB storage capacity. 5. It had to be easy to use. 6. I didn't want to get sucked into the world of Apple, where I'm sort of forced to deal with iTunes & weird Apple file formats that only work in Apple hardware & software. I researched everything out on the market. I wanted something dependable, with a good reputation, and good support. This was a major purchase for me. With 2 kids, car payments & a mortgage, spending $200 on my own personal enjoyment is a HUGE deal. I came to like what I was hearing about the Zen Micro. Since Creative is trying to compete with Apple, their product seemed to have everything the iPod was lacking. It is also PC friendly, catering to the Windows world for us non-Mac users. Since I use Outlook for my job, I liked that I can sync my Zen with my calendar, tasks, & contacts. The Zen is shorter than the iPod, although slightly thicker. (It's slightly smaller than a regular size Altoids mint tin.) Even though the iPod has a sleek, modern look, the Zen has it's own unique look with the blue backlight trim. It has a radio with 32 presets and a recorder for voice & radio capture. The recorder is a handy feature since I'm a writer in my spare time & often get inspiration & ideas faster than I can write them down. What really sold me on the Zen was that I could change the battery myself. iPod's internal battery makes it so that in a year or two, I'll have to ship it to Apple & pay them a fee to get a simple battery changed. That idea completely turned me off. I just turned 30 yrs old! I've been changing batteries in things for probably 20-25 of those years. It's patronizing that Apple feels only THEY should change your iPod's battery in order to get you to pay more $$$$ for a product you already own. I've also heard bad stories about this process, such as getting your iPod back with all your stored music gone. So far, I'm loving my Zen. In the course of a weekend, I was able to upload 431 songs, (roughly 36 CD's). Ripped at 128kb files, I still have over 3 GB of space available. I haven't had to read the manual at all. (I read the little 5 page booklet in the box, but haven't had to brave the 65 page User's Manual.) While my Zen charged (in just under 3 hours), I installed the software with ease. I was able to program my Zen & start ripping & transfering music onto it with zero instruction. The radio works great. The reception is decent, although sometimes I do get some static for stations that I get just fine in my car. Things I was happy about: ~ The sound quality is far better than I expected! ~ I've had no real problems with my pink Zen Micro. It worked great straight out of the box. ~ It looks pretty cool, better than I thought it looked in pics. While it has a kind of "plastic" look, compared to the iPod's sleek, metallic look, the Zen is still pretty cool looking. The glowing blue trim lights that pulse off & on when charging give it a sort of alien strobe light effect. But I noticed my Zen gets a lot of comments & catches people's eye. Everyone & their grandma has an iPod, which makes the Zen more of a conversation piece because people are curious about it. *Everyone* at my office, even my boss, wanted to try my Zen out. (That didn't happen when my co-worker brought his new iPod to work the 1st time.) ~ I can make my own unique "case" for my ZM out of an Altoids mint tin. I plan on painting mine & decorating with some cool decals. I'm an artist, so making a personalized case no one else in the world has really appeals to me. (Google "Zen Micro Altoids case" or go to the head-fi.org forum for some cool pics & instructions.) Issues I've had w/ the Zen Micro: ~ No internal FM Transmitter to broadcast your mp3's onto your car/home stereo! I thought this feature was included in the standard player, like the iPod. An annoying detail that miffed me a little. ~ The Earbuds are terrible!! The earbuds are so "bulbous" & large that they don't fit into my ears at all. They made my ears sore the 1st day from constantly trying to stuff them back in. It's all too obvious that I'll have to buy replacements. If they won't stay in when I'm sitting at my desk, they definitely won't stay in when walking, jogging, or riding my bike. ~ The battery drains, even when player is switched OFF!!! This is a well known & documented problem in the Zen Micro. The Date/Time, sleep/alarm funtions, etc cause the battery to run constantly. See, the ZM doesn't turn OFF...it's literally always in "Stand By" mode, which causes the battery to run even when it's not in use. There are several ways to help this though. Use timer/alarm functions sparingly. Using the player conservatively helps the battery life. (i.e. playing at full blast, skipping around constantly, not lowering the LCD lights to minimum setting, etc will run battery down quicker.) However, the best method is to fully charge the battery, then simply take it out of the player overnight. This actually turns the player OFF & keeps your battery from draining overnight. I also plan on updating my firmware regularly (in case they someday patch this problem with software) & buy a 2nd battery to rotate my player with. (It seems to help to fully charge the battery before 1st use, then play it until it fully drains. Do this a few times, fully charging then fully depleting the battery. Once the battery is "primed" this way a few times, it seems to keep a better charge for longer.) All in all, I gave it 5 stars, despite the 3 issues I had. These issues are all things that can be worked around. The iPod has it's own battery issues, however with the Zen, I can at least replace my own battery without having to ship my player off for several weeks. To me, that alone is worth the 5th star. I would recommend this product to a friend. And I would buy another Creative Zen product again in the future. Actually, I'm thinking of getting my hubby his own Zen Micro so he'll stop stealing mine. Note: I do not work for Creative, Apple, or Amazon in any way. I'm just a regular customer who is enjoying her 30th b-day present very much. Hope this is helpful to someone else. ****Update**** 10/18/05 I've owned my Zen for over a month now & it's still working great. A software upgrade from Creative's website fixed the battery drain problem. I only have to recharge it once a week, sometimes once every OTHER week. I have 560 songs on it with just under 3GB of space left. I keep in an Altoids mint tin, which is nice cause it's protected from getting damaged when I throw it into my purse. I love it & have had zero problems.

I was looking forward to the Zen Micro as I was going to use it with Napster To Go. I have Napster on two computers at home. When I set up the Micro, the first computer would not allow me to transfer any songs that I had not purchased. Sort of ANTI-Napster To Go. But the other computer did recognize the Zen Micro and would let me transfer all the tracks without buying them (as advertised). Being an easy-going guy, I thought, what the hell, it works on one, I can live with that. I transferred the tracks, maybe sixty at first and started to use the player. The touch screen is everything you've read about: Terrible! Even set on low, you can't operate it. Just a light touch takes you to some menu you didn't want to visit. It's maddening! But still I thought I'm a techy, I can deal with it. Maybe I just have to learn its quirks. After another half hour, I took a rest. Too many quirks. I'll come back and resume training tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and I turn on the Zen Micro (cute as a button, by the way) and it's frozen. It won't play or even show me the songs that I had already transferred. I figured I'd hook it up to Napster again, maybe shock it back to reality, but Napster didn't recognize it anymore, on any computer. So now I look into the future and realize the next week of my life (at least) will be spent with tech support from both Napster and Creative. Each will blame the other, obviously. Life's too short. I just want to listen to a few tunes, hum along, play a little air guitar. I have an older Samsung model which has always worked beautifully. Why did I listen to the hype. Read the other reviews. I'm not alone in these complaints. After I send this one back, I'll probably just try another Samsung.

Ok... I think I've owned and returned about every MP3 player on the market (ok, slight exaggeration). I had the iLo (a Walmart brand of Go Video's Rave MP3 player... Great screen but only 256MB and serious firmware issues when using an expansion card over 512 MB), Creative Zen Xtra (unaccessable controls that are on the side of the unit and the hardest screen to read, especially in the car), a Philips MP3 player I got at Walmart (doesn't support downloaded music...why bother???) and the Rio Carbon. I really fell in love with the Rio Carbon, since the screen was soo legible in the car (white background with black letters), the key pad on the front lit up to be able to see where the keys are in the car, and the sound was great. But since Rio dropped the ball on releasing a firmware update to use Napster-To-Go (subscription-based music service, where you "rent" songs for an extra $5 a month on top of the $9.99 normal Napster service), and the problems with some headphones "buzzing", a week ago I decided to try the Creative Zen Micro... THANK GOODNESS I DID!!!! This is a great little MP3 player. Many others have listed the usual features of this player, so I won't bore you with those. I will, however, tell you the pros and cons of why I'm goning to keep this player over the others... PROS: 1. ALL OF THE CONTROLS ARE ON THE FRONT OF THE PLAYER, AND THEY ALL LIGHT UP--- may not seem like something important, but I use my MP3 player mostly in the car, and having the menu, play/pause, forward, back, and volume controls on the front of the player, and having them all be backlit, makes it sooo easy navigate while in the car. Try using the scroll wheel on the top right-hand corner on the Rio Carbon to scroll down to "Van Halen" while going 70 mph on the highway...you might not make it past "Journey" before wrecking. Since the Creative Zen Micro uses the Vertical Scroll Bar, you can use one finger to scroll up and down... very nice touch! 2. REMOVEABLE BATTERY THAT CHARGES USING USB MICRO PLUG--- since the battery life on these things is, in reality, about 6 hrs, having a removeable battery is nice to have. And it charges using the USB connection, but would be better if it had a wall/car charger that you plug the USB cable into, like on the Rio Carbon. 3. ACTUALLY WORKS WITH NAPSTER-TO-GO!!!!--- I had read horror stories about getting the firmware to upgrade properly, but I've had absolutely no problems with mine (my Mom got one too and she had no problems either). Its great having 1100 songs on my MP3 player. I only own 400 of them, but i get to rent essentially $700-worth of songs for an extra $5 a month. This is an Ipod-killer feature! 4. GREAT WEIGHT & CONTROLS FOR EXERCISING--- I've been walking with my Zen Micro, and it's nice to be able to control everything with my thumb. Also, the DJ feature is great for keeping the music fresh as you're working out/exercising, and so you dont have to keep finding the next song or album to play. 5. EASY TO READ SCREEN--- when in the car, it's imperative to be able to easily see the screen in a quick glance. This screen is essentially a very light blue backlight with dark, dark blue lettering, compared to earlier Creative screens that have dark blue backlight with a slightly darker blue lettering. Still not as nice as Rio Carbon's or Rave/iLo screens, but its vastly improved and easy to read. Too bad you can't set the backlight to stay on all the time (30 sec max). Oh, well, I can't have everything. 6. THE SOUND IS FANTASTIC--- it can get nice and loud, unlike some other players, and the sound quality is about the best I heard (could use a little more bass). 7. NEAT GLOWING FEATURE WHEN RECHARGING--- this was an unexpected feature that has no real usefulness, but it's quite cool. as it's charging the light behind the controls glows brighter, then dimmer...as if it's breathing. useless, but a neat surprise. CONS: 1. HEADPHONE JACK IS THE MOST FRAGILE COMPONENT EVER MADE!!!--- as soon as I got my Zen Micro from Amazon.com, I downloaded a few songs and started playing it... stuck the headphones in the jack and.... no sound out of the right earpiece. Boy was I mad!!! Felt really screwed over by this product, but I informed Amazon.com and they sent me a new one overnite... THANKS AMAZON.COM!!! (Guess that's why you should buy from a reputable seller!!!) The new one has performed flawlessly, and my mom's has also. Be careful using a large-rimmed 1/8" plug while the player is in the plastic case... the rim hits the top part of the plastic case and torques the headphone jack, thus causing the solder connection to break. Use small plugs and don't put ANY force on the headphone plug/jack!!!! (I use a short headphone extension cable that has a small, 90-degree plug from Radio Shack that is taped to the side of my plastic protective case so it has no stress on the jack, can't be jerked (the tape takes the shock instead of the jack) and so I don't have to remove the plug from the jack, since I frequently change from headphones to FM transmitter in the car. It's worked great and hopefully this will prevent any future jack problems, but it's still rediculous that this is even a problem in the year 2005... How long has the headphone jack been in existence??? NO EXCUSE, CREATIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) For full disclosure, I am in NO way affiliated with any MP3 manufacturer, Amazon.com, nor Napster. Also, I have no ill will against Ipods, I just think being able to "rent" and try music is a great idea after years of having to buy $18 CDs for one or two good songs. I'm just a guy trying to find the "BEST" MP3 player out there that does what I want, and think, it should do. I hope you enjoy whatever MP3 player you purchase. They all have their own great features and headaches, but the Creative Zen Micro satisfies what I want in a mini-jukebox style MP3 player. I hope my "real world" critique is helpful to you. Good luck!