After reading about the Zen Micro, It sounds really good. The only doenside is that it cant play games like it's main competitor, iPod mini.

I've played this baby and it really does handle like a dream.

after serching on countless occasions for the iPod i stumbled across the zen micro. i was berely interested by it untill i decided to check the reviews on it. as i serched many websites said that the zen micro was the new iPod holding more songs, build in radio, recorder and others for only 30 dollars more.

as i serched futher into it i realised that it is far better than the iPod even though it was not perfect. As i had 540 dollars to spend on a iPod i decided to serch for reviews comparing the two. Once again i found that the zen micro was more effective than the iPod even though there were a few things which needed to be changed. Overall so far most websites have said that the zen micro is the thing to get your needy child or relatives for there birthday present. You should look futher into the zen micro if you are thnkig of buying a iPod mini.

I shall be posting another comment in a few weeks saying what i actually think of it (as i am buying it in a few mere days).
I hope u liked listening to my review and i hope you will take it into consideration.

Richard,

Thanks for the comments and please do post your thoughts once you've spent some time with the Zen Micro.

I have the same experience with Taphil.
My Zen Micro froze up a dozen times, I have to reset by removing the battery everyday.

I will give it a try for c ouple of days before returning it or ditching it.

Okay, time for a shameless plug. There's a review of the Zen Micro here

Plus a head-to-head comparison of the Zen Micro vs iPod Mini is coming soon. :D

The address didn't appear..
http://www.monsternet.org/features/crzenmicro/

Jon,

Thanks for letting us know! Your review has its own post now.

Hi Lindsey, thanks for the link. Well, the head-to-head review is now done.

http://www.monsternet.org/features/zenmicroipodmini/

Cheers!

Has anyone whose Zen Micro froze tried the firmware update from http://creative.com/support/ ? That often fixes these things.
* if so please share your experience after installing that particular patch.

It seems that to cure the freezing problem you have to perform a disk clean up. i think its done by powering the zen on and instead of releasing the power button you hold on to it and it boots in a "safe mode" then you select disk clean up. dont take my word for it, might want to ask exactly how from the creative people but i do know that the disk clean up fixes it.

Hello,
Can you tell me if I can use my Micro without inserting the software CD provided witht the player? My pc is currently not recognising its CD drive, but I have lots of MP3s saved to the hard drive.
Thanks.

If I understand correctly, you can you it as a harddrive. However, you have to dedicated a chunk of harddrive space expressly for this purpose. For example, 1GB for files and the remaining 4GB for music.

Ive been thinking about a zen micro for a while and i would like to know that is it true that the zen micro freezes at times but that is knid of normal at first or is it just some of the bugs in it? Also how much does the zen micro cost? I think its the 5gb one i want the one that hold 2,500 songs.

I purchased the excellent Zen micro pink at christmas and was very happy with it until around about january the sound started to go funny and somethig went wrong inside so we sent it back. A few days later i got a new one but now it has broken AGAIN so i've sent it back and to avoid going through all the hassle AGAIN i am now getting the new 6GB ipod mini. Apart from this the zen micro is a great player an has some fantastic features to it and i do prefer it to the ipod.

Oh, i forgot to mention it does freeze from time to time and when i tried to put songs from my zen onto my computer the whole thing froze and broke, that was another reason why i had to send it back.

Hey, I know what your thinking, the iPod mini is the "in" thing. Listen, the Zen Micro is SO much more!!! I've had mine for a week and I LOVE it. I did the research on the iPod mini and the Zen Micro, and everytime it said the Zen was the BEST choice. It is so tiny, holds so much music, and soon is going to beat the iPod mini. I bought mine at Walmart.com for only $208.97!!! I paid for 10 day shipping, and it arrived the next morning!!! I LOVE this thing. The touch pad is awesome, there's nothing I don't like about it. Trust me, stick with the Zen and you'll get your moneys worth! THE ZEN ROXS!!!!!

I bought the Zen Micro used from a chap for about $150, so that was cool. It's really nice, and it did freeze up once when I was shutting it down, but it hasn't done it since. I didn't install the software provided. Instead, I just downloaded the driver from Creative's website, and I updated to Windows Media Player 10, so now that's what I use, and it's quite simple. I do have issues with the up/down touchpad. It doesn't work too well for me. I think I'd prefer actual buttons. I've had lifelong experience with buttons, so I don't miss selections and stuff with them, but the touchpad is tricky. Otherwise, I think it's really nice. I haven't used the iPod much, but this thing has way more features, especially FM, though it isn't as clear as I'd hoped.

What I'm hoping is that it doesn't "break" like some of you have said, because I don't have a warranty on it, as I bought it used. Do you know if I can still send it back?

My zen was plugged into the power adapter during a thunderstorm and when i looked at it the light was flashing and none of the buttons worked. So i took the battery out and put it back in several times, but everytime it just went to a screen that says "CREATIVE" and underneath the copyright information, and nothing works. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not even sure if it was because of the thunderstorm of if it just broke. Someone give me some suggestions.

iv had my micro for about 3 months, evrything wasd gr8 about it, until it developed a crackling and distorted sounds in the earphones, i tried to put new 1s in but it was definatly the player, so iv had 2 take it bak 2 amozon , but they are giving me a new 1 so thats kool!!!!
apart frum that its gr8.....

Ive had the player for a week now
The files transfer quickly to the player..
everything is great so far.. havent seen any problems
yet.

Ill let you know if I come across any.

You get used to the quick scrolling of the controls
on the player.. just takes a couple days to get used to it.
Player has info also.. shows you how many songs you have on the player.. and how many MB of space left.. cool..
I havent got any yet
but i recommend getting new headbuds .. the ones that come with the player arnt that great.

I'm thinking of getting a Zen Micro but it sounds like it has reliability issues. Any comments?

Okay, so I have had the Zen Micro for quite a while now. It's June 4th and I got it for Christmas. It really is an awesome little MP3 player. I just have one wuestion for those who may know how to answer it: can you turn off the Random Play mode? I tried it being curious enough and now my songs are all mixed up and i cant choose which ones I want to listen to. Please respond A.S.A.P. Thank you so much.

I got my zen just after christmas and i loved it, but after about a month the head phone scoket broke, but crative did give me a replacement, a week after the replacement arrived it crashed and would only display "Firmware error" but creative replaced it yet again, luckly i havent had any problems since (although my sisters headphone socket has just broken on hers) but all in all its a great piece of equipment and creative have been extremly supportive with the replacements. But from what ive read the zen obviously has some reliability issues.

I got my zen just after christmas and i loved it, but after about a month the head phone scoket broke, but crative did give me a replacement, a week after the replacement arrived it crashed and would only display "Firmware error" but creative replaced it yet again, luckly i havent had any problems since (although my sisters headphone socket has just broken on hers) but all in all its a great piece of equipment and creative have been extremly supportive with the replacements. But from what ive read the zen obviously has some reliability issues.

the difference being about two days' worth of work, I don't know whether to get an orange (my favorite color) 5gb Micro or a 20gb Zen Touch. Mostly I'd perfer a Touch, but I don't know where to get the "optional wired remote" that allows FM radio and voice record (speaking of which, no one has posted anything about voice record yet), but if I knew where to get it it seems the Touch is the way to go. Comments? Please?

monkeyoffury,
I think that the orange 5GB Zen Micro is a very good choice. I have one and it works very well (with the exception of the battery life - 3 hours, but can supposedly be prolonged with the new firmware?). If you want a larger storage four your music, I guess you could get the Zen Touch, but I have not had any personal experiance with it, therefore not really knowing how well it works. These are just my opinions but the Zen Micro is seriously an excellent player.
You can purchase the Zen Touch 20GB at the Cambridge Soundworks shop on the internet or at a store. (I'm not sure if they have multiple stores throughout the States depending on where you live. I went to one of there stores in Nashua, NH and I was helped out a lot. Here's the link: http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/store/category.cgi?category=aud_mp3_hd&item=l1zntch2

You can also purchase a Zen Touch at the creative website at: http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=10274

I'm 13 years old and it might not sound it, but I'm just obsessed with electronics like my dad. The apple doesn't fall dar from the tree, ya know?

I posted before, and I was wondering if anyone could help me. I have my zen micro on "random play all" and I don't know how to get it off so i can just listen to the songs in order. Gerr this is bothering me. I was also wondering if you could buy an installation CD if the one you already have is messed up, or not able to be used. Any info. would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you.

-Sam

help!!!! My pink zen micro has broken!!! What can i do i bought it from amazon but cant seem to find a way of saying it is faulty because i have had it more than one month!!! the problem is the sound went wrong and you could not hear they words so i cleaned it and formated it and now it tells me to download soft ware! What do i do?????

the zen micro is great.........right up until the point where it breaks and then you have to send it back! you recieve a new one .........which then breaks again!.........you send it back again hoping that its 3rd time lucky ......but guess what? the faulty thing had suprising BROKEN again! i loved zen micros they have everything a listener could possibly want but there are some serious faults with these mp3's! i thought it may hav just been me heavy handling it ! but many of my friends also had to send theirs back due to......faulty sounds, dodgy earphone connections, constant freezing and many other reasons! come on "creative" sort them out!

I need some serious help. I just bought my Zen micro when i was in hong kong. the one thing i forgot to check was the stupid charger. when i got back home, i excitedly opened the box and got ready to charge it. the problem as, the charger plug was too big for our power sockets. i dont know what to do. is there a converter i can buy somewhere? please help, id really like to listen to my zen.

Hi my creative zen just broke...in the midlee od a song it froze and after removing the batery it still does not work: it just went to a screen that says "CREATIVE"

any suggestions?? so far my creative was fab, but now I'm a bit desapointed... thanks

Hi, I've went through two zen micros first one worked great for about a week until it just froze up and yes I did go into maitenance and I tried every option on it. Reformat reload firmware ect. So I took it back and got another one. As soon as I got the other one it was functioning like a p.o.s.
It wasnt responsive as my first one and lagged with the led light and I have to hammer down the play button and sometimes it doesnt even work, So I'm returning it for a full refund either I got bad luck or creative has issues.

I have had similar problems with Zen. It didnt help that the shop assistant where I got it didnt even know how to turn it on, nevermind tell me what might be wrong. It just froze and went to the reformatting screen. I presumed Clean Up was the right option but when I did this a very worrying sound came from it! I eventually got a new one and a few days later the same thing happened but this time clean up seemed to do the trick. Do you actually need to 'Clean Up' every once in a while or something? The reason I got the Zen is cos I will be travelling for several months and NEEEED my music however, I may return it if I cannot rely on it. A bit of a disappointment really.

I have had similar problems with Zen. It didnt help that the shop assistant where I got it didnt even know how to turn it on, nevermind tell me what might be wrong. It just froze and went to the reformatting screen. I presumed Clean Up was the right option but when I did this a very worrying sound came from it! I eventually got a new one and a few days later the same thing happened but this time clean up seemed to do the trick. Do you actually need to 'Clean Up' every once in a while or something? The reason I got the Zen is cos I will be travelling for several months and NEEEED my music however, I may return it if I cannot rely on it. A bit of a disappointment really.

hey i got my zen micro about 3 days ago and couldn't be more pleased with it.

pros: large file space (5GB), Cutomizable GUI, Dj feature, overall sound quality, sexiness factor, fast transfers, cool controls.

cons:disapointed in the fm tuner, controls become greasy, software it comes with, the headphones are sooooo uncomfortable.

ya overall good player but definatly think about getting new headphones to take advantage of the awesome sound quality

I am an otherwise loyal creative customer who has owned a micro for six months. Oh, if I had not been so blithely optimistic in my market research, if only I hadn't ignored the plethora of fault and breakage complaints. Now, my friends, I am one of you - my micro insists that it has a firmware problem, but resists my attempts to reinstall firmware and reformat it. It has gotten to the point where the creative techs are asking for a receipt because they can't help me further. I don't want a replacement sorry guys, I want a refund. Creative have lost a very disappointed customer.

im the zen micro for christmas and i cant wait but by reading these reviews im scared it well freese up all the time im super stoked and i cant wait to get it :)
riseagainst@hotmail.com

im the zen micro for christmas and i cant wait but by reading these reviews im scared it well freese up all the time im super stoked and i cant wait to get it :)
riseagainst@hotmail.com

im the zen micro for christmas and i cant wait but by reading these reviews im scared it well freese up all the time im super stoked and i cant wait to get it :)
riseagainst@hotmail.com

I won mine of msn and its now broken :( the sound jack is stuffed but other then that I love it

Hey all of you must be very disappointed about this zen micro
yeah well im sure anyone who buys one will eventually have the head phone jack problem and hope fully your lucky and it wont crash on you. But anyway from personal experience I can say dont buy a Zen micro its sounds great looks great has great features but after a while i can almost be sure that youll have problems i dont know what creative was thinking. Mines had the head phone jack problem then it crahsed on me so now im goignt o send it back hopefully ill get one that works or ill just sell it and get an a different player. Why creative why?????

It's such a shame that it's getting so much bad publicity here. Remember that for each one of these bad reviews, there are probably many satisfied customers who didn't need to come online to search for problems with something that's working perfectly fine! (Unfortunately, I am not one of these people...)

I got the 5gb Zen Micro for christmas last year and it's great. Well it was, until the headphone socket bust. Now it only works when I'm holding the jack, or when I rest it down. But if I move or have it in my pocket, the sound gets really distorted.

It's a shame, cos the zen seems to be so much better than the iPod. My girlfriend has the iPod shuffle and she hates the fact that you HAVE to use iTunes. At least with the zen (once you've upgraded the firmware) you can just drag and drop music onto it.

I'm gonna try and get a refund, though I think it might be a bit late. Hope I can, cos I've just seen a 20Gb Zen Micro on www.ebuyer.com which I'd much rather have!

THE ZEN hEADPHONE JACK FVCKED UP??!?
here is the solution...

First of all this is an illegal idea but it works wonders cuz you get a brand new player... I done it SIX TIMES First of all the zen is of course better than ipods right...well...i like em anyway...i dont wanna be mainstreaam right? this is a way you dont have 2 wait for creative 2 send you a brand broken one again lol...

Step one. Have over 250 dollars on hand...
step two. Go to a store you can buy zen micros .walmart...
step tre. Buy a zen micro 5 gb
step fou. Bring the new zen micro 5 gb home...
step fiv. Transfer all your music from old zen 2 new zen .
step six. Switch serial numers from new zen 2 old zen...
step sev. Re package old zen and put it in the new box...
steo eig. RETURN IT FOR A FULL REFUND!!
step nin. Remember the serial is located behind the battery
step ten. do this every time your zen fvckes up...

sometimes they dont even look at the serial!!
Hell its a great idea the serial comes off easily after just a bit of scraoping, with any this, i used a butter knife...then just reglue just in case they check at the return place...and remember at WALMART THEY DONT EVEN CHECK THE SERIAL..LOL LOL ive done this so many times i just say, '' This product is not what I expected..'' lol ya but goes 2 show how much i like CREATIVE products if im willing 2 do this everytime the headphone jack fvckes up.

I bought a pink micro in july, and about a month or two ago it broke. When you turn it on it stays at saying 'Creative' until it runs out of batteries. I tried recovery mode, doing clean up and formatting and everything, but nothing worked. So my mom bought me a new one two weeks ago, and guess what. A week later it does the same thing! I have the package for the second one, so i can return it, get my money back, and i guess have to buy an ipod. But my first one i have no package and it was bought in july. So how could i return my first one, i got it at walmart. Would anyone buy it if i sold it on Ebay, or does anyone know how to fix it? Please email me.

I was actually going to do what Retail Resistance did. THey enver check anything, they make such a profit! But...now i can't. And don't get me wrong...the zen micro was AWESOME. It just breaks easily. If the IPOD were that good, I'd be more reluctant to buy one. I have MSN MESSENGER if you could help, and AIM: beeotch x potato YAHOO:luvin_kitties

I got the Zen Micro after my birthday and for the first month it worked perfectly. After that month it started freezing all the time, and now it says there's a firmware problem. I don't know what to do, I don't have everything from the original box so i'm not sure if i can return it, i have a feeling i'm screwed. Please help if you can!

i just got my micro and it sucks bum my comp didnt even read it it said the zen wasnt even plugged in im kinda pissed does anyone have any sollitions...

OMG ZEN MICRO ROCKS!! the only really cra'ppy feature is you dont get a charger with it, and have to plug it into the usb on your computer for it to charge

9/10

the zen micro is really good for me. i have so much fun with it that i even bought an idog for it. the only problem i have with it is that it freezes at times randomly, i always have to take out the battery and it has to reload everything. i love it besides that! :-)

I've owned a Zen Micro for almost a year now; its such a great player, most Ipod owners I know had to return theirs a few times due to battery issues and such.

Anyhow, I am a linux fan (what can I say, I hate mainstream for the most part) and there is a program available, gnomad2, that works fine in linux. I'm not sure if there's a windows port available, but I use gnomad2, available at:

gnomad2.sf.net

all of the time to transfer tracks to my Zen Micro. In fact , the program works with nearly all Creative products. So if you are a linux user reading this and are thinking about buying Creative products, check it out! I have also used it in both SuSE and Fedora Core.

I used to have problems with freezing as well, but i would suggest using the older firmware upgrades, believe it or not. Heck, maybe its just messing up because of windows.

The only real issue I have is that the headphone jack is loose. I attempted to fix it with superglue, but the pins inside are bent.

Anyways, a great player, I love recording the radio.

Cheers,
LinuxPower

(PS, if you're a linux fan or have questions, type your email in your post with a little note. THX!)

So much plastic and wires when it freezes up and stops all the time. I was glad to read here I'm not the only one who has this problem, but I'm not having it much longer. It's outta here! The 'intuitive touch pad' is a looser. It selects what it thinks you want and you end up spending time trying to get back to the screen you were trying to do something with. No go. Back to the design phase!!!

hi

i recently reformatted my pc like i always do every 6months and ive been installing the software alot of times but now ive broken the disk by running my pc chair over it by accident and now i have no way of getting the software on...Im currently in singapore and here they want $100 for a replacement software cd and i was wondering if there was a site that allowed you to download it for free..
email me at shamindar@hotmail.com
Thanks

dwwd

i like the device

I've had my zen MicroPhoto 8GB for a week. So far, I've been extremely pleased with the functionaity and sound quality. It did crash once though, it got stuck on the "Creative" screen, but nothing was erased. I hope that the earphone jack doesn't go bad, that is the only common problem it seems.

Ive had my micro for a week and it has frozen, ive tried the revovery mode and everything ! i dont know what 2 dooo ='[ some1 please write back !! jess xx

Ive had my micro since about march, its frozen and when it trys to boot up it just says "creative" does anyone have an idea to fix this. also i see people doing the recovery mode and i was wondering how to do this. tony

I love my zen but I do have the freezing problem. which sometimes take a while to fix.

Holding the powerswitch does not put me in recovery mode, either.

I have the 6 gb micro, so maybe it is different for that.

i got a zen microphoto for christmas and im really happy with it but today my sister disconnected it from the pc coz it was finshed charging and it just froze with 'creative' on the screen. then when i turned it on again it went straight into recovery mode and i cant get out of it unless i turn it off...can anyone help??

Bought 2 Creative Zen Micro 6G for xmas gifts. One froze about 2 months later...didn't know this was a problem. Screen was stuck at "now playing" and it wouldn't turn off unless you took the battery out. When you turned it on nothing functioned at all. Disk cleanup did the trick this time. Can't find receipt of course. Will creative still repair? or replace? Won't know unless it freezes again. Hope I won't have to find out. Thanks for keeping this blog relatively family friendly...lots of people use it. Anyone use the skins? Are they worth purchasing? I can only find them online...ipod sure corners the market with access.

After i put songs onto my Zen, some of the songs skip. I'm not sure if it's my computer or the Zen. Has anyone else been having this problem?

After i got my Zen, the songs i put on it started to skip. No matter how many times i reformatted or tried to replace the songs, it would skip for a majority of them. Has anyone else had this problem?

i just finished fixing my zen micro 5gb from the headphone jack problem

every thing else works fine

The creative zen micro is not worth the money. It has a bad design, which doesnt allow it to lay flat on its back and it is not at all durable. I had one for 2 months before the headphone outlet broke due to just using another pair of headphones that werent creative. It then broke and when sent in to get fixed, creative charged 90$ to get it fixed because the damage wasnt "under warranty". There are definatley better products out there for the money. I suggest the toshiba gigabeat

The creative zen micro is not worth the money. It has a bad design, which doesnt allow it to lay flat on its back and it is not at all durable. I had one for 2 months before the headphone outlet broke due to just using another pair of headphones that werent creative. It then broke and when sent in to get fixed, creative charged 90$ to get it fixed because the damage wasnt "under warranty". There are definatley better products out there for the money. I suggest the toshiba gigabeat

i had the creative zen micro 6gb for a week now. it sucks cuz it only worked for 2 days. afterwards, there was some kind of firmware problem. at first i was able to upgrade the firmware but lightning didn't strike twice for me. secind time around, it just froze and said "firmware problem" at the screen. it would'nt even function, what should i do to fix it?

What a waste of money! The Zen Micro was fine for a little while then just froze at startup screen and Recovery freezes too when I try to cleanup/reformat. I have already sent it in once within the first couple months and have had it only another month and it happened again. Meanwhile I have two Ipods in my house that have never had a problem. Wish I bought the Ipod

i saw anon tried to put music from it on to ur computer, what program did u use to do that. thanks

i saw anon tried to put music from it on to ur computer, what program did u use to do that. thanks

What is recovery mode and how do you do it?

My screen froze at "Creative" after 2 lousy days. That is quite creative to make something that doesnt works. Just swell.

Hy brew, how did you opne your zen micro? i want to fix the headphone jack like what you did but i cant find any screws to open it.

I've had a Zen Micro for 5 months maybe. Today, it dropped from maybe 3 inches from the ground. It worked after i dropped it but then it froze when i wanted to turn it off. I took out the battery, and reloaded it but it froze on the second "creative" that it showed for an add or something upon turning on. It kept doing that after i kept reloading it or starting over. Did I deffinetley break it? Or could it just happen...?

Didn't get to read problem about the jack later on; however, after more than a year, it finally caught up with me, and now I can't listen to music properly. Changed the cord with controls once, thinking it was the problem, but now after searching for reviews I realized that everyone will have this jack problem sooner or later. Found solution on the net, but I don't know how to solder!

I got burned big time. I bought the 8 gig ZEN micro photo, big mistake. Every one I talk to who bought any creative mp3 player had nothing but problems. There has to be a class action lawsuit filed. Lets get one organized.

So I dropped my Zen Microphoto and now it won't turn on. Shit. I really like this mp3 player. It hasn't froze on me since i did that clean up thing. and only once in a blue moon does it restart. I'd probably get another one...it hasn't been a burden until now when I dropped it once and it's already broken. It's just delicate. I still like it...IF IT WOULD TURN ON!

i got the creative zen micro with 5 gb. for christmas so i had it 4 months and it froze nothing works and no website or book helps it sucks...if anyone can help me please do ...thanx