Creative Zen Micro Review

Design Technica has joined the pack of reviewers of Creative's compact, 5GB player. Like most reviews, the inevitable comparisons to the Apple iPod and iPod Mini are made, but the Design Technica crew had some strong words for Creative about meeting or beating the iPod:

There is a reason why the iPod reigns supreme; it simply works as it says it will. Apple has made us upset with their unwillingness to support software other than iTunes and we were really hoping the Creative Labs Zen Micro would be a good alternative, but it just left us feeling let down. If you read any other reviews both in print publication and on the web, you will be led to believe that the Zen Micro is the iPod killer we have all been waiting for, but it isn't. We have to wonder if these other publications even tested the Zen Micro before writing a review. After testing two different players and using them for a couple months, the flaws in the Zen Micro were very obvious to us.

Creative Labs has a couple problems they need to address before they can stand to compete with others in this market. First of all, something is draining the battery life from its player at increased rates, both when it's being used and when it’s powered off. Getting four hours of battery life from a 12-hour battery is inexcusable. Secondly, while we love the audio quality from their ear buds, they are too big to use for long periods and will make your ears very sore. Lastly, Creative needs to polish their own MediaSource software and work on software compatibility with other Media Players like RealPlayer and MusicMatch. Here is our suggestion for Creative Labs: make a hard drive based digital audio player with only a few polished features and make sure it works well. Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink shouldn’t automatically mean it’s the best, it has to work correctly first.

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Creative Zen Micro Review
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