Creative Zen Micro

What do you do if your competitor has the most popular product on the market? Copy it, of course. However, rather than using exactly the same formula, Creative has designed its iPod Mini rival with more memory, battery life and features, and all for just £10 more than Apple's miniature digital audio player. c

The Zen Micro is a cut-down version of the Zen Touch. It has a 5Gb hard disk and supports WMA, MP3 and WAV audio files. Unfortunately, it can't read music bought from Apple's iTunes music store but it will support any Windows Media protected tracks downloaded (and paid for) from Napster and other compatible download services.

It comes with Creative's MediaSource software, which handles CD burning and transferring songs to the player. You can also use Windows Media Player to shift the music but it has to encode MP3 or WAV tracks to WMA format at first, which can take quite some time.

Our favourite piece of software, though, is the Zen Micro Media Explorer, which allows you to access the contents of the player and synchronise Outlook contacts, calendar and tasks, something which the iPod won't do straight out of the box.

The Zen Micro also comes with an integrated recordable FM radio. What's more the battery can last for 12 hours, and Creative has put a spare one in the box to boot.

So far, so good but there are some snags to this great-value player. First, the vertical touch pad has the 'select' button right in the middle, which means you frequently trigger it as your finger brushes over it. Secondly, the plastic housing and garish colours (there are 10 to choose from) just don't carry the same sleek cachet as the iPod Mini's brushed aluminium coating.

Other than that, it's an excellent effort by Creative and gets the thumbs-up from us. We found the layout of the touch buttons intuitive and the screen very clear.

There are also nice features in the menu system, such as creating on-the-go playlists and searching for other songs by the artist you are currently listening to. There's also a nifty blue neon light around the edge of the player that lights up when in use. Sound quality is excellent and the headphones are far better that the usual offerings.

In all, we think that the Zen Micro is better equipped than the iPod Mini. A 20Gb iPod only costs another £30 but if you can live without Apple chic, Creative's player offers superior value for money.

Contact: Creative (no UK number)
www.europe.creative.com

Also consider: Apple iPod Mini