Creative Muvo

Add a USB connection to a piece of Flash memory and you have a memory key.

Now add a headphone jack, battery and some control buttons and you have a Muvo, a small, light music player you can carry around on a keyring. All it's missing is a screen.

The Muvo casing is home to 64MB of Flash memory.

Windows sees this as an external hard drive, so once the drivers are installed, you can simply drag and drop.

A bundled CD includes drivers for Windows 98 and 98SE, but XP users can simply plug and go.

There's space for 30 wma or 15 lightly compressed MP3s.

As a pseudo drive it can transport regular data files if you're willing to sacrifice some music.

The Muvo's killer feature is the lack of cable or cradle, as it plugs directly into a USB port.

It runs on a single AAA battery, which Creative estimates should provide 12 hours of playback, as was the case in testing.

In the box there's a pair of poor-quality headphones you'll probably want to replace.

The controls are basic but functional, allowing for play, pause, track skipping and volume.

There is also an ill-advised repeat button. Press it once and you mark the start of a section, press it again and you mark the end, at which point the Muvo will repeat the chosen selection ad nauseum.

A better use for this button would have been shuffle play, which is both more common and more useful on a music player.

This and the headphones aside, the Muvo has a lot going for it.

It is the smallest non-Sony media player we have seen, is easy to use and versatile enough to double up as a memory key.

SPECS

• 64MB of storage
• USB connection
• Headphone output
• 28g (excluding battery)
• 73 x 35 x 16mm (h x w x d)
• Battery: 12 hours on single AAA
• Includes drivers for Windows 98/98SE

DETAILS

PRICE: £99.99 (£85.10 ex VAT)

CONTACT: Creative