Zen Micro Review

**zeke_mo** · January 28th, 2005

I just got this little gadget the other day and thought how nice it would be to write a review for osnn. So here it is:

First of all I was amazed how small it was based off of the pictures that I saw on newegg.com(no commercial endorsement

) I got it out of the huge box thinking it was pretty good sized and to my supprise....it was tinny!

I used those usb to serial for us nerds who know how big they are

.

After playing around with all the features for awhile I was amazed again by how much there was. FM radio(and yes I think its a good feature), FM radio recording, voice recording, and a nice little calendar.

Not only is this little device packed with cool stuff it is very sleek looking and very attractive to the eyes. I esp like the blue light the goes around the player(which pulses as it charges)

Sorry about the blur in the picture, but it captures the main idea.

Ontop of it being a pretty little player it came with some decent peripherals.
The headphones are nice but for some reason cause my ear to get alittle sore after listening with them for long periods for time

I soon replaced them with a $12 set from walmart(again no endorsement

)

It also came with a nice little "protective" case... I guess you can say, which I just keep on it for sake of protection.

And my favorite one is the small pouch that says "Creative Zen Micro" on it. It's a very nice little case that keeps the player clean and semi protected

So to sum it all up, I LOVE THIS PLAYER!!!! The sound quality is amazing and the radio comes in nice and clear. And with the newest firmware update you get to have a drag-and-drop player! I give it 4.5/5, it is just too much fun.

Hope this helps some of you!

And one last picture

**~bk** · January 28th, 2005

Thanks for the review man.

**perris** · January 28th, 2005

nice post

**zeke_mo** · January 28th, 2005

Forgot to mention that I put firefox on it from
http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/
Now I dont have to use IE at school!

**Aprox** · January 28th, 2005

Very Cool man, would it be possible to get some higher rez pics? Is it USB 2.0 ? And how is the battery Life?

Rep points to ya! All 2 of them.

**NetRyder** · January 28th, 2005

Congrats! I've seen several people buying these recently. Seems to be a popular choice for folks "thinking outside the 'Pod".

I personally wouldn't care much for just a FM tuner, but the FM recording feature would make it pretty worthwhile, I think. There have been occasions when I hear a song on the radio in the car and think...hmm, nice song. Would be a handy thing to have at such times.

I wasn't aware that the light pulsated while charging. A little novelty doesn't hurt, I suppose.

I'm not surprised by the fact that the sound quality is amazing - Creative's devices are known to have the best SNR's on the market. I was going to ask you if you had downloaded the latest firmware with MTP support, but it looks like you've already done that.

One little (but rather important) factor that you missed mentioning - battery life. Have you been able to see how long it lasts on a single charge? I know it doesn't matter on a daily basis since you won't ever listen to music continuously for more than a few hours at a stretch, but it's nice to have good battery life when you're on a trip, in which case you might not get a chance to charge it for a few days.

Good stuff, though. I'm sure you're enjoying it.

paul2-0-0-2 · January 28th, 2005

Dont mean to come in here and runin it thread but after haveing 2 what broke just wana say

THEY SUCK

Well not that far lol but after havein 2 and the ear Connection fuked up on Both dunno why didnt drop it or get water dust bits etc inside, harddrive makeiing some funny nosie and at to take battery out or it woudnt stop, the menu gets really annoying whenr you just wana chuck it up the wall or under a movein car gets that bad or (maybe just be with my mad temper lol...) Radio is ûûûû i can get good reception with both of my mobile fones but i need to take this out of my pocket, jakcet maybe not matter to some but i hate to take it out all time just to get good reception, battery life was crap at first but after a couple of charges lasted from 9am til 7:30 til i get home and had 1 bar left so could of lated 1/2 hours more

I thought it was a great mp3 playet but has time went on stuff happend and now wouldnt tell no one to get one like i have in the past like i have done so on this site + others glad i got my money back now

**Electronic Punk** · January 28th, 2005

I thought there was a radio

**zeke_mo** · January 28th, 2005

Originally Posted by paul2-0-0-2

Dont mean to come in here and runin it thread but after haveing 2 what broke just wana say

THEY SUCK

Well not that far lol but after havein 2 and the ear Connection fuked up on Both dunno why didnt drop it or get water dust bits etc inside, harddrive makeiing some funny nosie and at to take battery out or it woudnt stop, the menu gets really annoying whenr you just wana chuck it up the wall or under a movein car gets that bad or (maybe just be with my mad temper lol...) Radio is ûûûû i can get good reception with both of my mobile fones but i need to take this out of my pocket, jakcet maybe not matter to some but i hate to take it out all time just to get good reception, battery life was crap at first but after a couple of charges lasted from 9am til 7:30 til i get home and had 1 bar left so could of lated 1/2 hours more

I thought it was a great mp3 playet but has time went on stuff happend and now wouldnt tell no one to get one like i have in the past like i have done so on this site + others glad i got my money back now

What a mood breaker

onimkron · January 28th, 2005

Nice review, that blue light around the player does make it very attractive, didn't know that was a feature until now

**Electronic Punk** · January 28th, 2005

The black one is pretty nice.
When the player is docked the blue actually pulses in and out which is very cool.

There was an issue with batteries when it was first released, but I reckon I can get 2-3 hours out of it now... not only that but I got two batteries with mine and you can purchase more. Using the USB port on my laptop, I was able to listen to it all the way from the states on the planes (except takeoff and landing!)

Easy to copy music to the device, using explorer... if the same PC is used (and I have tried this) you can copy the music back to the PC.

Would have liked to have seen an easy dock, but mine just kinda sits there, quite happy ;D

Any amount of the 5gb storage can be converted into data storage as vaguely mentioned above.

**zeke_mo** · January 28th, 2005

Originally Posted by Electronic Punk

.....Any amount of the 5gb storage can be converted into data storage as vaguely mentioned above.

Alright alright....
The micro can be partitioned into a removable storage drive. Creavtive does put a cap on the size limits tho. You are limited to 128MB, 256, 512, 1GB, 1.5GB, 2 GB and thats it

And as far as battery life goes, I haven't put it to the test, its been raining here for awhile and that makes it hard to get out on the bike trail to do a stress test. Will update when I get some more info for you all

paul2-0-0-2 · January 28th, 2005

Originally Posted by zeke_mo

What a mood breaker

lol soz

Post back in a Month and see if you still feel the same

**Electronic Punk** · January 28th, 2005

My bad, 2 gig is definatly useful tho

**Grandmaster** · January 28th, 2005

Cool review, and nice photos!

**zeke_mo** · April 18th, 2005

Thought I would be a small update here.

I have been using this thing on/off since I got it; I still love it

. The battery lasts 6 hours or so(my fault, didnt condition it) Every now and then it will lock up (so do iPods, so dont give me any <insert word here>) I have bumped, hit, knocked this little unit and its still going sweet.

Right now I have all my music on it and its still has 2GB left on it, which I use for the removable storage.

I still hold to my old words, this thing is for non-iPod people. It has everything the iPod has and more. Now it comes in 4, 5, 6 GB sizes, so take your pick

.

GEN3RIC · April 21st, 2005

Originally Posted by zeke_mo

Thought I would be a small update here.

I have been using this thing on/off since I got it; I still love it . The battery lasts 6 hours or so(my fault, didnt condition it) Every now and then it will lock up (so do iPods, so dont give me any <insert word here>) I have bumped, hit, knocked this little unit and its still going sweet.

Right now I have all my music on it and its still has 2GB left on it, which I use for the removable storage.

I still hold to my old words, this thing is for non-iPod people. It has everything the iPod has and more. Now it comes in 4, 5, 6 GB sizes, so take your pick .

Please elaborate on the reason for putting Firefox on an MP3 player?

This is a serious question.

**zeke_mo** · April 21st, 2005

Simply because I can

I can use it from anywhere I wish on any PC keeping my personal settings, themes, and bookmarks intact. Also, if I am every at somebodies house and they are not blessed with broadband, I can use firefox without having to download it

I can also give it to them. Hope this answers your question

**Electronic Punk** · April 21st, 2005

For a second there zeke_mo I thought you had mentioned running it from there.
Running software from removable storage is often required, download accelerators, firefox its all good and it means you won't clutter up someones PC if you want to use it... is it a special version that uses an ini file or does it still add registry entries?

**zeke_mo** · April 21st, 2005

Originally Posted by Electronic Punk

For a second there zeke_mo I thought you had mentioned running it from there.
Running software from removable storage is often required, download accelerators, firefox its all good and it means you won't clutter up someones PC if you want to use it... is it a special version that uses an ini file or does it still add registry entries?

If you download it onto the player, there is a special exe file that you need to run. I dont think it creates any registry files. I do know however, if you have firefox installed, it will run off of those settings and not off of the ones on the pendrive/

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #1
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Zen Micro Review I just got this little gadget the other day and thought how nice it would be to write a review for osnn. So here it is: First of all I was amazed how small it was based off of the pictures that I saw on newegg.com(no commercial endorsement ) I got it out of the huge box thinking it was pretty good sized and to my supprise....it was tinny! I used those usb to serial for us nerds who know how big they are . After playing around with all the features for awhile I was amazed again by how much there was. FM radio(and yes I think its a good feature), FM radio recording, voice recording, and a nice little calendar. Not only is this little device packed with cool stuff it is very sleek looking and very attractive to the eyes. I esp like the blue light the goes around the player(which pulses as it charges) Sorry about the blur in the picture, but it captures the main idea. Ontop of it being a pretty little player it came with some decent peripherals. The headphones are nice but for some reason cause my ear to get alittle sore after listening with them for long periods for time I soon replaced them with a $12 set from walmart(again no endorsement ) It also came with a nice little "protective" case... I guess you can say, which I just keep on it for sake of protection. And my favorite one is the small pouch that says "Creative Zen Micro" on it. It's a very nice little case that keeps the player clean and semi protected So to sum it all up, I LOVE THIS PLAYER!!!! The sound quality is amazing and the radio comes in nice and clear. And with the newest firmware update you get to have a drag-and-drop player! I give it 4.5/5, it is just too much fun. Hope this helps some of you! And one last picture

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #2
~bk I <3 Adriana Joined: November 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 3,768 Reputation: 1230 Power: 154	Re: Zen Micro Review Thanks for the review man. +bk.designs; + notebook + deviantART __________ // art is literacy of the heart <3

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #3
perris OSNN Godlike Veteran Joined: January 2002 Location: new york Posts: 12,258 Reputation: 4333 Power: 291	Re: Zen Micro Review nice post IT'S NOT WHAT YOU'VE DONE IT'S WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #4
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Re: Zen Micro Review Forgot to mention that I put firefox on it from http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/ Now I dont have to use IE at school!

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #5
Aprox OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: August 2004 Location: California, USA Posts: 2,735 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 2036 Power: 142	Re: Zen Micro Review Very Cool man, would it be possible to get some higher rez pics? Is it USB 2.0 ? And how is the battery Life? Rep points to ya! All 2 of them.

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January 28th, 2005	Top \| #6
NetRyder Tech Junkie Joined: April 2002 Location: New York City Posts: 13,256 Reputation: 4260 Power: 298	Re: Zen Micro Review Congrats! I've seen several people buying these recently. Seems to be a popular choice for folks "thinking outside the 'Pod". I personally wouldn't care much for just a FM tuner, but the FM recording feature would make it pretty worthwhile, I think. There have been occasions when I hear a song on the radio in the car and think...hmm, nice song. Would be a handy thing to have at such times. I wasn't aware that the light pulsated while charging. A little novelty doesn't hurt, I suppose. I'm not surprised by the fact that the sound quality is amazing - Creative's devices are known to have the best SNR's on the market. I was going to ask you if you had downloaded the latest firmware with MTP support, but it looks like you've already done that. One little (but rather important) factor that you missed mentioning - battery life. Have you been able to see how long it lasts on a single charge? I know it doesn't matter on a daily basis since you won't ever listen to music continuously for more than a few hours at a stretch, but it's nice to have good battery life when you're on a trip, in which case you might not get a chance to charge it for a few days. Good stuff, though. I'm sure you're enjoying it. http://kunal.kundaje.net

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #7
paul2-0-0-2 OSNN Senior Addict Joined: July 2002 Posts: 979 Reputation: 120 Power: 131	Re: Zen Micro Review Dont mean to come in here and runin it thread but after haveing 2 what broke just wana say THEY SUCK Well not that far lol but after havein 2 and the ear Connection fuked up on Both dunno why didnt drop it or get water dust bits etc inside, harddrive makeiing some funny nosie and at to take battery out or it woudnt stop, the menu gets really annoying whenr you just wana chuck it up the wall or under a movein car gets that bad or (maybe just be with my mad temper lol...) Radio is ûûûû i can get good reception with both of my mobile fones but i need to take this out of my pocket, jakcet maybe not matter to some but i hate to take it out all time just to get good reception, battery life was crap at first but after a couple of charges lasted from 9am til 7:30 til i get home and had 1 bar left so could of lated 1/2 hours more I thought it was a great mp3 playet but has time went on stuff happend and now wouldnt tell no one to get one like i have in the past like i have done so on this site + others glad i got my money back now

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #8
Electronic Punk The Last High Joined: December 2001 Location: London Posts: 18,510 Blog Entries: 51 Reputation: 3652 Power: 349	Re: Zen Micro Review I thought there was a radio

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #9
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Re: Zen Micro Review Originally Posted by paul2-0-0-2 Dont mean to come in here and runin it thread but after haveing 2 what broke just wana say THEY SUCK Well not that far lol but after havein 2 and the ear Connection fuked up on Both dunno why didnt drop it or get water dust bits etc inside, harddrive makeiing some funny nosie and at to take battery out or it woudnt stop, the menu gets really annoying whenr you just wana chuck it up the wall or under a movein car gets that bad or (maybe just be with my mad temper lol...) Radio is ûûûû i can get good reception with both of my mobile fones but i need to take this out of my pocket, jakcet maybe not matter to some but i hate to take it out all time just to get good reception, battery life was crap at first but after a couple of charges lasted from 9am til 7:30 til i get home and had 1 bar left so could of lated 1/2 hours more I thought it was a great mp3 playet but has time went on stuff happend and now wouldnt tell no one to get one like i have in the past like i have done so on this site + others glad i got my money back now What a mood breaker

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #10
onimkron OSNN Senior Addict Joined: January 2004 Posts: 414 Reputation: 160 Power: 107	Re: Zen Micro Review Nice review, that blue light around the player does make it very attractive, didn't know that was a feature until now

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #11
Electronic Punk The Last High Joined: December 2001 Location: London Posts: 18,510 Blog Entries: 51 Reputation: 3652 Power: 349	Re: Zen Micro Review The black one is pretty nice. When the player is docked the blue actually pulses in and out which is very cool. There was an issue with batteries when it was first released, but I reckon I can get 2-3 hours out of it now... not only that but I got two batteries with mine and you can purchase more. Using the USB port on my laptop, I was able to listen to it all the way from the states on the planes (except takeoff and landing!) Easy to copy music to the device, using explorer... if the same PC is used (and I have tried this) you can copy the music back to the PC. Would have liked to have seen an easy dock, but mine just kinda sits there, quite happy ;D Any amount of the 5gb storage can be converted into data storage as vaguely mentioned above. Attached Thumbnails

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #12
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Re: Zen Micro Review Originally Posted by Electronic Punk .....Any amount of the 5gb storage can be converted into data storage as vaguely mentioned above. Alright alright.... The micro can be partitioned into a removable storage drive. Creavtive does put a cap on the size limits tho. You are limited to 128MB, 256, 512, 1GB, 1.5GB, 2 GB and thats it And as far as battery life goes, I haven't put it to the test, its been raining here for awhile and that makes it hard to get out on the bike trail to do a stress test. Will update when I get some more info for you all

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #13
paul2-0-0-2 OSNN Senior Addict Joined: July 2002 Posts: 979 Reputation: 120 Power: 131	Re: Zen Micro Review Originally Posted by zeke_mo What a mood breaker lol soz Post back in a Month and see if you still feel the same

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #14
Electronic Punk The Last High Joined: December 2001 Location: London Posts: 18,510 Blog Entries: 51 Reputation: 3652 Power: 349	Re: Zen Micro Review My bad, 2 gig is definatly useful tho

January 28th, 2005	Top \| #15
Grandmaster Electronica Addict Joined: February 2002 Location: Santa Clara, CA Posts: 10,574 Reputation: 2960 Power: 260	Re: Zen Micro Review Cool review, and nice photos!

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April 18th, 2005	Top \| #16
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Re: Zen Micro Review Thought I would be a small update here. I have been using this thing on/off since I got it; I still love it . The battery lasts 6 hours or so(my fault, didnt condition it) Every now and then it will lock up (so do iPods, so dont give me any <insert word here>) I have bumped, hit, knocked this little unit and its still going sweet. Right now I have all my music on it and its still has 2GB left on it, which I use for the removable storage. I still hold to my old words, this thing is for non-iPod people. It has everything the iPod has and more. Now it comes in 4, 5, 6 GB sizes, so take your pick . "My Mind is a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas" ~Sam Zeitgeist Money as Debt, educate yourself.

April 21st, 2005	Top \| #17
GEN3RIC OSNN Senior Addict Joined: April 2005 Location: Woodbury, MN Posts: 634 Reputation: 260 Power: 96	Re: Zen Micro Review Originally Posted by zeke_mo Thought I would be a small update here. I have been using this thing on/off since I got it; I still love it . The battery lasts 6 hours or so(my fault, didnt condition it) Every now and then it will lock up (so do iPods, so dont give me any <insert word here>) I have bumped, hit, knocked this little unit and its still going sweet. Right now I have all my music on it and its still has 2GB left on it, which I use for the removable storage. I still hold to my old words, this thing is for non-iPod people. It has everything the iPod has and more. Now it comes in 4, 5, 6 GB sizes, so take your pick . Please elaborate on the reason for putting Firefox on an MP3 player? This is a serious question.

April 21st, 2005	Top \| #18
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Re: Zen Micro Review Simply because I can I can use it from anywhere I wish on any PC keeping my personal settings, themes, and bookmarks intact. Also, if I am every at somebodies house and they are not blessed with broadband, I can use firefox without having to download it I can also give it to them. Hope this answers your question "My Mind is a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas" ~Sam Zeitgeist Money as Debt, educate yourself.

April 21st, 2005	Top \| #19
Electronic Punk The Last High Joined: December 2001 Location: London Posts: 18,510 Blog Entries: 51 Reputation: 3652 Power: 349	Re: Zen Micro Review For a second there zeke_mo I thought you had mentioned running it from there. Running software from removable storage is often required, download accelerators, firefox its all good and it means you won't clutter up someones PC if you want to use it... is it a special version that uses an ini file or does it still add registry entries?

April 21st, 2005	Top \| #20
zeke_mo (value not set) Joined: August 2004 Location: Placerville, CA Posts: 1,965 Reputation: 1290 Power: 126	Re: Zen Micro Review Originally Posted by Electronic Punk For a second there zeke_mo I thought you had mentioned running it from there. Running software from removable storage is often required, download accelerators, firefox its all good and it means you won't clutter up someones PC if you want to use it... is it a special version that uses an ini file or does it still add registry entries? If you download it onto the player, there is a special exe file that you need to run. I dont think it creates any registry files. I do know however, if you have firefox installed, it will run off of those settings and not off of the ones on the pendrive/ "My Mind is a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas" ~Sam Zeitgeist Money as Debt, educate yourself.