Zen Micro Review

zeke_mo

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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 :p) I got it out of the huge box thinking it was pretty good sized and to my supprise....it was tinny!
size5ul.jpg

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)
outline9eg.jpg

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
phones4ha.jpg

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

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

case4vz.jpg


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
pouch4rk.jpg


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 :)
good3jz.jpg
 
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.
 
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. :)
 
Dont mean to come in here and runin it thread but after haveing 2 what broke just wana say

THEY SUCK :speechless:

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 :)
 
paul2-0-0-2 said:
Dont mean to come in here and runin it thread but after haveing 2 what broke just wana say

THEY SUCK :speechless:

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

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Electronic Punk said:
.....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
 
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 :).
 
zeke_mo said:
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.
 
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 :p
 
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?
 
Electronic Punk said:
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/
 

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