Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing, 12 Feb 2005
I've had mine for almost a month now, so I've had it long enough to be able to give an opinion on it. It's amazing.
It's smaller than I had expected, the blue light around the edge is cool and the touch pad is something I've never really experienced before.
The software isn't that hard to use, you just have to look at the screen and work out what's going to where (ie. from your CD drive to your PC, from your PC to your Zen Micro). For those of you new to it like I was, the 'Get Info' is a very useful option on the software as it automatically retrieves the titles of albums, tracks and artists as long as you are connected to the internet and have your pop-up blocker disabled.
For those of you who are as new to this as I am, if you get in your package from Amazon a small white plastic thing that you don't know what it's for, it's the stand that fits into the cradle... slightly embarassing that I didn't know what this was, but this goes on to the reason I haven't given this five stars. There is very little information that comes in the box. There isn't even a piece of paper describing the contents of the box. There is a manual, but it comes as a .pdf file and it's accessible through the CD-ROM that comes with it, so make sure you read it!
The radio isn't amazing, it doesn't have very good reception and when you move, the signal goes. One reason I got this over other MP3 players was for the radio, but I think you have to accept that it's more of a gimmick rather than a serious listening device.
The music, however, is great! The earphones aren't too bad on the sound quality, but for comfort you're probably going to want to get something different. I think Creative must think that people's earholes are completely round.
The support is good. I've e-mailed quite a few times when I haven't been able to work something out and I've had friendly, personal, helpful e-mails and didn't have to wait for too long.
One thing I would advise, is read through as much as you can before you get started. For example, there is an option of something called 'Smart Volume' which analyses each song and the levels and then adjusts them to make a set level of volume. That means that you can listen to your collection without different albums with different volume levels making it uncomfortable. The feature can be turned off, but you have to set this up BEFORE you start to rip music onto the player. I learnt this AFTER I had put on my music... so, make sure you read things!
The battery life is very good. I wanted to check how long it lasts for and I've had it on continuous play since 6:30pm. It is now 3:00am and it hasn't stopped.
WARNING: On the Creative website (www.creative.com) there is a warning about re-charging the battery. Make sure that you don't plug your player into the AC Adapter while it's plugged into the wall and switched on. Make sure you only turn on the power button of the plug once you've attached the player. Some people's battery life has been greatly compromised because of this... reducing it as low as 3-4 hours of battery life. Fortunately, Creative have firmware that can update your player's firmware, straight through your PC from their website and onto the Zen Micro through the USB (this technology, it's amazing, isn't it?!). It should rectify the problem, but it does take up some of the hard disk space, so avoid this problem in the first place! I hope this review is helpful to someone. I would highly recommend it!
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Zen Micro, Good as it gets?, 12 May 2005
The Zen is a very nifty bit of kit:
For the Under 10gig harddirve range, its probably the best
its a nice size, easy to use, and looks good!
lets look at it in terms of what your getting:
5gigs or 2500wma tracks, enough for a decent sized music collection!
Radio and other extra functions, useful, i like the mircophone, its good for a laugh, radios not the clearest unless your somewhere with good signal, which is not many places with the zen.
12 hours playback, not alot, i would much prefer a battery, but at the end of the day, its alot more than most of the rival mp3 players.
Easy to use software, some peoples reports have stated it has problems, i think it is very easy to use, and fairly self explanotory.WORD OF WARNING! VERY VERY IMPORTANT Lithium Ion batterys:
DO NOT BEHAVE LIKE ORDINARY BATTERYS, they do NOT suffer from battery memory, i.e. they do not start to loose run time if u let do not let them run all the way down. infact the very opposite, i wont bore you with the chemistry/physics behind it! which i checked up on, but basically due the the way the battery works, you MUST NOT letthe battery run all the way down, rechaerage it regulary to keep your 12 hours play back time!
THIS IS THE SAME FOR ALL LITHIUM ION BATTERYS! i hope this word of warning is useful! Back to the Zen, Easy to use! big enough! Looks good! Good Size! Well worth the money, and deffinantly better than the i-pods that all my friends are wishing they had gone for the zen!
the ones that have are very happy! (and for thoose of you that have read about a loose headphone socket, i can safely say mine has had no such problem, i belive creative have sorted this out, although not 100% sure) Your search ends here! Great Bit of KIT! ENJOY!
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Much better than its Apple counterpart., 16 Feb 2005
It's true, it does defeat the ipod mini hands down - that's not to say that it is without its faults:
The main faults seem to be:Voice recording - it records at 16kbps...fine for speech, if you're recording anything else, it's not worth it. The inbuilt microphone is very basic; sometimes you might be better off holding a tape-recorder next to your phone! Radio - The zen micro uses your headphones as an aerial; not a bad idea, but headphones are not designed as FM aerials and so the signal is very poor...especially when you're on the move. But why would you want to listen to the radio when you have quality mp3s on your player? To get the most out of your player, I would suggest you use mp3s of at least 128kbs - don't touch WMPs with a bargepole. This equates to about 800 tracks (realistically). Creative suggest you don't fill it to the 5gb capacity, as this can diminish the battery times and how long it takes to search for music...its also good to keep a bit of space as a storage device. Some people seem to complain that the volume control is not easily accessible, but in fact, you just slide the front control down when you are in the 'Now Playing' mode. The menu can be a little tricky to understand, but I did not encounter problems with the touch-sensitive controls, it's exactly like a laptop. The main reasons that it is better than the ipod Mini:
-It holds more tracks.
-It holds mp3s, not some crazy apple encoding.
-The battery is removable; therefore you don't have to bin it when the battery dies, like you have to with the ipod.
-Its not owned by every person under the sun, you get some sort of individuality with it.
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