Creative Zen Nano Plus 1GB - Black

All my friends are buying iPods (silly people) or Creative's bigger jukeboxes but I'm not into that sort of thing. I've got a largish music library and others can't understand why I don't have a desire to have all my music in one place. Its purley about size. I mean It's not a big deal changing the music around every-other week is it?

Before I start making this product look really good, I need to explain the downers. Firslty, when I put the instalation disk in and started the setup, it crashed. So the software they supplied me with was of no use. However that is not a large drawback as I can use the sync function in Windows Media Player to get what I want onto it. This is where the only other problem lies. When copying WMAs onto the Nano, they transfer at light speed. I mean FAST but when Windows needs to convert the mp3s before copying them on, it takes flipping ages. I guess it takes 20 mins to copy an album consisting of mp3s onto it whereas it only takes a few seconds to transfer an album of WMAs onto it.

Oh! There was one more thing a tad annyoing with this. As it's so small, you have a separate USB cable that goes from the device to your computer that means if you take your work with you on it, you need to carry the cable aswell. However, that's a fair sacrifice for its size.

Now, lets size things up. Please don't let those things discourage you from buying this fine piece of artwork because that'd be silly. Put it like this... I fitted 20 albums onto this with space to spare for transporting homework and stuff. And if, for no reason, none of the music you put on there tickles our fancy then you can just switch on the radio. WOW! And, if you hear a song you like starting you can actually record it. Now, this next feature is one of things that looks revealing but may not be at all useful. It's the inbuilt microphone. But honestly, it really is useful. You can also use the line in cable supplied to record with a favoured device. For example, I can record riffs from my guitar onto it if you have the correct connector.

The sound quality is also fantastic. If you think it's lacking a little volume just go to custom EQ and make your own one, making sure the bars a just a little above centre. Another great thing is that on my old MuVo NX it often took a second or two to change folder but now it moves at lightspeed. Which reminds me, like other creative mp3 players you can arrange your music into folders for albums or playlists. This makes it so easy to find the song you want.

To sum up. This is a fine piece of gagetory. Don't let the bad points change your mind in the slightest. Please get this. Its a really good price for lots of high quality music, microphone, radio and the feature to record off the radio. Absolutly fantiastic. I just hope this lasts out on me.

A friend has an ipod shuffle, and we both agreed that this wipes the floor with it.

The sound quality is at least as good as the shuffle, if not better. I would recommend that you invest in a better pair of headphones though - the ones provided are a bit on the large side.

The menu system is fairly intuitive, coupled with the LCD display it scores points over the shuffle. You have to be fairly light fingered with the click wheel, to avoid pressing it in while trying to move it - got used to this fairly quickly though.

Copying files over from a computer is simple - it appears as a standard USB mass storage device. Had it working on Windows and Linux without the need for any drivers. Had all my albums playing (in the correct order) straight away.

Battery life is pretty good - I got about 13 hours out of the supplied AAA. Would recommend that you buy some Ni-Mh rechargeables to go with it.

The build quality seems sturdy enough, though the whole thing is made of plastic, which does make a feel a bit cheap - it seems fairly resistant to scratches though. I think the ipod shuffle probably beats it in terms of desirability.

Was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the FM radio - thought it was just a gimmick, but it's actually pretty good.

The ability to encode MP3 direct from radio or from the line in (or microphone, for that matter), rounds this gadget off nicely.

Overall an excellent flash memory MP3 player. Highly recommended.

Sound quality is great too, the equaliser presets are good but I tend to use the 'Custom' setting. The white headphones (I'd preferred black with the black player) are adequate but I chose to upgrade mine, I use the KOSS KSC22 sportclip headphones, which are the best I have found yet for sport, they sound superb with this player too.

One of the best features I have found on this player is that all of the controls are so damn intuitive! Holding it in your hand, you have On/Off/Play/Pause under your thumb on the front. Directly under your thumb on the side there is a Jog Wheel and pushing up or down will skip tracks (hold this button down for a second and you switch to album/folder skipping). To access all of the menus, settings, equaliser, FM Radio (which I find very good even though I'm using other headphones), Voice recorder etc. You just press the jog wheel. Finally underneath the wheel you have a Volume up and Volume down buttons. Simple.

I found getting tracks on and off the player very simple, I just plugged it in to the USB port, it was recognised as a Mass Storage Device, and it behaved like any other drive connected to Windows XP. A bit of dragging and dropping and it was as simple as that (won't comment on the software which came with the player as I haven't opened it) A little tip for those who don't know - If you rename the drive that the Player appears as in Windows XP it will remember that name every time you plug it in (mine appears as Xen (I:) as opposed to Removable Disk (I:) now).

All in all this is a fine little player, very light, very robust, very nice sounding and a pleasant looking little thing (I particularly liked the scrolling track name at the bottom of the blue backlit LCD). I find that I can get about 15 albums on (which is more than enough for gym sessions) but I think that if you were more careful about keeping bit rates to 128Kbps you'd be looking at closer to 18. Battery life I have found to be impressive also. I'd recommend this player to anyone!