Neowin has looked at Creative media players before; we jumped at the chance to play with a Creative Zen Micro player. A slim, personal media player for the e-generation, we"ve taken a hard look at Creative"s alternative to the iPod.
The Zen is bigger in terms of storage and in terms of depth, but in both fields, only slightly. It is a bit shorter, but about the same width. Feature wise, the Zen beats the iPod hands down. The Zen has features that you"d have to pay good money to 3rd parties to get on the iPod as standard. From a financial point, you get much more.
Equally, you seem to get a more stable product; ask any iPod owner whether they"ve ever had it crash on them, and they"d be lying if they said it didn"t happen on a reasonably frequent basis. They"d admit it under their breath mind- the hallowed iPod must never hear your criticisms to its face - users fear angering it and receiving some kind of gruesome payback.
The Zen, on the other hand, seemed a lot more stable. It didn"t freeze, certainly didn"t crash, and felt fast going through the menus. So would you buy it over an iPod?
Read on for our in-depth look at the Zen Micro.