Creative Zen Micro 5 GB MP3 Player Green

Rating:
Summary: Zen Micro Rocks
Review: The zen micro is a great product, and extremely easy to use. Although Some of the other reviews have said that the vertical touch pad to impossible to use, but unless you have had your hands amputated and are trying to navigate it with stumps, it works really well. Also, the software that came with the Zen micro is really simple to use, and pretty much straight forward. The sound quality is great and it can hold more than double the songs of the ipod mini. Basically anyone that is wondering if this is right for you, it is.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome mp3 player!
Review: I bought a Zen Micro white about 3 weeks ago and I love it. In fact, I loved it so much that my mom took it away from me for like a week lol. However, that's not the point. I will highlight the pros and cons of the awesome Zen Micro.

Pros:

1. Sound - great crystal clear sound, very clean at low volumes. Hizzes are present in high volumes but it's not very comfortable to listen to anyways when your eardrums are about to blow.

2. Size - VERY small - at least smaller than what you would expect.

3. FM Radio - Convenient when you want to listen to something else besides your songs for the change (I don't use it that much, however).

4. Touch Pad - OK in the first ten minutes of usage, you will scream like a little girl about the zen touch pad. However, after you get used to it (took me like 30 min lol), the touch pad works like a charm. The key here is: when you want to click, touch it lightly and don't hold the key at all. When you want to scroll, touch it hard at first and keep your finger there. Then move your finger up and down WITHOUT LETTING GO OF PAD.

5. Custom EQ settings - need I explain here? However, eq settings might chew up the battery a little faster than no eq settings. I'm not 100% sure on this though.

6. Menu - customizable is always good. Nice and easy.

7. Built-in recorder - not the greatest but it doesn't hurt to have this function, does it?

8. Interface - very clear, no clutter. Font is good.

9. Case - awesome little protective case w/ stand that comes with the zen micro. Remarkably simple, works like a charm. Protect your investments!


Cons:

1. Battery life - I was a little disappointed at the battery life on my zen micro because it only lasted 6:30 as opposed to 12:00 that creative claims. I think that it will help to not use an eq setting and pause the player before turning it off.

2. Earphones - I don't know but I didn't really like the stock earbuds that came with my zen micro. They seemed too big and the sound seemed a little distorted. I find that sennheiser mx-500 works very well on the go with the zen micro (nice inexpensive earphones that give very clear sound).


Notes:

1. My zen micro hasn't frozen yet in 3 weeks. I hope it doesn't lol after reading all the reviews. I'm sure if you take good care of IT, it will take good care of YOU.

2. Static produced when you plug your earphones in isn't a defect. It's the zen micro's sleep mode that allows it to start up much quicker. A little battery is wasted when you let the zen micro "sleep" (turning it off for less than a day or so).

3. Music transfer is VERY easy imo. I just drag and drop :P. Works like a charm.

4. Another problem some users may have is the headphone jack problem. I'm not sure about this but it has something to do with creative's loose construction of the headphone jack. I have had my zen micro for 3 weeks and have not noticed ANY problems with it. I am a satisfied customer indeed.

Enjoy the music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: iPod's biggest threat
Review: I bought this Zen Micro for my wife since she wanted to experience digital music. I picked up the package for her at UPS and was quite impressed by the packaging of the device. Even in its packaging they are trying to compete against the all powerful iPod. The result is a very well packaged and impressive product. When I first laid eyes on this device it was love at first sight. Yes, even if the device itself is a pink colored one. Its small, well built, easy on the eyes, yet its beauty captivates you from every angle. After my wife charged it for three hours, I took the pleasure of holding it and playing with a gadget that doesn't even belong to me. I was impressed with the powerful, beutiful light that both, surrounds the device and lights up the screen. Its a nice blueish relaxing color. Nothing too loud to distract you. This is definately the device that many will see and approach you in the subway and ask: "what is that?" then you can show it and say: "is my Zen Micro", and leave people going home searching on google for the device. I love iPods, but I was very impressed and captured by the beautiful toy. Now, don't let its beauty fool you. This is one powerful device. 5G, 2,500 songs, FM Radio, voice recorder, calendar, to-do list and wonderful sound. It is enough to hold up its own and I dare say stomp on the competition. The only reason why I don't see it beating the iPod in terms of sales is that I don't believe it to be marketed effectively. If they spend some millions on commercials (never seen one), printed ads and even those big billboards, then, you can really say they have a chance. I do hope that word of mouth is enough to give this small, wonderful device the credit it deserves. Zen, you won my heart. Now, if you excuse me, my wife might be home soon and find me playing with her Zen... a big no, no.

Rating:
Summary: not as good as expected
Review: i bought zen micro last week. My overall satisfaction is "so-so". I wanted an mp3 player with radio capabilities, thus i stayed away from ipod. Replaceable battery was another advantage over the ipod.
The truth is that i read reviews which indicated that radio reception can be weak. I work in NYC, so with the radio antennas everywhere i figured that it should not be a problem. Well... it is. I can not get clear radio reception anywhere for any station.
Also, battery does not last 12 hours - 4 maybe 5 hours the max ( kbps 128, kh 44 mp3s). No accessories are available either (such as arm band holsters, etc)

Rating:
Summary: The Best MP3 Player Around
Review: I recently purchsed this MP3 player. This is the best player around. If you are thinking about buying a Zen Micro. Buy it. It will be one of the smartest choices you have ever made. You are gonna love the features this player has. It also will get looks wherever you go. I showed it to my die-hard Apple Ipod friends and they even said they liked it. This player is truly going to be your best friend.

Rating:
Summary: Good product, Great service
Review: I think that the zen micro is probaly the best jukebox you can get If you are not a DJ. It only holds 2500 songs however I have about 400 on mine and can't think of anyother song that I like. It looks great, the scroll bar makes a lot more sense logicaly than the Ipod's circle. The battery is said to have 12 hours but I think its only about 8. Then again I dont really go anywhere for that long that i can't bring my charger. Aestheticaly, I love it, but thats only an opinion.
Where the product really shines however is the customer service. After about a week, the headphone jack became loose and the sound quality became horrible. I sent an email to amazon at 6:00pm (im not sure if its amzon who did this or zen but) then 21 hours later ups picked up the old one and delivered the new one. i couldnt believe it! Over all this is a great product and dont be deterred by the technical problem I had because all jukebox's are touchy like that.

Rating:
Summary: Good but you'll know why Apple is not afraid
Review: I was excited to receive this player. Everyday I would track its progress from KY to my house.

Why I bought this player:

* Owner exchangeable battery with a longer life than the iPod. Read that as I don't void the warrantee by pulling out a defective batter or get charged 90 bucks to not.

* Radio tuner. I like Morning Edition on NPR.

* More storage than a Mini. I'm American, bigger is better.

* Can also be used as a removable hard drive.

* Less expensive than a Mini (in most cases)


Finally, it arrived yesterday. And now, the preliminary verdict...

* My system configuration is Pro SP2, have Macafee anti-virus, Windows firewall enabled and Office 2003 Pro.

* The Creative software is buggy. The reason why I say this is because the software when syncing the Zen to Outlook not only caused Macafee to alert me but also MS Office itself alerted me about this activity (who says that Microsoft is completely vulnerable?). After allowing the sync manager to connect to my Outlook contacts etc. in both Macafee and MS Office, illegal operation error in an MFC class; translation, the coders more than likely didn't sign their application so it looked more like Melissa or code red than an acceptable application. I'm sure they will update the software since my system is not an unusual system configuration.

* This morning, arrived at the office pulled out the player and found the stock left ear bud had come apart. This really didn't surprise me since the price you pay is for the player and not the ear buds. I had planned on buying a nicer pair of headphones anyway so, not a big deal to me.

* The radio works really well. I'm able to pick up a rather stubbornly weak NPR station.

* The transfers are pretty good, it takes less time to rip the CDs than to transfer them to the player.

* iTunes is a MUCH better interface to transfer files. It's also much more solid a program than Creative's music manager. But hey, Windows Media Player can work as the music manager for the Zen.

Am I still excited? Yes, it is a nice sounding product. The touch pad isn't as bad as many claim. No worse than getting used to a new laptop and the settings do help a lot. I set mine to low and don't seem to fumble much at all.

The reason for three stars is because the "package"; the software, player, and included accessories, aren't of the quality I would expect from an iPod killer. If creative polishes up their music manager or just lets Windows Media Player do it all and adds better quality earbuds, there would have been four or five stars to the rating.


Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but....
Review: I'm a relative newcomer to the portable audio game, and therefore I have yet to develop any biases or swear allegiance to any brand. I did do a lot of research before buying a player, and most of my friends have iPods so I know all about them. I decided that something in the micro drive category would suit me best at this point in time. I went with the Zen Micro because it seemed to be the best alternative to the iPod Mini and also had a little more of what I was looking for.

For the first month I had it, I loved the thing. First of all, anyone who complains about the "over-sensitivity" of the Micro's scrolling features obviously hasn't spent more then ten minutes with it. After a day or so, I had no problems with overshooting or accidental selections or anything else. If you have opposable thumbs and a more deft touch than, say, your average gorilla, you should be fine. Although it is much easier to scroll through a large library of songs with the iPod's wheel, the Micro makes it easy to find that certain song with a pop-up menu that lets you skip through your library alphabetically.

Most of the other features are more than adequate. The sound quality is top-notch. The display is crystal-clear. The standard earbud headphones are every bit as good as iPods, although I only used those for a few days before switching to a higher quality pair. The Micro is small enough to fit easily in any pocket but designed so that it doesn't fall out of your hand all the time. It's extremely easy to operate with just your thumb. The FM Tuner is choppy at best; it would work great while I was at work but horribly at home (about one mile separates the two). And I was disappointed with the battery life. At best, it got half the life that Creative advertised. I could live with this, though, because I generally just charged the thing overnight while I slept, and also the one I ordered came with a free extra battery just in case.

But after about a month I encountered a major problem. All of a sudden, for no apparent reason (I hadn't dropped or damaged the thing) my Micro just crashed. One day I hit the power switch, and it froze on the home screen and made a repititive clicking noise. Nothing I did, and for that matter nothing Creative support told me to do, would fix the problem. Creative offered to replace it for me for free, but I asked them to just refund my money instead. I loved the Micro, but should I hope that this was just an anomaly and get a new one, or go with something comparable but hopefully more reliable? (I refuse to buy an iPod, by the way). It seems other customers have had this problem before. I may try something in the 20-40GB market, but there doesn't seem to be a solid alternative to the iPod.

If it doesn't crash, the Micro is an amazing product. That's a big "if" though. I don't know where to go now. I may even hold off buying anything for a few months, as this seems to be a big year for the market, with lots of new products coming out to try and bag some of Apple's gold. Potential buyers might want to consider that option as well.

Rating:
Summary: And this here is my favourite wife Marcy...
Review: This is a short-term review as I've only had the Zen Micro for a week, but right off the bat I'm impressed with this thing. I did alot of research when looking for an mp3 player, since most of them are so expensive, and I narrowed my choices to the micro-drive type. And more particularly the iPod and the Zen Micro(I'll be honest, I didn't even give any Rio or iRiver a chance, sorry). With 4 or 5 GB holding roughly 80 hours of music, I figured that would be plentiful(and it is). And the small size of these two devices more than make up for any additional tranferring of song files I may have to do if my music tastes change(vs. the large capacity). So I chose the Zen Micro because; of the additional Gigabyte, the slightly cheaper price ($30.00 in my case), the addition of a radio and recorder(could be useful, sounds decent to me), the removable battery, and because of the complaints I've heard about iTunes and the iPods other limiting features(I don't hate iPods by the way, but I do hate Windows, the operating system, not in general).

And so I'm very glad I made this purchase. Regardless of what others may say, the touch pad is pretty easy to get along with. The first 10 minutes of using it can be frustrating, but mine seemed to "simmer-down" a little to become more managable. I think the interface and everything is very easy to use. Flipping back and forth between menus and finding a particular track is quick and easy. I was disappointed with the radio since the reception is pretty lacking. If you hold the wire for the earbuds in the air it improves a little, but who wants to walk around holding their arm into the air(no offense to lady liberty)? Also on the player are "extras" such as a calendar, organizer, and contacts list. The calendar and organizer could be useful to some people, but they aren't mind-blowing additions. I haven't done anything with synching up to Outlook, if you're an outlook user that could be useful to you though.

Another positve for this purchase was the customer support I received. A few days after I had had the player, one of the little foam coverings on the earbuds fell off somewhere and was lost forever. I almost panicked and thought I was going to have to spend $25 on a set of new earphones. But then I calmed down and began to think rationally, "this thing has a one-year warranty, I wonder if they would send me a new foam-covering. I mean it's such a little thing that probably costs less than 5 cents." And so I e-mailed customer support stating my predicament, and less than one day later I got an e-mail saying that they would send me a new set of replacement earbuds. I was blown-away!! And another reviewer on here mentioned that after his player stopped working they offered to send a replacement, outstanding!! And on the topic of earbuds, they are decent but nothing to geek-out about. My files are all 128bit mp3's and sound pretty good, alot of definition that I don't get with my stereo, and I've heard the sound quality is better than the iPods, but that's just what I've heard from people, not the actual players.

So to wrap things up, I would definitely recommend this to my mom, or my brother, or anybody else really. I guess there is still alot of time for my opinion to change, but I doubt things will get that bad. So the Pros are: small size (smaller than iPod in most respects), larger drive than comparable player(s), awesome look (I didn't even mention all of the glow), ease of use, and customer support. Cons: 10 minute learning curve for touch pad(kind of a ridiculous con though), unimpressive earbuds (but probably better than comparable player(s)), software didn't work to well for me, but I'm pretty sure that was a computer/school network problem.

Oh yeah, and all of the colors. I have the black one which I think looks pretty cool. The silver would have been my second choice, but black seems to be the best looking. Unless you like to show your personality through your mp3 player, in that case Clem(fictional character) would love Agent Orange, and I recommend pink for the ladies. Red gives me headaches and the green makes me feel ill. And purple was an ex's favorite color, white looks like an iPod, blue looks too purple, light blue probably would be okay. Go for black, silver, or light blue to be modest/maybe conservative/normal?.

Did I say anything about it being small? The pictures taken by customers are good, but when I took it out of the package it was smaller than I expected. I was totally geeked, almost giddy is what some people might call it. It's much smaller than a Pop-Tart, it's even a little bit smaller than a credit card, but thicker of course. Could you imagine a 5GB player the same size as a credit card?

So seriously consider this player and don't let any crowds sway your decision, make it for yourself. Good luck!!

Rating:
Summary: buy ZEN MICRO - ipod mini is for GIRLS!
Review: Zen Micro is awesome...the sound is far superior to any ipod, and its much smaller than even the ipod mini. Additionally, the ipod mini is really for girls...i work out in manhattan and i can't tell you how feminine the ipod mini looks on the guys who work out there...a major plus for the Zen Micro is the cell phone-like battery: pop the battery out of the back and pop in a fully charged one when you're on the go and need power...I did own an ipod a while back and it was ok but in general the ipod battery life is terrible and it stops playing every now and then just for the hell of it...the Zen Micro has it all right now...FM radio, voice recorder (ok, i have no idea who will ever use this, but it sounds like a good feature)...plus the sound is amazing. And it looks cool...but this and you won't be disappointed...