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Creative Zen Micro Out of Box Experience

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I just received my Creative Zen Micro. I am preparing to put together a Zen Micro vs iPod review as I have done for the Rio Carbon and the iRiver H320. For those of you that don't know, I have been evaluating various devices in the pursuit to find something as good as or better than my iPod. I outline this quest in my post on iPod Replacement Criteria. For the past few months I have been fairly happy with my Rio Carbon, however I found the Zen to be appealing because it has an FM Radio and a better User Interface, as well as a removable battery. Recently Creative released MTP firmware, which gives it PlaysForSure audio support. They are currently working on firmware that will give it Subscription support for NapsterToGo and have a beta firmware release.

So far my Out of Box experience was phenomenal when compared to the Rio Carbon. Furthermore, I found that it was almost as good as the iPod. Creative is really paying attention as the Zen Micro comes with a white usb cable, a white charger, a sleeve, white headphones and a stand that doubles as a belt clip. Very slick packaging and it made me very happy when opening my new toy. You can see some of the Out of Box pictures below (more pics).

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2005
    Yet, somehow, to me, it still manages to look cheap and tacky. And just looking at that picture, the screen looks really low res and ugly to look at. :(

    You can tell that Creative is trying really-really hard to pay attention during their weekly Apple design school class. It's just a little sad that they are failing so badly in my eyes.
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2005
    A shame its so darn ugly. It looks like "My First MP3 Player" for the kids. The cables look good, though. ;)
  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2005
    I think the pictures don't do the device justice. I actually don't think it looks ugly, and it's tiny. I am really loving the device to be honest.
  • Anonymous
    February 07, 2005
    I bought the pink one for my wife and she loves it. I don't understand why people think it's so ugly.

    I do notice that these naysayers aren't saying that it performs worse than the iPod--when you have to fall back on aesthetics to criticize electronics, your detractions don't carry much weight in my book.
  • Anonymous
    February 21, 2005
    Looking forward to the review.
  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2005
    Omar, One of your criteria (and mine) is "No installation (of Software) required with Windows XP SP2..." On my PCs (both 2000 and XP), the Zen Micro is not recognized without the Zen Micro Explorer software loaded (unless a Data section has been defined). On your system, was the audio section recognized as a drive on connect or only after a plug-in is added to Media Player 10?

    This is a huge deal for me, as I and some friends and coworkers have shared stuff we have created. My Rio Forge (only 256Mb + SD Card) has been recognized as 2 drives (internal memory and SD card) by every system I have plugged it into. The guys at Rio assure me that the Carbon will look like a drive, just like Forge does. However, The Zen Micro has only the Data portion recognized, and does not play any files that I load into that section.

    While I was on the phone with my sister when I spotted your "Carbon .vs. iPod" article, which got me to this article. Now that I'm done with your Carbon article and typing, I'm off to exchange the Zen Micro I bought this weekend for a Rio Carbon. :-)
  • Anonymous
    February 23, 2005
    Harry-

    If you intall the PlaysForSure firmware you get the same functionality as the RIO. No drivrers involved.