Creative Labs Zen Micro 5GB Review

[dang]

Checkout our latest review of the Creative Labs Zen Micro 5GB (http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review2180.html)

[Ioman]

As you can tell, I was pretty dissapointed. I think it has a lot of potential, it just isnt as good as an Apple iPod.

[oldfogey]

There is a posted firmware from December 2004 that is supposed to fix touchpad sensitivity and the charging issue discussed in the review. Is this the firmware you used? I recommended that a close friend purchase this player not 3 days ago and now I am leery of the problems you have stated. Let us know what firmware revision was used please. Thank you. Oldfogey

ps. Sorry about posting a "review" with this same content. I didn't find the forum link till later. Ah well.

[Ioman]

Hi, welcome to the forums.

We did use the latest firmware upgrade on both of our review units. Maybe our battery was just blown by the time we updated the firmware, I don't know.

I still found the touchpad to be way too sensitive, even after updating our player. If you just plan on using MP3's for your format of choice, I would recommend jumping over to the iPod and just using iTunes.

Personally, I love Windows Media Player 10 and would like a player that interfaced with it, but I have yet to find one I like. Maybe iRiver has something? I will have to find out.

[llbbl]

If you take the battery to a battery store they can test the capacity of it and see if it was up to specs. How many mAh was the battery that they sent you?

[mattsimis]

Hi, welcome to the forums.

We did use the latest firmware upgrade on both of our review units. Maybe our battery was just blown by the time we updated the firmware, I don't know.

I still found the touchpad to be way too sensitive, even after updating our player. If you just plan on using MP3's for your format of choice, I would recommend jumping over to the iPod and just using iTunes.

Personally, I love Windows Media Player 10 and would like a player that interfaced with it, but I have yet to find one I like. Maybe iRiver has something? I will have to find out.

There are two independant firmwares for this player, one supports MTP and the other is the standard one. Did you try the standard firmware? Ive heard the slow transfer is due to WMP10.. have you found it faster in Creatives software? How about when using it as a removable drive (something not covered in your review)?

Ive used Creatives MediaSource from other Creative products (they give it away with everything it seems!).. the big thing I like about it is the fact is can encode into virtually any format, and convert most. Afaik, even Windows Media player cannot encode to MP3.

It sounds like the battery you have is dead... you can measure it yourself with a MultiMeter, see if the voltage reported is whats on the battery. Or you could review their RMA service for us and get it replaced! :D


Matt

[Ioman]

Hi Matt, welcome to our forums.

So do we need to update the firmware twice for this unit? I just downloaded the latest version from their website (the PlaysforSure version) and assumed it had the code from previous firmware versions in it. It would silly to have to download multiple files.

We compared the Zen Micro to the Apple iPod mini for our transfer tests. The iPod mini literally blew it away. Personally, I think the transfer speed is fine for me, but it is slow compared to other players out there.

When you talk about encoding to MP3 you mean converting a WAV file to MP3 or transcoding to a different bit rate right? Because I can rip CD's to MP3 using WMP 10 without a hitch.

[mattsimis]

Sorry, didnt realise they added MP3 ripping support into WMP10: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/faq.aspx#6_4


Im not sure what the speed problem is, but Im sure I read it was quite fast at transferring.. maybe its MTP? The IPod doesnt have MTP or an equivilent.



Matt

[Ioman]

I thought transfer speeds were slow with both WMP 10 and The Creative software. Its not that huge of a deal as long as long as you are happy with yours. I didn't mind the transfer speeds too much. Once the music is on there, I leave it on for a while so its not like I am transferring 4GB a day with it.

[mattsimis]

I thought transfer speeds were slow with both WMP 10 and The Creative software. Its not that huge of a deal as long as long as you are happy with yours. I didn't mind the transfer speeds too much. Once the music is on there, I leave it on for a while so its not like I am transferring 4GB a day with it.


Good point.
I guess the lockups and battery issues really spoiled it for you then? Did you contact Creative about the problems?


Matt