- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 515 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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19 out of 22 people found this review helpful
1.5 stars
"Save your sanity."
Pros: size, form, FM radio, recorder
Cons: short battery life, constant crashes, slow transfer
Summary: I had wanted to purchase an mp3 player for years but was turned off by the cheap feeling, cheap looking and the lack of options on most non-ipod mp3 players. Then the Zen Micro came to the market. I was finally willing to put some serious money towards such a small peace of electronics. It had all the options I have been looking for and I thought it looked better then the Ipod/Mini, plus it works with Napster to go which i thought was just a great idea... A true Ipod Killer.
I wish I had waited... The extras (fm radio, recorder, size, Napster to go, looks) does not compensate for the headaches that come with the unit...
Within the first day the unit had locked up twice causing me to reload firmware, which in turn caused me to reload the entire library of music on the device which is a pain in the a$$. It took me nearly 2-3 hours to transfer data from pc to Zen Micro. The next thing I noticed was that the battery life was not even close to the stated lifespan of 12 hours... The best I could get out of it was 4 hours. So when the battery was not dead and the player was not stuck on the boot screen, I noticed that it had terrible search time... While playing a track if you try to search up or down a few tracks it would normally take about 5-10 seconds to begin playing the selected track.
I ended up giving the player a few extra days (2 weeks) of testing and I was still not satisfied? After numerous crashes (about 10) and having to reload the library every time, I gave up. CompUSA was nice enough to allow me to return the device (I wish they were nice enough to have a display model of the Zen Micro so that I could have seen some of the issues prior to purchasing) without any restocking fee?s.
I then went straight to the apple store and purchased a 4gb Ipod Mini. I could not be happier. My music transfers in minutes (4gb?s worth of data) the battery last?s longer then the Zen?s (still not to published spec?s) and I have not had one crash within 4 weeks of owning the Ipod Mini. I miss not having the radio and Napster to go, but I don?t miss the headaches?
And another quick note is the lack of accessories. I think that there are a few must haves for a mp3 player that Creative should offer. A docking station, armband (a must for the serious jogger), and a fitted pouch (not that cheap baggie that is included with the Micro).
- 7 replies to this review
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i NEVER had such problem in a year now, maybe your computer is just trash and infected the player. Download a firmware upgrade
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i NEVER had such problem in a year now, maybe your computer is just trash and infected the player. Download a firmware upgrade
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I must disagree with the poor rating of "Save your sanity". I have used my Creative Zen Micro for several months now and have not had one problem with it. I love the sound quality and it hasn't locked up on me yet. I find the battery life just as stated.
The only thing I wish could be better is to have some of the cool accessories that the iPod seems to have.
Other than that I am perfectly happy with mine...and I'm not an advertisement. -
I must disagree with the poor rating of "Save your sanity". I have used my Creative Zen Micro for several months now and have not had one problem with it. I love the sound quality and it hasn't locked up on me yet. I find the battery life just as stated.
The only thing I wish could be better is to have some of the cool accessories that the iPod seems to have.
Other than that I am perfectly happy with mine...and I'm not an advertisement. -
If you are willing to take 10 minutes (no more than the time you took to write your review) and go to Creative's user forums, you'd realize that fixes are available with a firmware upgrade. People there would also explain why you experience hangs.
Personnally, I have not experienced any hangs, nor unreasonably short battery life. But hey, I'm using the latest firmware!
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you say all this stuff about the zen micro, but what about all the bad stuff about ipods? first off they have no removable battery, so once your battery dies you jhave to pay for a technician to replace it or you buy a new one. two: the accessories for the ipod are extremely expensive, just for a little docking bay its $99.00 three: theres that thing about ipod's music library organizer, if you pull out the usb when its loading then it can not only wipe out ALL the music on your ipod, but also in your music library itself. four: the circular touchpad volume thing sometimes comes off... and your rating the zen a 3 just because it wasnt loading music right? if that was the case...
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that with all micro drive mp3 players that any josiling or if you drop it, bank it, or any quick shock to it, can crash your hard drive , if not ruin it alltogether. also same goes with ipod on crashing, best get a PDA
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