Creative Zen Micro (5GB, black)

Pros: Looks really frickin' cool, decent features.

Cons: HEADPHONE JACK IS A PROBLEM

Summary: I'm a techie; and for the past 2 years I've been trying to find that "idealistic" mp3 player - everyone has their own idea of one. You know, one you could keep for 3 years and love it every year. So I tried the zen micro. Although very enthusiastic about it at first, after 29 days I returned it and here's why:
1) The Software
The creative "media manager" is bad; in fact, ANY software you have to install is bad. You cannot go to your friend's computer and give him a song off you micro! (Unless you tell him to install the "media manager," haha I wouldn't let ANYONE install software like that on my computer!) To have any organization whatsoever on your micro you MUST HAVE YOUR MUSIC TAGGED. If not, your list of artists on the zen will be f*cked, 'cause remember, you can't organize by folder, but only by mp3 tag names.
2) Touch Pad & Navigation
The touch pad is WAY too sensitive and the navigation isn't great - two problems that make each other worse. Going to and from browsing artists to the now playing screen is tedious, and enqueing and removing songs from the playlist is also. Accidentally selecting wrong buttons because of the sensitivity (and accidentally clearing your ENTIRE plalist) is common practive. The navigation "slider" is a poor immitation of the iPod's circular thumb-twiddler (I hate to say it, but the circular motion is where it's at (I don't own an iPod, and in fact, refuse to buy one)).
3) HEADPHONE JACK
This is the killer. I read numerous reviews about the malfunctioning headphone jack before purchasing and I told myself, "meh, it won't happen to me", WELL IT DID. And so it probably will happen to you too. The heaphone jack comes loose off the circuit board or something and you get CRACKLING NOISES in your headphones; what a crappy feeling you get (this is where the nice, smooth curved edges of the micro come in handy - SO YOU CAN SKIP THE MICRO ON A LAKE INTO A ROCKY CLIFF WALL. There should've been a recall done months ago, but no, I've heard nothing done to resolve the issue. It shows that they just don't care, which leads me to my thesis.
Summary:
All electronics nowadays are DISPOSABLE. That's right, new models are rolling out every few frickin' months, you think they actually put time into engineering design? Ha, with so many competitors and so many models being released every week, there's no time to! Ironically, too much competition in this market has actually decreased quality. We are all consumer wh0res, but OH IT FEELS SO GOOD.
Here's a list of mp3 players I've eaten through the last 2 years:
Iriver HP-120
Iriver PMP-120
RCA Lyra 256meg + 1 gig SD Card
Creative Zen Mirco
Next Pick: Cowon iAudio X5L - PLEASE SAVE ME FROM THE WH0RE I'VE BECOME.