Creative Zen Nano Plus (1GB, Dark Blue)

Pros: Size, UMS storage by default, nice rubbery case, good sound with good headphones

Cons: (Nitpicks, but still) No sleep timer, small screen shows minimum info, slightly inconsistent battery meter, EL backlight (indiglo) buzz, near impossible to remove case from armband once attached

Summary: I had a 512 mb MuVo Micro n200 about a month ago, and then exchanged it when my local retailer began carrying the 1gb Nano Plus within a couple weeks into my buying the MuVo. Both are identical and come with idential accessories. The only exception is that the MuVo does have a firmware that takes care of occassional faint popping noises and quiets down the buzzing noise you get from the display's backlight. The Nano Plus hasn't had any sort of firmware updates just yet (at least in the US).

The player itself is great. The size is completely comfortable, and it has a lanyard/strap loop (seen in just about all Asian-made portable electronics, which would be perfect to use with imported Sony MDR-NQ1 or MDR-NX1 lanyard headphones).

I'm using XP Home Edition, and I didn't bother installing anything that came with the player. When plugged into a PC, it comes up as an external storage, so I just drag and drop my album folders via Windows Explorer. Why transferring non-DRM'ed music in this manner is such a rarity among mp3 players is beyond me.

It comes with a small handy rubber-like carrying case/belt clip (the clip also can latch into the provided elastic arm band, but good luck removing it).

My main complaint (and I may be the only person bothered by this) is that there is no sleep timer built into the unit. It's a pretty standard feature (or I'd at least like to think it is) with just about any audio player. I like to listen to my music when I go to sleep, but without a timer, I end up waking up 7 or 8 hours later with my music still playing, with one battery bar left (unless I begin listening from a folder closer with a name to the end of the alphabet). The unit even has an auto-shutdown timer if it's idle for too long, so it shouldn't be hard to include something such as a sleep timer in a firmware update sometime.

The display is small for good reason, but as I listen to many various artist compilations, it would be nice to see more than just the song title from the track's id3 tag. I shouldn't complain about that, though... Shuffle owners aren't even graced with a display. :-P

The unit is good about resuming in the same spot in a song as when it was powered down. The only time that I have problems with that is when the battery dies. When putting a new battery into the unit, it resumes not where the music was when the battery died, but where the music was the last time it was powered down. The volume level and EQ returns to the previous power-down settings, too, which I unfortunately found out once after blowing my ears off (I usually turn off the EQ and crank up the volume when using the Nano Plus with an FM Modulator in the car).

I can't comment yet on the line-in recording quality, but it's too bad that the highest recording quality setting is 160 kbps (mp3), and that the line-in port is smaller than the standard 1/8" (3.5 mm) size that I expected. No sneaking it into raves w/ a stereo mic, unfortunately...

Don't get me wrong, this is a GREAT player... When you have something this well-put together, it just makes all the little teeny nitpicky flaws stand out that much more (some may not even see them as such). If you're not an anal electronics user, then forget everything I said, and pretend that I gave this a 10.