The best thing in MP3's since Indie music. (Creative Zen Microphoto 8 GB)

Member Name: iralarry

Product:	Creative Zen Microphoto 8 GB
Date:	09/11/06 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See review

Disadvantages: See review

The very first MP3 player I bought was the Creative Zen Micro Photo 8 GIG player. Cleverly it quadruples as a voice recorder, photo album, FM radio and organizer which consists of an Outlook sync capable calendar, task list and contacts list. I researched this purchase well before plunking down $179.00 primarily because I wanted nothing to do with iPOD. It was my opinion that Apple used excessive marketing strategies to force these MP3 players down our throats. I did not yield. I waited and waited and waited until finally…my wife let me buy one.

$179.00 plus NYC tax, plus the purchase of a charger and I was on my way to the adventure of tuning out society and tuning in ANYTHING I wanted to listen to from Bach and the Beatles to Indie porn groove. Well, I swear I never listened to any form of porn groove, what ever that is, well at least intentionally! Any who, I knew I had to buy a charger, the only real disappointment in this purchase. No biggie, about $19.00. Once I got it home, I set to charging the player which took about 5 hours to max out. Then, I installed software and read a little of the instruction book and set the thing up. It worked as expected. Lo and behold, there were songs on it already. Good ones too courtesy of emusic.com. Since I only read a little of the book on purpose, it was my intention to see if the player and accompanying software were intuitive. I was impressed at how fast I caught on to the mechanics of the player’s features for finding and playing music. Also how easy it was to run through ample menus which can help one do anything the player is capable of.

Over the next few weeks I experimented with many different types of music and at the same time, learned the nuances of the Creative Zen. I am ok with the touch/slide mechanisms of the keypad but do find the sensitivity to be excessive even on lowest setting. Thankfully there is a lock pad feature to keep accidental touches during play from interrupting the music. If you do not utilize this feature, the mere effort of placing the small, comfortable and ergonomically designed player into your pocket can pause, stop, change the music you are listening to. I had read reviews about this complaint and wondered why the reviewer did not use this feature. Perhaps it is an upgrade since there were a lot of these statements on the web. Regardless of intuitive key padding, it does not respond at times the way I would like it to. This is the only other drawback in addition to the charger issue that I can make.

Here is a summary list of the best features:

Does much more than play music. (See above)
Comes in really neat and interesting colors-a pleasure to look at.
Sounds as perfect as a CD if you download at 192 kbps quality or better.
Holds more than enough music to entertain for hours.
Easy to use software for transferring music or manipulating tags.
Nice feel in the hand; stores easily in a shirt pocket without feeling weighty.
Reasonably priced. A great cost to value ratio.
You can create play lists on the fly while listening to music.
The player is actually a hard drive which can be used as a file transfer medium like a USB flash card.
Removable/replaceable battery.
Display is easy to read and appealing to the eye. Can be managed to display in numerous themes to compliment face color.
It is not an iPOD!

Here is a summary list of objections:

Keypad is ultra sensitive-takes some getting used to.
Does not come with a charger, just the USB wire which does charge off your computer.
The standard white casing is ceramic coated and can chip if dropped.
Standard earphones are average at best. Better to use ear buds, anyway.
No album art displayed.
Can not listen to music while perusing your photos.

I hope this was helpful as I sincerely enjoy this new toy of mine.

Summary: Never had an iPOD, but I know it's better because I never saw an ad for this product outside the web

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