Creative seem to be the only (fairly) strong contender against the commercial giant that is apple. I bought the old Creative Zen Micro 5GB - Silver way back when and it still works to this day, because ipods aren't exactly everyones cup of tea. So being fairly loyal to Creative, I got the MX and it generally does the job, although I don't see why they insist on adding video/image capabilities because the screen is about half the size of a phones which also include fullscreen options. Sure you could watch a film or music video but its not going to be the easiest watch. The MX looks slick in black, has a beastly 16GB memory for either a ridiculous amount of songs of a few videos, the sound quality is basically as good as its always been, or at least doesn't seem distinguishable to other similar products. However Creative have decided to bin the touch sensitive buttons and slam on noisy buttons that merge with each other so you can easily press multiple buttons at once or turn up the volume of a song you wanted to skip. That said, the stuff on the inside is what really matters and during my 1 year stint, it never really had any issues except for resetting it after a freeze.

The Menu's were quite pleasant as well, easily navigated and you choose one of many colour schemes or get really personal and upload your own photos to use as backgrounds which is a nice touch. Volume was never a problem either being more than loud enough when necessary and the on/off and return options make it even easier to use. Battery life seemed to last quite long. As always, the 'creative centrale' app that comes with it is pure garbage.. you'd be punishing yourself to put up with it, but luckily you can find other software options about online. The best way I can sum up my opinion of the MX is about the way I lost it - During a party I tried to handle my dangle whilst skipping a song I wasn't fond of and ended up watching my MX get flushed down the toilet, I barely felt anything but slight annoyance and I certainly didn't feel the urge to rescue it from its urine whirlpool demise. I admit I was unhappy about the whole ordeal but.. after about 10 seconds of silence, all I could do was laugh. R.I.P Rosie.