Creative Zen MicroPhoto review

The current vogue for MP3 players to have colour photo screens means many older models now look out of date.

Creative's Zen Micro, which we first reviewed in Labs, Shopper March 2005, is a decent player for £140, but it looks a bit old next to the iPod Nano or the iRiver U10 reviewed opposite.

Creative has tried to address this with the release of its Zen MicroPhoto. Although the new player looks almost identical to the Zen Micro, it has several enhancements. The MicroPhoto is the first MP3 player of this size that we've seen with an 8GB hard disk.

The MicroPhoto has a 1.5" Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) screen. This can display JPEG image files, but is smaller than the LCD screens on competing products. It's a bit too small for an effective photo viewer and its comparatively low resolution makes pictures look blocky. The main controls are touch-sensitive. Like many such systems, we found them innacurate and annoying.

Like iRiver's U10, this player supports protected WMA files and bears Microsoft's Plays For Sure logo. The MicroPhoto supports download and subscription licensing, so it's compatible with Napster To Go. It has an FM radio, too, although this was susceptible to interference.

The MicroPhoto comes with an installation disc containing a few programs such as Creative's MediaSource management software. Installing these is optional if you have Windows Media Player 10, because the MicroPhoto identifies itself to your PC as a portable media device. Using Windows Explorer, this allows you to copy music and photos to the player, which updates its database from ID3 tag information. Copying 500MB of music in this way took one minute and 47 seconds.

We weren't too impressed with the sound through the supplied bud earphones. There was plenty of strong bass, but some mid-range frequencies were harsh and treble lacked clarity. Using better headphones revealed perfectly good sound. The battery lasted for 11 hours and 27 minutes of continuous playback, which is around three hours shorter than the iPod Nano.

The MicroPhoto has an impressive amount of storage for its size, but it costs almost as much as Toshiba's 20GB Gigabeat. The Gigabeat is bigger and has no radio, but it has more storage, a better screen and better battery life.