My sister got her Zen Micro on Monday, after Creative released the new firmware for the device to add MTP/PlaysForSure support that was it, I had to get it - technically speaking it's mine as I paid for it - she's not paying me back until January 2006.

Quick to charge up in about 3 hours, I installed the software, installed the latest firmware to update it for MTP support so I didn't need Creative's software, which was promptly removed, I'll let Microsoft handle the software thank you. Obviously this firmware is included in all of them leaving the factory today, so you won't need to install Creative's software initially to update the firmware. Once I'd updated the firmware using my machine, she went off and just plugged it into her laptop and away it went, easy as that.

Using it is a breeze, my sister has been ripping her CDs and syncing them over with WMP10 with no problems. You can also use it as a removable hard drive, just using Windows Explorer. Well it obviously has all the benefits of being a PlaysForSure device so I won't bother going into how needed this kind of stuff is (wake up Apple), not having to install any software to use the device, you just plug it into your Windows XP machine and away it goes, that's how things should be done.

Creative's Zen Micro

Yes she wanted a purple one. I have no idea why.

The device itself feels very nice in your hand it's all curved at the back, so it doesn't feel like it's going to cut into you like an iPod Mini. The touch interface works very well and the screen is nice and easy to read. Sound quality on the device is absolutely mint, couldn't tell the difference between what was being outputted from that and my computer (I was switching between the two sources on my amp). Included headphones are pretty good for in-ear headphones, it also comes with a AC charger (charging over USB will probably be preferred by many) a belt clip and lots of other stuff, the packaging is also very posh which adds to the overall quality feel of the device. Battery life not sure yet, we're still on it's initial charge we've probably used it for 4 may be 5 hours and it's still showing 2 out of 3 bars on it's LCD.

My overall rating... I won't say it's perfect as there's always something that could be improved (battery life 100 hour battery? That'll be the day, WMA lossless support, digital radio etc) but it's the best player on the market today, Creative totally nailed it with this one. Strongly recommended to people who need music on the go.