Michael Kimb Jones

It took me about 2 months of research to reach the conclusion that the new Creative ZEN 32gb was the Mp3 player for me.

I’ve needed a small but high capacity player for a while now. For years I have used the media functions on my phone which coupled with a 4gb SD card did the job just fine. Recently however I have craved more space and a longer battery life.

Why I chose the ZEN

First of all I want to say it wasn’t easy. Initially I wanted the new Microsoft Zune 80gb.

The main problem with the Zune however is the lack of an official UK release.

Sure they are easy enough to find on eBay and other online stores but the fact that I would be missing out on all of the extra functionality which the Zune would give me because of my geographical location simply wouldn’t do.

Also, Zunes are cheaper and have more capacity. For £20 LESS than what I have paid for the 32gb ZEN I could have had a massive 80gb to play with.

And the Zune brand has MUCH better accessory support. Gym armbands, headphones, cases, docks, speaker sets are ALL better quality and in more abundance for the Zune.

As you can see it was such a close race with only one key feature steeling it…..

Windows Media Player 11

The Zune, although a Microsoft product, don’t work with WMP11. Shocking isn’t it.

One of the main reasons I refuse to buy an Apple product is there reliance on the unusable mess that is iTunes and the Zune software looks very smiler.

I am a WMP 11 junkie. I recently spent hours re-organising all of my artists and albums so that album art, release dates and genre all matched up.

My media library is perfectly organised within WMP 11 and all I really want is a player which can plug into this library and suck it over without changing anything.

I know the ZEN can do this and for this reason alone I purchased one. It was a steal at just £175 from Play.com and should arrive within the next few days.

There are other reasons I went for the ZEN. Its is smaller, has solid state memory so will load faster, it supports DivX/Xvid video and it has a handy SD card slot so upgrading the memory is simple.

It’s an excellent player which gets excellent reviews and has a good community and support base. But if the Zune supported WMP I can guarantee I would have ordered differently.

Its a real shame Microsoft messed this one up.