Creative Labs MuVo Micro N200

Can store loads of music and works as a nice thumb drive. Most important you don't need software to load songs. Really nice and handy device.

I had wanted an MP3 player for some time, having destroyed every portable CD player I have owned, by dropping, or bashing on the train etc. So for my birthday this year my dad bought me the Creative Labs Muvo Micro N200 with 512Mb of memory.

This is a dinky little player about the size of a matchbox, but a little thinner, and in a classy black colour. It came with a little rubbery case with a clip on the back to protect it and make it easier to carry around (by attaching to your pocket, waistband, bag etc.).

Other accessories included were a user guide, headphones, a USB cable to connect to your PC, a CD-ROM to install the relevant software on to your PC, and a line-in cable to attach the player to an audio source such as a CD player, from which you can record CD's or the radio etc. There is also a little dot on the player labelled 'mic' where you can voice record.

The player takes 1 x AAA battery, which has varying playing time depending on the brand of battery you use. A Panasonic battery only lasted me about 3 days when used for 2-3 hours per day, whereas Duracell or Tesco's own brand lasted about 7-10 days with 2-3 hours use.

As I wasn't very confident about downloading music, I had specifically asked for a player which could also record from a CD, so I was very impressed to receive this.

The only problem is the quality of the tracks recorded isn't great. The sound is fairly low and muffled, so you have to turn the volume up quite high when listening.

After listening with growing frustration I decided to take the plunge and try connecting it to the PC. This was fairly easy, involving inserting the CD-ROM and following the step-by-step registration instructions, after which I was ready to begin downloading music to the player.

To do this you need to connect one end of the USB to the player and one to the port in the back of your PC. You then download music from your chosen source which then adds the track(s) to the player. At first this is only in 'play' mode, so the tracks of choice are played on the PC. To save them to the player so you can listen to them on the move, you need to save the tracks into your music library. As this is an MP3/WMA player the tracks must be MP3 or WMA, which isn't a great problem, as most downloadable tracks are one of the two.

If you have ever downloaded music you will notice that the tracks can vary in quality, with some being louder than others, or even simply having a different version to the one you are looking for, so playing them on your PC before saving to your player is a very good idea. Also, the Muvo N200 has a facility whereby you can standardise all your songs. So if you have tracks with varying volumes, you can fiddle a little with the settings on the PC and have all the tracks synchronised on the player with the same volume. I discovered this was definitely a good feature, as one or two songs were very low and a couple were very high, so it saves you having to fiddle with the volume all the time, or risking deafening yourself.

512Mb usually means you can save about 100 songs on your player, but I so far have about 120 with no sign of becoming full as yet! This may be because some files are larger than others, with I think WMA taking up more memory than MP3.

As with most CD players today, you can also adjust your player's 'sound', meaning you get the choice of jazz, or rock etc., which basically means that you choose whether to have more bass, or more instrumental etc. You can also select whether to randomise the order in which your songs are played.

MY OPINION:

Although the Micro Muvo N200 is very easy to use with a simple to follow user guide, there are a few problems with it.

Firstly, when you press any of the buttons the blue light comes on and you hear a slight buzzing/hissing sound which continues until the light switches off. Not a major problem as far as I am concerned, but others may think it interrupts the quality of the track.

One problem which I do have with the player is that after about 6 months of continuous use it appears to be on its last legs! Now when I go to switch the player on, it flashes on for a second then switches itself off. It also began to switch itself off randomly while listening to music. At first I simply tried again and it was fine, but now it takes about 30 attempts to switch on if at all, and I am sorely tempted to get a brick and drop it on it.

At approximately £60 I would definitely have expected better from this, especially as Creative is quite a well respected brand.

One last little niggle... The headphones are plastic covered with the little foam bits, which aren't very secure and will get lost very easily.

THE TECHY BITS:

Dimensions - 3.4 cm width x 1.3cm depth x 6.6 cm height.

Weight 22g

Sound Output Mode - Stereo

PC Interface Supported - High Speed USB

Flash Memory - 512Mb

Radio - Digital radio FM tuner

I would say this is a fairly good MP3/WMA player, but definitely does not have a very long shelf life. I would have just put this down to my heavy-handedness, but I have looked at other reviews of the product and quite a few people seem to have had this problem. The fact that I got frustrated the other day and whacked it on the table breaking the battery cover, now means I cannot use the guarantee, so I guess I only have myself to blame there.

I am sure that you can probably get a cheaper player with similar features, or pay a little more and get a better quality one, which I would advise you to do. I am quite sad to have to say that as the player itself is very good, I just can't afford to replace it every 6 months!

I chose the Creative Labs MuVo N200 MP3 player over the iPod Nano mainly because the iPod battery can't be replaced. But it turned out this MP3 was even better than I thought! It is a great size and it can fit heaps of songs on it, and it is so much fun to use! I take it everywhere I go, and it's always great company whilst on long trips. It comes in lots of colours, and I love how it has the screen that tells you what song you are listening to. You can also use it to store data from your computer.

The Creative Labs MuVo Micro N200 was my very first MP3 player, and I thought it was excellent!

The software is very easy to use, and the sound quality is excellent. Although when you turn the back light on, you can hear a buzzing sound while the song is playing. This was my only major problem, but resulted in me in not using the back light at all, though you can make it last for a few seconds, which means less buzzing! Also, I recently discovered that the microphone has sounded very fuzzy, but this is not a major down point.

If you want a small (size and capacity) and easy to use MP3 player, then this is the one for you!

I chose Creative Labs MuVo Micro N200 over the iPod Shuffle mainly because it is powered by 1 AAA battery (more convenient when in the field). It also has more features.

The sound quality is pretty good, even with wma encoded at 64Mb/s. I crammed 500 songs on my 1GB version. The included software makes file conversion easy.

When plugged in via USB, it shows up as a mass storage device. What I really like about this is that you can also store other data (in a separate file) on it, i.e. photos' etc.

The radio is ok, and it has some other features like voice recording and direct MP3 encoding, but I don't really use these.

The design might not be as elegant as the iPod shuffle, but this offers more functionality for less money.

I bought this Creative Labs MuVo Micro N200 MP3 Player last year. It works very well. It works with an AAA alkaline battery or with an AAA Ni-Mh battery (recahrgable, 1.2V). It has 256MB of memory. When you buy it you will have 241.1MB. You do not have 256MB bacause some of it is used for the ram of the MP3 player. It also has a rubber case to protect it. It has a 2.0 USB, weighs 31 grams without battery, has a manual and a cd for the installation of its software.

The Creative Labs MuVo Micro N200 is in a similar price range to the iPod Shuffle, but offers the user a lot more for the money. Anyone thinking about investing in either the iPod Shuffle or the iPod Mini really should take a look at the Muvo as it is a real contender.