3. A Good And Fast Worker

The player comes with MediaSource, the excellent software made by Creative, which handles compressed music from end to end, but what really makes the MuVo² so convenient is its removable disk. It is detected as a hard disk without any driver and is a data read manager. So all you have to do is sort your music into albums or compile it into directories, then drag and drop to the MuVo². Then, when you are out and about, you can select a directory and play it. This means you can find your way around 1000 tracks without having to spend hours making playlists. Files are transferred via a USB 2.0 cable. Our tests confirm the excellent performance of the Microdrive here: about 20 seconds to transfer 100 MB with 30 tracks, compared to nearly 3 minutes with USB 1.1 on a flash. A player with a 1.5 GB Microdrive and USB 2.0 takes about a minute and a half. The only faster way is on a 1.8", 20 GB hard-drive player with USB 2.0, where it takes 15 seconds. After transferring, though, the MuVo² takes about 15 seconds to index the tracks before playing. Another good thing about the MuVo² is that you can recharge it via the USB port as well as through the power line supplied.

Quality Sound

The sound quality of the music rates as excellently as ever with Creative players. The headphones are really ugly, with an off-white wire, but of unusually good quality, relatively speaking of course! Compared to most of the headphone accessories supplied, they are good, but way behind a Sennheiser MX500. The instruments lack emphasis, the sound is not full enough and the high notes are ill-defined. A product like this deserves something better, so allow for an outlay on a good set of phones. But what is really irritating is the lack of an FM tuner. Though it should be possible to link an FM/ dictaphone module from the phones to the MuVo² input, you will have to pay extra for this option. At that price, this is a stingy attitude. Talking of price, $300 is the SRP. You won't need to worry about the investment when it comes to shocks. We dropped it onto a wooden surface from a yard high while it was running and it didn't even bat an eyelid.

So, to sum up, 4 GB for such a small size and weight should keep even the most exacting nomad audiophiles happy. This device is well designed right down to details like battery life, power supply and ergonomics. Sound quality is more than adequate. We only regret its high cost, the lack of a tuner and, above all, the unattractive plainness of its looks along with the miniscule screen.