3. Creative Zen Sleek Photo

Replacing the Zen Touch, this new 20 GB player from Creative is still not a killer in the looks department. The design is less massive-looking than its predecessor's, but its steel shell is still a little too cold. But that's a matter of taste, and the ergonomics are excellent. Do be sure to lower the sensitivity of the touchpad, though. If you don't, then the slightest touch can have unpleasant repercussions. Recharging the unit is a bit bizarre, since you have to use the supplied proprietary USB cable and connect it to an AC adapter. It's a somewhat convoluted solution.

The player has a wide range of functions. Aside from playing music in MP3 and WMA formats, it gives you photo browsing capabilities and an FM radio. And provided you define the amount of space you want to allocate beforehand, the Sleek can store your data on a reserved section of its hard disk. Transferring music is now quite traditional, via synchronization with Windows Media Player - otherwise you'll have to install a driver. I still prefer to copy/paste, and can't understand why Creative can't offer this simple option.

More Radio Than Photo

What about the functions? As the Sleek Photo's name indicates, it can display photos in JPG format on its color LCD display. At 1.7", it's fairly small, especially since it's far from being as sharp as the iPod's display. However, it does show colors faithfully, provided you don't turn the contrast all the way up. And it also offers more fun applications for displaying photos. Aside from a standard slide show, you can choose one of your photos as wallpaper. This is nothing revolutionary, but it is a little custom touch that can jazz up its austere appearance. A good-quality FM radio and a battery life of over 19 hours also help to make the device a very functional player. The sound quality is impeccable, as always with Creative products. It's well balanced, warm and restores every nuance. What's more, it's totally user-adjustable via a custom equalizer. Even the earphones are fairly good, even though they do flatten both ends of the spectrum a little.

The Sleek is a little like the workhorse of the group we tested. A bit on the heavy side and not very sexy, it's extremely effective and simple to use. Carefully designed ergonomics, a long battery life, audio quality that's beyond reproach and a radio - all the essentials are here.