3. Creative Zen V

The chunky and colourful Zen V.

The Zen V is a chunky and colourful device that fits neatly into your hand, with the choice of orange, lime green or blue highlights depending on whether you choose the 1 GB, 2 GB or 4 GB model, although these are hidden by the stretchy black rubber cover it comes in. Tug this off so you can get the hang of the minimal controls and appreciate the shiny black case (before you get your fingerprints all over it).

A slider on the left of the case is both the power switch (slide down) and the hold button (push up). The volume controls are a touch of colour on the other side of the case, with the record button. And the only other controls are the joystick on the front - again highlighted in colour - and the play/pause and back buttons. Hold down the back button for a menu of relevant options. For music this includes saving the current set of tracks as a playlist; when you select music from the library you can choose to play it or add it to the current set of tracks, so it's not too hard to create multiple playlists on the move. You can set bookmarks within tracks or use the DJ menu to pick the tracks you listen to most (or least), play all your music in random order or pick an 'album of the day'. If you've borrowed music from a friend and want to do the honest thing, you can choose to buy a track; next time you sync you'll get taken to an online service to make the transaction.

You can customise the player; set your favourite photo as the background or pick and choose what options you see on the main menu depending on what you do the most. You'll appreciate that because the joystick is small and can be fiddly; it's also slow at scrolling through long lists.

The Zen V uses a standard mini-USB connection, so it's easy to get a replacement cable. You can use the Creative MediaSource software to transfer music or plug in to Windows Media Player. Transfer speeds are good, with a 6 MB file copying in about 10 seconds, although high bitrate MP3s will be downsampled to save space, which takes longer. Photos transfer directly; unlike the Zen V Plus you can't watch video so you don't need to worry about converting it. If you use the Creative Media Explorer software you can also transfer contacts, appointments and To Do lists from Microsoft Outlook; you can't edit these on the Zen V but editing text with the joystick is slow and tedious so that's probably a good thing. You can also record in MP3 via the line in socket, or WAV with the built in microphone.

The Zen V's volume controls are hard to miss; the recording button is more subtle.

The sound quality is fair, but not the best we've heard; it's better suited to rock, pop and jazz than very sparse music where detail is everything. You can hear details in the music but they aren't as crisp and clear as on the Sansa e270 and the bass can be a little muffled. There's plenty of volume and no distortion.

Orange, green and blue; the highlights are colour-coded for the size of the Zen V's storage.

The colourful OLED screen is a little larger than an iPod Nano screen and you can see it from almost any angle. Colours are vivid rather than completely accurate and detail gets a little blurred, but the images are so small you probably won't spend a long time looking at them. Battery life is impressive for the size of the device; nearer 20 hours than the promised 15. The Zen V Plus has more features (video and FM radio) and depending on what you want to do it may be better value, but the Zen V is certainly a capable little player at a good price.