3. Synchronizing With Your PC

Creative does seem to have a lot of trouble making its audio players truly nomadic. For example, synching the Zen Micro with your PC first requires installation of a driver. Wouldn't a simple drag-drop program without the need for prior installation of a driver or software be the best solution? Transferring files with the Creative MediaSource software is practical for organizing them, but the choice should be left up to the user.

Like Apple, Creative has made its player Outlook-compatible and provided a removable-disk function. But in order to store data, the user must first use the player's "Extras" menu to partition part of the Zen Micro's 5 GB capacity exclusively for storage. Then the user must turn on the player, connect it to the computer, and configure it as a "Removable Disk." Otherwise, the PC won't detect the Zen as a possible storage medium, even though it locates it with no problem for synchronization. Indeed, saving a few files to the Zen Micro is far from being a no-brainer. At least file transfers are fairly fast, at 3.4 MB/s.