How to sum me up? A gadget obsessed, retro-loving completist. My house sometimes looks like cross be...
How to sum me up? A gadget obsessed, retro-loving completist. My house sometimes looks like cross beween dixons and a jumble sale!
Member since:13.06.2004
Reviews:3
When I took the decision to buy an MP3 player, there were a number of things that I had to consider. The main one was that my previous purchase in this field was a generic VCD, MP3 and CD player, which could not play enough MP3s correctly and to a high enough quality. I considered a hard disk based player, after I found upon using my friends 128mb player that it really didn’t have enough space for the songs I wanted to carry. Also, my friend found that his solid-state memory would become corrupt after a while.
The hard disk player such as the original iPod and Creative Jukebox seemed a far more likely proposition, but I felt that these were to big for audio on the move. The player I wanted had to be small enough so I could take it to the gym, while also able to hold enough music. I whittled my choices down to an iPod Mini and a Creative Muvo
2.
I decided to purchase the Muvo 2 over the iPod on these main points:
1. Availability – I simply could found that the iPod minis were hard to get hold of at the time, although if I was prepared to wait a small amount of time I could have got one. However, I had no interest in a luminous green or pink MP£ player, and the silver one was consistently sold out.
2. Removable battery – the iPod battery is not removable, and there fore would need to be sent back to apple for replacement. Despite what some may think, rechargeable batteries are not infallible, and will require replacement at some point in the MP3 player’s life. With the Muvo you can get a new battery and change it yourself without any specialist tool, all for a much lower price.
3. WMA playback. – The Muvo 2 plays WMAs while the iPod instead plays AACs. To be fair, their iTunes site is quite good if you want to purchase online music, but this is a fad I don’t get. I would rather buy my CDs for the same price as the online album versions and encode them myself using windows media player (a better quality format than MP3). At this moment in time it’s quite impossible to sell music you’ve legitimately bought online.
4. PRICE – The Muvo 2 was more than £30 cheaper than the iPod mini. The iPod in does do some more functions, like play a few in-built ‘games’ and an organizer, but my mobile phone does this already!
Other good points of the Muvo 2 are that, to be honest, I prefer the look of it. The iPod is certainly stylish, but what with those white headphones, you have ‘mug me’ written all over you. The sound quality is excellent; although this is through new headphones I bought. The ones included with the pack are ok, but some audiophiles will want to purchase some beefy headphones to get the most out of their player.
The display is smaller than the iPod but easily readable. Some people might have problems with this and the small controls, but I found it quite intuitive. You can scroll through album folders and play lists in a breeze, and switch off the player by holding down the play button. If you do this mid-song, you will find it starts up in the same position and song from where you left it! Neat!
The capacity is also great, with 4gb allowing you to store over 60 albums in WMA 128/mp3 192 (my collection is a mixture of these). I have yet to hear the player skip while up the gym with this player or walking the dog.
If you have windows 98 SE or above, you can plug the drive straight into a USB port and windows will see the player. No drivers are needed for this. This is very useful, as you can use the player as a mini hard disk to transport other files such s video or documents to other PC's. The battery life is over 10 hours, although it becomes less if you have a higher volume and display backlight on for longer.
As for the minus points on this player, the main one for me was the lack of a case. You will find other reviews mentioning a case, but do not be fooled. A Muvo 2 you buy from now on will NOT have a case. They also do not have removable micro drives in the middle, as Creative have finally caught onto the fact people were buying these players for micro drives inside them and ripping them out. Apparently to buy a micro drive separately is almost twice the price of a Muvo 2 player! These ‘versions 2’ players, like mine, do not have the case included for cost reasons, they are available on Creative’s site for around £9 including VAT and postage and are an essential purchase. They are smart and of a high quality and include a mini USB lead which fits in with the case. They clip onto a belt, which is ideal for a gym, although access to controls is restricted as there are no holes in the case cut for them. Still, this minimises the danger of damaging the player or accidentally accessing the controls while you are moving about.
Some people will prefer the metallic ipod look to this player. It is certainly more 'plasticy' than an iPod, but it seems very durable and portable. Looks wise i think it is very sleek too.
The player can also function as an FM radio and a voice recorder with a wired remote, also extra from Creative's site. With the case, the external playback is a must, thought at almost £40 i find this far too expensive!
The display is also a tad small as mentioned before. Because of this there isn’t a function to arrange or edit play lists and files on the move. You can easily add play lists from Winamp from your pc onto the player and make your own custom lists, but sometimes an access to a pc is not possible.
Apart from these niggles, this is an excellent little player that is a great alternative to the iPod mini. When it comes to the basic sound quality, battery life
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) Av Output to plug to a TV, built-in speakers, easy to use. Come with very good earphones (-) Does not come with power supply (easy to charge from the PC though), av cable is sold separately
Aug 12th, 2004
(Sep 3rd, 2004)
very helpful by (83%):
helpful by (17%):
