While the stranglehold that Apple has on the portable music market is unlikely to loosen anytime in the next several years, many consumers have already discovered that the iPod isn't the only player on the market. Typically, the buyers who venture beyond iPod territory are either looking for a cheaper alternative, are disenfranchised with iTunes and its proprietary file formats, or just unwilling jump on the iPod bandwagon. To these buyers, Creative Labs has been very accommodating, and their Creative Zen Nano player (available in 512 and 1GB) is another wonderful offering.
For better or for worse, Creative Lab's Zen Nano player is ridiculously small. As in, "don't wear that pair of jeans with a hole in the pocket" small. The dimensions of the player are a scant 2.5" long, 1.25" wide, and only half an inch thick. Naturally, technology this diminutive is a double edged sword in the sense that it's small enough to forget you have it on you. This is a good thing if you're walking around with the player in your pocket; a bad thing if you happen to walk around and have it fall out of your pocket. Audiophiles with an obsessive drive to own one of the smallest players on the market will no doubt be enamored with the tiny device, however.
Despite its small size, the player's controls are friendly and intuitive. The player features a USB 2.0 port, a play / pause button, volume up and down buttons, a backlit LED screen, a line-in port, and an innovative rocker button to handle track selection and menu navigation. Additional accouterments included with the player include a mediocre pair of earbud headphones and a stereo output cable.
Getting the Zen Nano up and running is extremely easy. The device is powered by a single AAA battery, which provides a remarkable 18 hours of playback. Once the device has power, it's as simple as plugging the machine into the computer via the supplied USB cable and waiting for the machine to recognize it as an external hard drive. While the Zen Nano comes supplied with a CD of proprietary music software, I found the use of it redundant. I was able to organize all of my music and folders via Windows Explorer, so in testing and evaluation I was able to keep things simple and there was no need to install additional programs to my PC.
The Zen Nano's interface is clean and functional. By pressing the rocker control inwards, the user is presented with a menu to skip between folders, change the playback mode, fiddle with the preset equalizer settings, change the display modes, record sound, or switch to FM radio. The one caveat to the interface is that navigating through multiple nested folders is more difficult than with the iPod's click-wheel or similar interface, although this becomes less markedly less frustrating after using the machine for a couple hours. Most of these frustrations are offset by the fact that the player includes a surprisingly bright screen: a feature that I feel sets it above the current generations of the iPod shuffle.
Sound quality is excellent through all 25 of the machine's volume settings. The supplied earbuds are most definitely functional, but merely adequate in demonstrating the Zen Nano's audio range. More discriminating users will be much happier after investing in a higher quality set of headphones, assuming of course that they don't have them already.
In terms of storage, the Zen Micro is quite a bit more convenient than the 32 and 64-megabyte flash memory players of yesteryear. The 1GB version has just enough storage to be able to accommodate several hours of music, but unlikely to become overwhelming in navigating through one's library. While audio pack rats may scoff at a single gigabyte of storage, erasing and replacing tracks through Windows Explorer is ridiculously easy. This is definitely not the machine to get if one plans on putting their entire library on a single player, but users comfortable with pruning their folders from time to time will be very pleased with the unit.
As one who has avoided the iPod family out of personal and technical concerns, I was extremely pleased with Creative Labs' bite-sized alternatives. While a better pair of earbuds would have been nice, and while a better system of folder navigation would have been appreciated, it's a stellar MP3 player in spite of its few flaws. I unequivocally recommend it to anyone in the market for a flash-based MP3 player that doesn't want to go the iPod route.
Most prices for the Zen Nano hover at an affordable $40 for the 512meg version and $60 for the 1GB. The low cost is attractive, and never have I felt as though the machine was "cheap" in any criteria other than its price tag.