CREATIVE NOMAD MUVO

I don't know about you, but for me, if it's shiny, new and has buttons on it, I want one. I was picking up some CD cases (shiny, new, different fluorescent colours but no buttons) and had actually just paid when I noted some new boxes, shiny, new, Orange and Blue containing something that unsurprisingly had buttons on it. I wanted one. It was a stack of the Creative Nomad MuVo, the dinkiest MP3 players I have ever seen.

I went over had and had a closer look. I checked the price, $97 - that's not a typo, I can shop at the US Naval facilities here, it's about £60. One of the few perks of adulthood are credit cards and mine was about to be spanked again! So a few moments later, I had one of these beauties in my hand. It's tiny, it only uses 1 AAA battery which keeps the size down to that of a lighter, I kid you not. Small takes on a new meaning with these.

The ear phones supplied are actually comfortable! I have often felt the people who design them must have abnormal ears or something, because they either fall out or would be comfortable in an African Elephant's ear. This is the first pair I have had in years that actually did the job; so congratulations to Creative for that one. The sound is good and they are actually quite stylish as you can see from the picture. So things really are looking up.

Here is the tech blurb from the Nomad website:

Feature/Product
Creative NOMAD® MuVo
Features

Audio Codec Support MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3)
Windows Media Audio (WMA)

Hardware Specifications
Power 1 x AAA Alkaline Battery
Battery Usage Up to 12 hours of continuous playtime (energizer alkaline batteries)
Size W x H x D (mm) 73 x 35 x 16
Weight 28g without batteries
Standard Playback Usage Includes Repeat A-B and Repeat Track play controls
Memory 64MB
Frequency Response 20hz-20kHz
Signal to Noise Ratio > 90dB
Channel Separation >55dB
Maximum Output 1 x 1/8" stereo minijack, 5-7mW
Harmonic Distortion Output < 0.05%

So, as you can see it supports MP3 & WMA out of the box. It does not support MP3 Pro, which is a shame, they just sound crap. Mind you, without and MP3 Codec on your PC, they sound crap there too! but it would have meant you could cram on more songs (unless you managed to blag the 128MB version) into the same space. Good news for WMA fans I guess, but I dislike the format, particularly with Windows Media Player 9 buggering up playback on anything other than the PC that made them.

Once out of the packaging you strip the player in two, the main part has the controls & USB plug which detaches from the battery carrier. I have also removed the battery cover for the photo, which once again, shows you just how small this player is. Pop in the AAA, replace its cover and then insert the main body which slides down a rail until the USB connector 'clicks' into place. Connect the ear phones and then nothing happens. Perhaps I should have added some MP3s for it to play, Doh!

It is simplicity itself to copy songs to. Now if you are running WinXP or 2K, take a great big pat on the back. You don't need the software supplied on CD for the MuVo. WinME/9x/NT users have to install it to bounce songs onto the player. Plug it into a free USB port (I can find no mention of USB 2 support - but transfer times are acceptable rapid) and wait a couple of seconds for Windows to notice the new removable hard drive added to the system. Oh, if you need to format the player which is treated as a removable hard drive, all versions of Windows need the software installed. Not quite sure why you would need to format it, you can simply delete files in Windows Explorer. As you can see from the screenshot, plugging the MuVo under WinXP brings up a dedicated music requester and you simply drag & drop MP3s until it's full.

One thing the MuVo is lacking in is some kind of carrier, be it pouch or case. This is a glaring oversight IMHO, but it only took me 5 minutes armed with a case from a small knife, a marker pen and a scalpel to knock up a genuine 'Case Mod' to protect my new toy.

As you can see, the player and phones are protected by a metal shell and the foam lining should stop it getting scratched up. So everything is in one place. It does come with a fetching blue cord that you can wear around your neck, but this is not very practical if you are running or riding a bike, which are the principal uses for me. For now, a bum-bag or a pocket will suffice.

The controls are a no-brainer. You hold the play button down for a few seconds to turn it off & on and and the remaining options are:

• Play/Pause
• Skip Fwd
• Skip Back
• Volume Up & Down
• Repeat

There is no track display, but I have managed my whole life without one on tape/CD players so not an issue for me, particularly as I am unlikely to put tracks on I don't know hehe. An LCD display is just something else to shorten battery life, it will shut itself down if left on pause for too long too. That really is it. No rocket scientist operator needed for this baby.

With no moving parts, running or cycling with it makes no difference to sound, you still get perfect playback unlike cassettes/CDs regardless of anti-shock mechanisms. The final bonus is you can copy any file to it, not just MP3/WMAs. With my ADSL is out of service I have used the broadband at work for big downloads, copied them onto the MuVo and brought them home for installation. So you can use it as a 64MB super-floppy at a pinch.

The only problem I have encountered in use it with Win2K. If you copy a file to it then remove the drive without using the Hardware Remove tool in the taskbar, the last file copied dissapears.

It does exactly what you expect with style and great sound.

Recommended.