Known for players that are more utilitarian than beautiful, the Zen Micro certainly does not disappoint in this case. Though the Mini and the Micro share similar features like playlist creation, preset equalizers, ID3 tag support and Personal Information Management (PIM); the Micro managed to trounce the Mini on some important features like an FM tuner, FM/voice recording and an additional GB for storage.
However, as we examine beneath the surface, the Micro does lack in some respects to the Mini too. Though we do not bemoan the lack of games in the Micro (which we hardly played in the Mini anyways); the Micro should have allowed us to use all 5GB of its hard drive for storage. Instead the user is limited up to only a maximum of 2GB which though immediately recognizable on any computer, is not on par with the Mini, of which all 4GB can be used as storage. We also like the fact that the Mini uses both FireWire and USB 2.0 as opposed to just the latter for the Micro.
Yet, the Micro does have considerable beef in the features department. Despite a superior 22 preset equalizers for the Mini, the Micro makes up for a miserly eight presets by including a customizable 5-band equalizer. The Micro also supports multiple playlist creation within the player itself… the iPod Mini can support only one with the On-The-Go playlist function.
It’s a close one, but our bet is for the Micro on this round.
