Creative Zen superslim a gorgeous 320-by-240-pixel color screen, an FM tuner, a built-in microphone, robust video and photographs viewing capabilities and the ability to import contacts management information - and oh, yeah, it plays music.

What is impressive is how the flash and Zen takes the best features of the Zen Vision M, and yet still manages to weigh less and refine an interface already tight. From $ 150 unit we tested was the size and shape of an emission standard business card case (3.26 by 2.16 by 0.44 inches). The storage capacity in the produce ranges from 2GB ($ 80) to 32 GB (300 dollars). All models have a built-in SD Card slot to accommodate an area of instant upgrade.

Despite its small size, the Zen consistently earned high marks in our laboratory tests audio. The signal to noise ratio of 77 dB has fallen well below 89 dB obtained by SanDisk Connect, but it was still pretty good (a higher number means a cleaner signal).

The Zen custom equalizer five bands (and eight presets) helped out the best in a variety of high-bit-rate test files.

This hands-on can handle most audio formats, too, including Apple’s AAC files. He could not play or FLAC and Ogg Vorbis audio codecs, though.

The Zen works with MPEG-4, DivX4, DivX5, XviD, and WMV video files. Creative Video Converter simple software optimizes production for the small screen of Zen, one-hour show typically takes about 20 minutes to convert and occupies about 400 megabytes of storage.

A standard USB mini-jack into the zen of the tiny frame allows you to synchronize and power of the device, which has a 30-hour reading time audio files (5 hours for video). Plug it into any PC, and the Zen works as a hard drive. The time for transferring files are adequate, given that the Zen runs on a USB 2.0: he copied about 16 GB of mixed media files almost 2 hours.

The player’s interface is simple to navigate your media a breeze. All commands you need are flush against the right side. A directional pad and four surrounding buttons can quickly drill down through menus. The Zen is not ideal for one-handed operation, however. To get a clear look at the beautiful display, you should regularly the device with your left hand while your right thumb taps of the song you want.

The Zen comes with a few props: a good pair of earphones, a USB cable short, and a booklet of instructions. If you want protective case, you need to pay extra for it to the website of Creative. In an unscientific test, of course, we batted the Zen ground 4 feet, it bounced on the office carpet and held video game - no scratches, no dings, no interruption in reading.

The Zen may lack the funky Wi-Fi functionality of Apple’s Touch iPod, but it’s a very good choice for gadgeteers and audiophiles alike. If the 16 GB $ 150 price tag is too rich for your blood, buy a low-end Zen and make up the difference with SD Cards.