by Abbas Jaffar Ali on February 13, 2004
MuVo² 4GB MP3 Player
Creative has been making MP3 players for a very long time. We reviewed their very first Nomad which was followed by various models of itself, the MG, the Jukebox and the MuVo. The original MuVo by Creative was what most companies call their “x in 1” USB drives now. The MuVo² , which is what we have for review today, uses a 4GB micro drive and measures only 2.6” x 2.6” x 0.8”.
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The MuVo² comes nicely packaged in a see-thru plastic box that lets you view the unit from the front while the back side lists some of the features and specifications. Inside the package, Creative bundles a pair of earphone, a power adapter, a lithium ion battery, a carrying case with a belt clip, two USB cables (one long and one short), a user manual, a quick start guide and a drivers CD.
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With the MuVo², Creative takes the minimalist approach- the device has just two buttons- one of which is a D-pad that can also be pressed and is used for controlling the volume and navigating the menu/audio tracks. The second button is used to play/pause the unit as well as power it up or down. The top of the unit has three connections- one for power, the other for a mini-USB connection and the last one for headphones. You can also attach an optional Wired Remote Control with FM through the headphone jack.
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The front of the unit also features an backlit LCD screen that can display two lines of information like the ID Tag from an MP3 track as well as the battery level/track time etc. We feel that this display is too small- there is plenty of room on the front of the unit and Creative should’ve used a larger display that would’ve been much easier on the eyes as well.
Continuing with the simplistic approach- Creative keeps the menu on the MuVo² very easy to use. You have the following options most of which are pretty self-explanatory: Play Mode, Equalizer, Browser, Delete, Settings, Music and Lock. The Play-Mode lets you select between Repeat and Random modes, while the Equalizer has preset options for Rock, Pop etc as well as the option to customize to your liking using four bands. The browser lets you browse through the folders and playlists while the Settings menu lets you adjust settings like Backlight, contrast, Language, Time-out etc.
Connecting the MuVo² to your PC is as easy as attaching the USB cable. You don’t need any drivers if you have Windows XP as the unit is recognized as a removable drive which is great. You can simply drag and drop files/folders onto the player and keep the structure of your files intact. This means that you can use the MuVo² to act as a removable drive as well, letting you carry your data files along with your audio files.
The micro drive used in this MuVo² is powered by Hitachi and is 4GB in size. If you only want to carry audio files, then, as per our average of 3.5MB per song, you can carry well over a thousand songs- much more if you rip audio at lower bit-rates. Playlists are definitely very important when you have a large number of audio files and the MuVo² allows you to create playlists or use ones created on your PC using the m3u format.
Compared to the flash memory based players, the microdrive does feel a bit slower but its surely faster than the standard 2.5” hard drive based MP3 players like the iPod or Creative’s own Jukebox. When we listened to tracks in a particular order there was be no delay between songs however, if we kept jumping between tracks and didn’t allow the unit to cache the next track, then we could note upto a two second delay- not necessarily annoying but notable and something you have to live with for now as flash memory gets too expansive for higher capacities.
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Unfortunately, the included earphones don’t do justice to the excellent sound quality produced by the MuVo² - thanks to a signal-to-noise ratio that peaks at 98dB. Creative should’ve bundles something better in quality and we would suggest you use an alternate pair as well. Battery life on the player was quite good- just over nine hours which is not too far from Creative’s advertised ten hours. We like the fact that the battery is removable and doesn’t add much weight to the unit. As per the specifications, the unit measures 3.2 ounces.
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Overall, the MuVo² is an impressive unit although one that could be better. Creative should have an FM player built-in instead of providing it on the optional remote control. The LCD screen should also be bigger in size- there is certainly plenty of space on the unit to allow this. Lastly, the quality of headphones included with the unit should be superior to do justice to the awesome sound quality of the player.
t-break Score |
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85 |
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