4 November 2003 0:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Jogging with a CD can be a pain in the neck. It’s not too bad on the treadmill - as long as you’ve got somewhere you can rest the player otherwise no matter how many reassurances you get from the manufacturer with the latest any jog technology - get out on the open trail and you’ll be skipping like a school girl. In steps the solid-state MP3 player. No movement involved - hence no skipping.

Creative’s Muvo NX is a solid state MP3 player that is probably more stylish than the rest. Coming in the box with two different coloured casings to suit your outfit you get the feeling from the outset that this player is something Creative want you to want to be seen with and for a solid state it certainly fits that bill.

The 128Mb device is slightly bigger than a box of matches and comes in two colours - a dark red and a more discreet grey - and is capable of playing either MP3s or the Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. Choose the former and you’ll get about 30 tracks on the player while the latter will give you double this and the advantage of some retained bass that tends to get stripped out of MP3s. Of course, that all depends on the encoding rate.

Better still is the player’s ability to double up as a USB data storage key for transferring data around and makes for a good excuse to your partner or boss for the investment. Controls are easy to use with a separate volume controls to the navigation keys. As you would expect from Creative the quality of sound is very good and the unit does offer limited EAX support.

Business users looking for a digital voice recorder will be pleased to know that the Muvo NX also includes a built in voice recorder and the unit, once blanked, can store up to 8 hours of voice.

Verdict

This is a great little player that not only looks good, but sounds great too. The added benefit of the built-in mic and USB storage key solution means connecting this to a PC is a doddle.

Score

Review Recap

Made by

Creative

Price as reviewed

£120

The good

Good sound, no skips, reasonable space for running/dictation

The bad

Nothing except the (necessary) small launch capacity.

Quick verdict

Simple, straightforward, and it works while you work it. We can’t wait for the 256Mb version though, as we’re hungry for more.

Score

Recommended articles