Home > Consumer Reviews > Creative Labs Nomad MuVo² 4 GB MP3 Player (Version 2.0)

Before reading my review, you should know that I didn't intend to buy this device originally, but an iPod mini. We all know the aspect and design of the iPod is much "cooler", but this fact was not among the many reasons to why I preferred the iPod, some of them being:

- Had previously owned 2 Creative mp3 devices (MuVo and MuVo NX) which ended up being flimsy, cheaply, easy-dying ones
- I wanted a device that was sports-ready: the iPod claimed to have a number of minutes of buffer memory to compensate for skipping, it even promoted an arm-band accessory clearly aimed at joggers.
- MuVo² said nothing about anti-shock memory and made no claim it could be useful for sporting. In fact, they promoted a 512 MB model (the MuVo² X-trainer) as the "sporty" model.
- I didn't like some facts about the MuVo² read in other user reviews

Since iPod mini was out of stock everywhere (except at exorbitant price) and wasn't going to be available until October 2004, and I urgently needed an mp3 device for my upcoming ski-vacation, I reluctantly ended up buying a MuVo². Now, my personal review:

Aspect and ergonomics:
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The good:
-I received the device and was shocked at its tiny size. Yes, you can read the dimensions in the specifications, but after seeing all the hi-res pictures in the net, I unconsciously expected it to be bigger.
-The LCD is crisp and clear despite its small size. If you are the kind that wants all 1000 songs on the same root folder, it'll be impossible to manage them. Things are made so that you store your songs in different folders, i.e. divided by artist.
The bad:
-The control wheel is too small, and although you will end up handling it well, it takes some training to do this. Only at day 7 I stopped failing with it.
-The device looks so cheap and plastic that almost invites you to chew it. Keep off your dog!

Version 2.0:
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I bought this device as being "version 2.0", having no idea of what this meant, but I knew this had nothing to do with the 4 GB capacity. Well, for the record: The difference I noticed with (what I read about) version 1.0 is that this one brings no carrying case. That's right folks: NO CARRYING CASE, NO BELT-CLIP, no nothing. It's just the device. After all the criticizing of the carrying case in version v.1.0 for not having orifices to reach the buttons, Creative acknowledged this concern by wiping out any vestige of a carrying case at all. Do they expect us to stick the device in our a**es??

Battery charging through USB:
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The device has USB 2.0, but I haven't tried it because my PC only has USB 1.1, so transfer speeds are reduced for me. Despite this, the MuVo² can charge its battery through USB 1.1 fairly quick. There's also the included charger that plugs to a wall outlet.

Freezes and battery:
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The battery is removable, which proved to be a good thing because during this month and a half that I have owned the MuVo², it hanged (froze) itself 4 or 5 times with the only possible remedy being to remove and place back the battery (I wonder what would I be writing of my MuVo² now if battery wasn't removable). Two of the hangs occurred at no apparent reason, the others occurred when using a car-lighter adapter to power it, after firing up the car. Fortunately, none of them erased the hard disk, so after the battery out/in procedure, things were as if nothing ever happened.

Battery life:
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I didn't specifically measure it, but it's quite a lot. I charge the device once every two days, but never ran out of battery actually.

Functionality as an external HDD:
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It comes with a driver for Windows 98se: a single file that weights less than 500k and installs in a snap. I have this file posted in a personal Internet site and this allows me to use the MuVo² as an external hard disk almost everywhere. For Windows 2000 and XP, no driver needed

Sports:
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I took this device to my ski-vacation. I ski quite hard, jump bumps, take high speeds, etc. The MuVo didn't skip even once. I even had two major crashes and the device kept singing as if nothing happened... so I'm very happy regarding this matter.
A note to point out though: during days of very low temperatures (below -5°C) the songs played with pitch shifted down... remember old days when cassette players were running out of batteries? Well, something similar was barely noticeable, but noticeable. Maybe the internal clock runs slower at low temperatures???

Volume power:
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I remember the MuVo NX being very limited in this matter, most of the time I was listening at full volume because it lacked power. Fortunately, MuVo² doesn't suffer this crucial problem. The volume is a 25 step bar. I live in a very noisy city, and hardly need to set the volume over 21, being 17/18 my most used.

Robustness:
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I unintentionally drop the device twice from 1 meter (3 feet) high into hard floor (no carpet). Not only it survived, it even kept playing the song. An impact of similar characteristics killed my MuVo NX in the first crash, so here is an improvement.

Finally, Myths and Truths:
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-"When you connect this device to the PC, it must be powered from the AC adapter or else it hangs/freezes the PC (read at the official C-NET review)".
MYTH. I usually plug it into many computers, both 98se and XP, battery-powered only, and copy GBs of files without ever causing a freeze or a hang. It's extremely stable.

-"The sound quality is outstanding, just like an expensive hi-fi system (claimed by Creative)"
MYTH. I don't care that Creative claims 98 db SNR. Don't be fooled by this number, as a matter of fact the specification says "up to 98 db SNR" which could very well mean "one every a thousand units reaches this mark, all others are way below 90". "Uptos" are not important in engeneering, minimums are, and no minimum SNR is given out by Creative. MuVo² has acceptable sound quality, but it's in no way superlative, it doesn't even beat my previous MuVo and MuVo NX, despite their inferior SNR rating claim.

-"It doesn't deliver good BASS sound (read at many users reviews)".
TRUTH. When I read these reviews before buying the unit, I didn't give too much credit to them because I thought this issue was due to people using bad quality headphones. Well my friends, nothing farther from the truth: MuVo² is in fact a poor bass deliverer. I tried it with my Sony MDR-A34 headphones and with two other models. And of course I tried pushing bass up in the equalizer. What happens is that you push up the bass in the equalizer and instead of having a louder bass, you end up having bass distortion.

-"The included headphones suck (read at many user/official reviews)".
MYTH. The included headphones are the most ergonomic part of the MuVo². I used to hate the inside-the-ear headphones because they cause me pain after some minutes of use and because they fail at reproducing bass sounds. Well, these are the first earphones I can fit into my ear and not feel pain after some minutes. Regarding bass sounds, there's not much to be delivered by the MuVo, but all in all they do a good job and overall sound quality is better than average.

Conclusion:
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My main concern with Creative products is durability. I speak for me and for some friends who also owned MuVos (not MuVo²) and none could pass the 6 month mark... its like if Creative were selling beta versions of the devices... I'm sure the 3 months warranty (against iPod's 1 year) is no coincidence... Creative knows his devices aren't designed to last... I hope within 5 months I can regret these words by having my MuVo² still alive.


I hope you find the above useful if you're considering purchasing.

The four stars are strictly for the following:
-4Gb hard drive, which alone is a $300 item in bulk;
-WMA and MP3 playback;
-nice LCD interface;
-USB 2.0 speeds for really fast xfer rates;
-instantaneous recognition by WinXP/2k machines.

Those features above make this an outstanding player, and should make this a 5-star item. However:
-the enclosed headphones are earbuds, I don't like 'em;
-it isn't armored enough for decent shock-resistance (would like to see it rubber-skinned like its cousin the Rio Cali);
-no belt-loop holster or anything like an armband, so exercising with it might be a little challenging;
-FM headphone function is extra (boo!);
-controls are dexterity-building exercises in themselves.

This thing has an LCD screen, so why not use a thumb-wheel with pushbutton ability to handle on/off and playback? Granted, it has a four-way pad and a separate button which should be sufficient, but my banana-sized fingers keep jumping selections to "Menu" instead of scrolling left or right through the playlist.

Here's why this is so critical: this player can hold 500-1000 songs, depending on how dense the encoding is. Navigating through a straight list of 500 or 1000 songs takes awhile. Folders become paramount to organizing songs or artists, just so you can find something you like inside of a minute.

But does it play well? Does it do what it should? Oh yes, most definitely. And having a Li-On battery in it that recharges off the USB port is *exactly* what every player should have (if it used my Nokia 3650's battery I'd have given it the fifth star for the serendipitous convergence).

"Would I buy it again?" Sure, if I could find another one.
"Is it better than the Rio Cali?"

Hmmm... the Cali is definitely nice, armored with an armband I really like, better UI (LCD presents info much faster, is square and shows more at a glance), has FM built-in. But 4Gb makes up a lot of ground on 256Mb, even 768Mb if you pony up some cash for a 512Mb SD Card. Nah, the Muvo2 isn't perfect (putting the 4GB HD in a Rio Cali makes *that* perfect), but it's capacious, and sometimes that's more important.

Fred

I don't usually write reviews, but I had to give proper kudos where it is due. I bought one for my wife as a gift and it definitely has her approval. Here are some points as I see them:

Pros (for her)
-Small. Very lightweight and small enough to put in your pocket and forget about until you want it.

-Sound Quality. Even with 64 bit .wma files or 128 bit .mp3 files, sound was very clear with little-to-no noise and with lots of volume room to spare.

-"cute" factor. This very critical point to most women and especially to my Japanese wife pretty much narrows the competition to this and the iPod mini. She says it comes in a close 2nd, but she's quite satisfied. Good enough for me.

Pros for me
-$189. Darn near impossible to beat today for what you're getting

-Replaceable battery. One worry about the iPod mini that doesn't apply here - changing the lithium-ion polymer battery when it dies

-4gb. Enough for roughly over 100-120 CDs.

-Battery is chargeable via USB port. THIS is nice....

-Unicode support. OK, I haven't bought an mp3 player in a while, but THIS THING IS AMAZING! Ever try translating foreign CDs to English just because your player couldn't recognize or play the file name? Not with this guy....not only will it recognize foreign tracks and CDs but it supports and displays Japanese, Korean, Chinese, or any other language that adheres to the UNICODE standard. This deserves a star in itself. Alot of people wouldn't care about this, but there are definitely some of you out there that know what I'm talking about.

-Voice recorder and FM support (with some attachments). Nice extra

There aren't many Cons so far as I see them, but here they are:

-Earbuds. They were apparently designed for jumbo-sized ears and don't seem to fit comfortably. The wife will make sure these get replaced soon

-USB 2.0 So far in my experience, those theoretical 480/sec transfer rates? Yeah, I'm not seeing em. But in all fairness I've only seen 1 product ever that was USB 2.0, that didn't act like it was USB 1.x. This wasn't it.

Navigation wasn't great, but isn't bad either. Neutral here. All in all, this is a great product and well-worth what I paid for it.

Yes, it was disappointing that a case was not included, but this MP3 player is fantastic. Despite not being technically savvy, I had no difficulty setting up and downloading music. Creative's software is intuitive. I run at least an hour/day with it and have had no problems. With the shuffle mode it will be weeks before I hear the same song twice. The replaceable, rechargeable lithium battery is a plus--my old Rio consumed batteries. I selected the MuVo because of its small size and price and would recommend it highly.

I've had my Muvo2 since early August, and I'm really pleased with it. When I first received it, I was amazed by its tiny size, but don't confuse its size with its capacity -- it holds a nice 4 gigabytes (in reality, it's around 3.83 for me). The buttons are small, but can be used easily. The LCD is bright, albeit small.

The only qualm I have with the Creative Nomad Muvo2 is the functionality of the playlist. I organize my MP3s by album, so I usually just drag and drop albums into the Muvo (sometimes, I use my Muvo as a flash drive as well). However, sometimes I like to listen to MP3s from different albums, but I can't since one can't create playlists on the fly. This is a bit of a bummer, but I usually avoid it by creating a folder on the Muvo HD called "playlist" which is an amalgamation of different MP3s.

After about three months of usage, the HD now makes small clicking noises every time it is accessed. I've asked some people on a Muvo2 message board if this is something to be concerned about, and they replied that it is perfectly normal. I still have my fears. Hopefully this can last another year (hopefully two).