Reg review Creative may claim to have introduced the world's first hard drive-based music player, but its efforts have always been undershadowed by Apple's iPod. It's easy to see why. Literally so, in fact. While Creative's Singaporean product designers have focused on functionality, Apple's worked on look and feel. So while the iPod is eye-catching, Creative's Nomad Jukebox family, later dubbed the Zen line, have never looked comfortable alongside consumer electronics kit.

It's a lesson, however, that the company has learned. Witness the upcoming Zen Micro and, to a lesser extent, the Zen Touch, the latest in Creative's long line of iPod alternatives.

Gone, then, is the chunky, clunky metal casing of Zens of old, replaced by a smaller, more curvaceous casing that fits tightly together to give the device a solid, tough feel. It's still bigger than the iPod. They're both 10.3cm high, but the Zen is fatter and thicker - 6.8×2.3cm to 6×1.5cm - and heavier: 201g to 159g. But it feels good in the hand - neither too big nor too heavy. And, crucially, it doesn't look and feel like an internal hard drive, like its predecessors did.

What it does share with previous Jukeboxes is a plethora of buttons and controls. The Zen Micro may narrow them down, iPod-fashion, to five areas of a touch panel, the Touch has 11 buttons and a touch panel. On the top of the device is the hold switch, alongside the USB 2.0 port and earphone/remote control sockets. The left-hand panel sports power, volume up and volume down buttons. On the front are back a screen, Menu and Random play buttons on one side, track skip back, play/pause and track skip forward on the other. Between then sits a round OK button above the oblong touch pad. To complete the Zen's facial features, there's a 2in, 160×104 blue-backlit LCD on the front and the AC adaptor socket on the right-hand panel.

Unless there's something playing, the display defaults to the main Menu, allowing you to choose music from the device's library, select the play mode - repeat tracks or groups of songs, shuffle them all, etc. - change the Zen's settings, and find out how many songs you've copied over and how much disk space they take up.

The Settings sub-menu allows you to choose an EQ pre-set or make up one of your own using the four-band custom equaliser. Crucially, it also allows you to change the touchpad's sensitivity.

Ah, the touchpad. It's what the new Zen is named after, yet it's perhaps the device's weakest feature. It's the equivalent of a jogdial or the iPod's clickwheel, moving the menu cursor up and down, or moving sideways between EQ frequency controls. Tap it to select something.

At first I found it irritatingly difficult to use. Scrolling quickly through a long list of tracks was fine, but attempting to narrow down on a single song proved diffcult - it was too easy to go one or two songs above or below the one I wanted. Move my thumb off the pad and I'd still manage to brush it enough to move cursor up a track. Reducing the trackpad's sensitivity helps, but still requires some concentration to position the cursor precisely.

Alongside the sensitivity adjustment you can turn off the 'tap to click' function. Again, that's essential if you're not to inadvertently make unwanted settings choices or play the wrong song.

I've no doubt Zen Touch users will accustom themselves to the touchpad's quirks, but in the week or so I had the machine to myself I didn't. Some buyers will, I think, spend a short period cursing their purchase before they get the hang of it.

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At least they won't be disappointed with the Touch's other features. The sound quality is, as usual, very good. The bundled earphones aren't the best I've used, even compared to Creative's other bundled headsets, and ironically sounded better on my first-generation iPod than the Zen, on which they sounded muffled. On the iPod they brought up the bass, for what was to my ears a more vibrant sound. With the iPod 'phones, there wasn't a great deal of difference between the players.

But such tests are highly subjective. In any case problems individual users have with the sound can usually remedied with an alternative pair of 'phones or tweaking the EQ. It is true that the Zen isn't as loud as the iPod - with both machines' volume set at max per cent, the Zen is quieter, whichever headset I used.

Creative quotes a battery life of 24 hours continuous playback when running 128Kbps MP3 files, more with a lower bit rate, or less with a higher bit rate or a more compute-intensive format, such as WMA. So, loading the Zen up with 128Kbps MP3 files - courtesy of Richard Low's Mac OS X-based XNJB (http://www.wentnet.com/projects/xnjb/); for PC users I'd recommend Red Chair's Notmad Explorer (http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/) - set the player to Repeat All, switched off the EQ, pressed play and let it go about its business. The Zen Touch isn't a USB Mass Storage device, by the way.

And, yes, it runs for 24 hours. In fact, I got at least 25 hours out of it, maybe more since, being suddenly called away for an hour or so, I missed the point at which the Zen died. The point is, however, is that Creative's claim was substantiated.

Of course, it's all down to the battery the company has put in there. A quick peek revealed a Lithium-Ion job attached to the inside of the casing. So while, its replaceable, the battery isn't one you can swap in and out on whenever it runs down. It's not a small unit, so it's not hard to see where the Touch's extra weight comes from. But, frankly, the extra 50g over the 20GB iPod is worth it for a battery life that's double what the Apple product is rated at.

The 24-hour playback time isn't entirely down to the battery - gone, for example, are the battery-eating EAX audio-processing features of yore, but as I've always said, while they're fun to try, they were never must-have features.

Verdict

The 20GB Zen Touch, although a major step forward in the Zen line's approach to industrial design, will never have the cachet that, rightly or wrongly, the iPod possesses. Its control system is overly complex and more fiddly to use than the iPod's. But it's getting closer, and the slight price advantage it offer - £20 - plus the significantly better battery life make it a worthy alternative.

It's less compelling when compared to other HDD-based players, such as iRiver's H120, which though fractionally more expensive, includes an FM radio and remote control. You can get these for the Touch, but you'll pay extra. The H120 also offer Ogg Vorbis support, as does the 20GB Rio Karma.

But what it loses on feature-set, the Touch makes up for in looks, sound quality and - crucially - that full-day battery life. It may not be the most feature-filled digital music player around, but the Zen Touch won't disappoint. ®

Creative Zen Touch
Rating	80%
Pros	— Best-looking Zen yet; amazing battery life; solid build quality
Cons	— Unnecessary multitude of controls; no bundled FM tuner; touchpad not as useful as it could be
Price	£200 inc. VAT
More info	The Zen Touch website (http://www.nomadworld.com/products/zentouch/)

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