REATIVE HAS ABANDONED HARD DRIVE-BASED devices, and the new ZEN is the company's first shot at a flash-based music and video player. It has a larger screen and more features (including an FM radio and a voice recorder) than its comparably priced competitor, the iPod nano. The Zen also offers a roomy 16GB version, which rings up at $150 less than the same-capacity iPod touch.

In addition, the ZEN has an SD memory card slot, so the player's capacity is expandable, Audio file support for the ZEN is fairly good, includ¬ing WMA, MP3, and unprotected AAC. For video, the ZEN supports only WMV, but it comes with software to convert DivXlXvid and MPEG-4 files. JPEGs are the only supported photo format. The large 2,5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel screen displays colorful and sharp images, and the interface uses graph¬ics that are sharp, well designed, and easy to navigate.

Audio quality is adequate, but you'll want to upgrade the not-so-great bundled earphones. Sure, the ZEN has its flaws: It's nearly as big as some hard drive-based players; it doesn't have a lightning-fast start-up time; and the interface can be a bit slow. But it works well, is expandable, and has more extras than you find in Apple players.



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