Tech Review

Creative Zen Mozaic 4 GB MP3 Player (Pink)

I still think that it was a sad day for technology competition when Creative Labs pulled out of the high capacity, hard drive-based music player market. The Creative Vision M was a more attractive product than the Zunes from Microsoft, the only alternative, now, to Apple's dominance.

Creative still makes compelling flash players that have several useful advantages over Apple mp3 players, the most important of which in the Mozaic are a built-in speaker and FM radio. The speaker was the reason I purchased the Mozaic for my daughter: If you have a tween to teen daughter, you know that they love to share music with their friends. It came in pink, too which is my girl's preferred color for everything. I think my daughter would ask for a flamingo if we had room in the yard.

Creative Zen Mozaic 16 GB MP3 Player (Black)

The player is solidly built with that kind of rubbery material I prefer. The buttons seem to be of a little less quality than the rest of the player: They "squish" a tiny bit instead just "click."

The screen is fine as is the sound.

One will have to peruse the manual for a few minutes to learn the button assignments as the interface isn't quite as intuitive as a click wheel.

The Mozaic does everything a player should including the ability to download and read Audible audio books. Calendar and calculator functions may come in handy, although I think most people would prefer to use their cell phones for these tasks. Capacities range from 2 to 16GB. You can't augment that with a microSD or SD flash memory card.

The name of the software sounds French, Centrale, but that's not why I didn't use it: I used JRiver's Media Center. I'm going to have to install it, though, if I want to put videos on the Mozaic.

Overall, very nice. Not the cheapest mp3 player, but if you want a speaker, I can't think of a better one than the Mozaic.

Specs and more models below:

Follow up:

Creative Zen Mozaic 2 GB MP3 Player (Pink)

Creative Labs Armband and Skin with Clips for Zen Mozaic by Mozaic

Creative Zen Mozaic 4 GB MP3 Player (Silver)

Creative Zen Mozaic 4 GB MP3 Player (Silver)

Creative Zen Mozaic 8 GB MP3 Player (Black)

Capacity: 2GB / 4GB / 8GB / 16GB
Size: 3.1" x 1.6" x 0.5"
Weight: 0.1 lbs
LCD: 1.8" TFT Color Display, 128 x 160 pixels
Storage Capacity1:

2GB (500 songs)
4GB (1,000 songs)
8GB (2,000 songs)
16GB (4,000 songs)
Battery Life2: Up to 32 hours continuous audio playback
Up to 5 hours of continuous video playback
Video Playback Formats3: Transcoded with bundled software. (*.avi)
All video formats will need to be transcoded with bundled software and requires respective codec preinstalled in PC.
Audio Playback Formats: MP3, WMA, WAV (IMA-ADPCM), Audible 4
Photo Formats Supported: JPEG (BMP/ GIF / PNG / TIFF)4
Battery: Built-in Li-ion battery
FM Radio: 32 preset stations
EQ Settings: 8 presets and 5 band custom EQ
Organizer: Calendar, Contact, Task List
Power Charging: Yes
Album Art: Yes
Voice Recording: Yes
Connectivity: USB 2.0