Immediately after its release in April end 2008, we got our hands on the Creative MuVo T200. The MuVo is a series of MP3 players that simplify the whole concept of carrying your music with you. Its thumb drive and light design make it quite a good companion when it comes to moving around for some recreation. It's a perfect competitor to the iPod Shuffle and Creative's own Stone/Stone Plus. The two have gone aggressive with their pricing and the MuVo is just a new entrant. Will it be able to carve a niche for itself? Bundle Specifications Design & Build
Creative MuVo T200
Earphones
Quickstart leaflets
The Creative MuVo T200 is very similar to its internationally released cousin T100, the major difference between the two being the missing screen. The MuVo looks like any contemporary thumb-drive at first sight, especially in the black color option; the screen hides discreetly in the glossy black body of the player. The glossy body of the player attracts fingerprints. I had to use a clean tissue to prepare the product for its photo shoot. The player has a USB port sealed behind a cap at one end; at the other, there's a stereo connector. The player has a similar set of keys like that seen on the Stone/Stone Plus -- a 5-way D-Pad and controller with a shortcut key at one end and play-pause at the other. There is a reset pin hole as well as an in-built microphone.
I could have complained about the buttons because of their small size; however, the feedback is good. One thing that I found odd was the absence of a lock key. Keys can be locked and unlocked only through the interface. The player has a lanyard loop hole at the end of the stereo port but I think it should ideally hold the USB cap to the body of the player.
Features
Learning from its mistakes with the Stone, Creative came out with Stone Plus. Nevertheless, with the MuVo T200, Creative has kept itself from repeating them. The player has an equalizer with custom preset, FM Tuner, recorder, and date and time. It's a four-band equalizer which isn't the best thing to configure but you can achieve good results. The MuVo has another major utility. It can act as a mass storage device with a USB port built on to the player.
The player has some other features as well. You can change the orientation of the screen, in keeping with your hand orientation. Brightness can be adjusted to keep the screen visible enough to read. Also note that keeping the brightness low provides better battery life. I found the screen readable even in the sun at 40-50 percent. There is a display timer that also affects the overall battery life of the player. The T200 has themes as well so, choose your own preferred color. You can have more themes with the player updates. The Creative Media Lite, which is found in the player memory itself, is used to update the player firmware and in case if you delete it, you can find it online. The My Shortcut key can be customized; you can choose from music/FM tuner, recorder, and date & time. There is unfortunately no choice to use it as a lock key. The screensaver and idle shutdown time are the other options that help you increase battery life.
Again, there is one another thing I'd really like to point out. Unlike the Zen Stone Plus, the interface of the MuVo is very smooth and makes the player very comfortable to use.
The MuVo T200 is a pretty decent audio player. The bundled earphones are basic; the quality of the sound they produce isn't good at all. However, these earphones don't crack even after cracking up the volume. The player doesn't have any bass or treble booster. All that's provided is the standard presets and the custom preset on a 4-band equalizer. I paired the Creative MuVo with a professional headphone and the output was good. The bass was tight but the thump was missing. The highs and the mids are both above average. The sound quality is undoubtedly better than other available options -- except for the iAudio one.
Now keeping in mind that the MuVo is also a thumb-drive I ran a read-write benchmark on it. The T200 we had was of a 2GB capacity. The test we ran showed that the drive has an average write speed of 2.5 MB/s and a read speed of around 9MB/s, which I think is decent enough. It'd take around 12minutes to fill up the drive completely from a clean format and about 4 minutes to copy the whole 2 GB of data from the drive. Overall, we obtained pretty decent results though I'd like to see better write speeds and at least a read speed of 10 MB/s.
The MuVo T200 has a specified battery life of 9 hours. The player lasted for easily 7-8 hours over the 3 days that I used it. It is quite good also the battery is internal and charges via USB when plugged to a PC.
Conclusion
The Creative MuVo T200 retails for Rs. 3,399 and Rs. 4,999 for the 2 GB and the 4 GB, respectively. However, even at around anywhere between 3-3.4 k, the price of the 2 GB would still be expensive and so would be the 4GB option at 4.5-5 k. The 2 GB and the 4 GB if available in the market for below 3 k and 4-4.5 k, respectively, is a good buy otherwise you can either stick to the Transcend options or settle for the Shuffle which is selling for 2.5 k. However, the MuVo would be a choice you wouldn't regret -- but only if it is available at my suggested prices.
