After suckering in on a Rio Nitrus, and - like everyone else - having it crap out on me within 90 days, I did my research and bought a Zen Micro to replace the Nitrus. First of all: STAY AWAY FROM THE RIO! What a piece of junk.
That being said, after adapting to the touchpad on the Zen Micro that everyone ELSE complains about, I've come to love my Zen. Yes, the touchpad IS a pain, and fine-tuning with it is nightmarish. Also, the FM auto-preset function is idiotic. Why I can't manually lock in my FM stations is beyond me. Also, the battery life is pretty lame... you're lucky to get about 4 hours out of it. HOWEVER, it IS a replaceable battery, unlike the Rio and iPod which screws you when the battery dies. I'll most likely purchase an additional battery and just swap them out to keep going.
But everything else rocks. The price and capacity are perfect for my needs. The software is logical, a cinch to install, and you're up and running on it quickly. I like being able to manually tag my own tracks when I transfer them, too. The size is just barely bigger than my Rio was, yet it holds 5 times the music. Even the stock earbuds aren't bad, although there are times when I could use more volume. If you get a Zen Micro, you'll need to get used to locking the touchpad, or else you'll constantly be accidentally jumping ahead to other songs or hitting 'pause' when you merely wanted to shift the Micro around on your belt. And, oh, by the way, the Micro DOES come with a nice beltclip arrangement and a desktop stand, neither of which came with the Nitrus. I'd recommend this unit to anyone looking for a moderately priced .mp3 player with a decent capacity. Finally, I chose it over the iPod Mini and others because it supports .wma, which is what 99% of my music files are.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 205.00
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection