Creative hopes new MuVO T200 will move you into buying one

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 25 February 2008 07:59

Opinion and Analysis

Despite the MuVo T200’s screen not being able to play videos or display photos, it is still has a “full colour LCD display” with an additional trick – it can be personalised with “six different attractive colour schemes to suit your individual style”, although the fact the screen’s backlight can change colour is more-or-less just another marketing gimmick.

However, unlike the iPod Shuffle, the MuVo at least has a screen, showing the player status and song titles at a glance.

The next feature is one you’d expect from any iPod competitor – a built in FM radio.

Creative characterise it as a feature that “enables you to switch quickly from your personal music collection to live FM radio and get traffic news and current affairs updates in an instant”, with the player able to store “up to 32 preset stations”.

The other usual feature you’d expect is also there – the ability to make voice recordings, which Creative says is “handy for recording voice memos or meetings”.

Because of the MuVo’s smaller size, it only offers ‘up to’ 9 hours of audio playback, a far cry from the iPod Nano’s 24 hour audio playtime and a bit less than the 12 hours claimed by the Shuffle. 

So, as we noted previously, the MuVo T200 lives in between the iPod Shuffle and the Nano. If you want video and photo capabilities alongside music playback, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t spend an extra AUD $50 to get the 4GB iPod nano, or one of Creative’s other players, unless your budget was fixed at precisely $150.

If you don’t really care about videos or photos, but want more storage space and more convenience in recharging and transferring music, and wish you could see the song names, then the MuVo T200 is a better buy than the iPod Shuffle, especially with its inbuilt FM radio and voice recording capabilities.

Just how successful the MuVo T200 will be is now in the hands of consumers, who have so far preferred the Apple iPod.