Detailed Creative Muvo Squared 4GB MP3 Player Description & Review

Creative: Muvo Squared 4GB £138.99inc. VAT  &  Delivery

As this player is no longer available we suggest you look at this player instead.

This Creative labs MuVo2, MuVo^2 or Creative MuVo squared, comes with 4GB (4000 MB) of storage and is an odd little MP3 player.

This player has been superceded by the Creative Zen Vision M and is no longer available.

We have put a detailed description, review and notes of all those things the Creative labs MuVo2, MuVo^2 range has in common on a separate page to try to limit the amount of repetition.

Why did we call this an odd little player? Well it seems to occupy the no-mans-land between the high end, high capacity Hard Drive models and the high end low capacity RAM models quite well. It's neither one thing nor the other, but has the advantages and drawbacks of both.

4GB is not to be sneezed at. The original MP3 jukeboxes were considerably larger, heavier, more expensive and only had 6GB of space. 4GB is well inside normal jukebox range as it will store more than 60 Hours of music. Enough for a whole week without repetition of the same song twice if you listen to it for about 9 hours per day.

The Creative MuVo squared 4GB costs £34.75 per GB. That seems rather expensive per GB when you compare it with large capacity models, but you do get a lot of capacity compared to either RAM based models, which typically have 128MB of storage, (or about 30 times less storage than the 4GB MuVo) or the other 1.5GB MuVo, which is almost 3 times smaller.

Creative Muvo Squared 4GB Info

Stores 4GB of data, or up to 60 hours of MP3 (70 in WMA) Rechargeable, removable lithium-ion battery provides up to 10 hours continuous playback. Protective case with belt clip Super-fast USB 2.0 interface Easy to use model Small, light and slim.

The MuVo 4GB unit will hold approx. 60hours of MP3s (encoded at 128Kbps). As per, the aptly name "Creative Marketing" have conspired to claim that this translates to 120 hours of WMA, which is untrue if you actually want to listen to the music in WMA. Best you could comfortably get out of the 4GB by using WMA would be about 70 - 75 hours.

So what's the odd thing about this jukebox? If the unit was a Hard Disk player instead of a mini HD player and still had 4GB of space it would probably be bigger, heavier, but it would be less expensive. The other version of the MuVo squared, the 1.5GB version, would be hard to make as a HD jukebox. We're not sure if anyone actually makes HDs as small as 1.5GB anymore.

Bottom line is this - if this model were less expensive it would have a vast section of the MP3 jukebox market sewn-up. Completely. I.e. if this MuVo 2 4GB had the same kind of cost per MB as a 10GB HD model, it would be one of the best sellers of 2004 world wide. The problem is that it doesn't have that kind of cost per MB. In fact its more expensive than some 10GB models, overall. Not just on a cost per MB basis, but on a total-cost-of-buying basis. Its design features and slim style mean that it will inevitably suit some people in a way that a HD jukebox never will, so it will still sell, but we cannot help but feel that Creative have missed a trick with this jukebox. It could have been an outright killer from the very start.

The are additional features and info described on the 4GB MuVo squared here

Any criticism of this model?

If an FM tuner/ remote control/ record features do materialise for this range, not doubt they will come as optional extras that cost more.

Apart form the above, not really. Its a nice, clean, slim, light jukebox and if its style suits you then you can buy one by clicking below.