Creative has joined the recent swathe of mid-capacity flash players with the release of the Zen V and V+. One of the few MP3 player manufacturers that has remained at the forefront of digital audio players from the beginning, we're holding high hopes that the new V series won't disappoint.

The player has a glossy black surface and one of three assorted colour trims. Rather than just offering these as a straight choice of colour preference, the colour-coding is actually related to the capacity. Those with orange trim are 1GB, green are 2GB and blue 4GB, and all the players offer otherwise identical features so customers have a straightforward choice.

At first glance the bright primary colours alongside the glossy black surface make the player look a little basic, but this shouldn't put you off. You'll be impressed by the excellent quality of the colour screen and there's absolutely nothing basic about the functionality.

Creative has always been hot on usability and has a solid reputation for intuitive controls and easy menu navigation. A simple 5-way joystick, separate volume control and subtly embedded buttons for play/pause and cancel see the company come out tops again on this front.

Music is easily accessed through a typical ID3-tag linked layout, and you'll find a handy 'DJ' function that can randomly select tracks or albums for you, or play your most popular or rarely heard tracks to help add a bit of variety to your playlists.

You'll also find a range of extras including date/time, a calendar, contacts database, organiser and microphone. In addition a handy line-in function allows you to connect an external music source like a CD player and automatically convert and transfer songs, even splitting tracks for you with the synchronised encoding function.

There's a host of options for customising the player's look, behaviour, audio playback and - most innovative of all - there's a menu configuration tool that allows you to change the options displayed on the main menu. If you frequently use the clock or calendar, for example, you can choose to add this to the main menu list to save you browsing through settings to find it. This is an excellent addition that works really well and adds even more bonus points to what was already a very usable device.

You're supplied with all the applications you need to both transfer music and manage and synchronise your contacts, calendar and to-do list with Outlook. There's also a ZenCast organiser that allows you to download content from Creative's ZenCast site to play back at your leisure.

This brings us to the differences between the Zen V and Zen V+. Although they look identical, the V+ sports an FM Radio and video player in addition to the photo viewer found on the V. As a result the V+ supports video Zencasts, whereas you'll only be able to upload audio to the regular V model.

Sound quality is excellent, better (if possible) than a lot of other players we've looked at recently. Battery life is touted at 15 hours which is respectable enough, but there's just something about the look and feel of the device that makes it fun and really rewarding to use. It's small enough to fit snugly in the palm of your hand yet is packed with enough features to put many competitors to shame.

Pricing varies with capacity and the V+ is a little more expensive than the standard model. The V series starts at £90 for the 1GB, with the V+ slightly higher at £100 if you want video support and an FM radio. The top end of the V+ range will set you back £170, which isn't cheap for a 4GB player but it's certainly not overpriced either. If you shop around online you should be able to save on these prices.

If you don't think you'll use an FM radio or video player, the standard V model is an excellent alternative that's very competitively priced. Regardless of which model you choose, both the Zen V and Zen V+ are a joy to use. Creative has done a great job of creating a real people's player.