The phrase ‘fallen from grace' would be unnecessarily harsh when referring to Creative's current position in the MP3 player market, but the company that was instrumental in the early development of the digital audio portable has certainly slipped down the rankings since the emergence of the iPod.

So much so that it may come as a surprise to hear that it is still quietly churning out players, albeit with a diminished fervour that is at least partly a result of Apple's dominance and the ability of mobile phones to handle media playback quite nicely.

Its Zen series is still ticking away nicely, though, and the new Zen MX attempts to offer a value-for-money solution to those who appreciate a decent amount of storage space for media.

You'd be forgiven for wondering exactly what has changed with this ‘MX' brand, since it apes the dimensions and layout of the regular Zen almost exactly. For those taking notes, the price-point is the main difference here, but the MX is almost a downgrade in that it only supports DRM 9 playback, there's no subscription service support and video is now only playable in a proprietary format.

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The only real advantage, in fact, is that content stored on attachable SD/SDHC media can now be viewed using the in-built navigation categories rather than a straightforward folder layout.

This rather underwhelming introduction and the lack of an aesthetic refresh does suggest diminishing motivation on behalf of the company to remain at the forefront of this market, but by no means is the Zen MX a bland or uninspiring player. Admittedly the general design, layout and tactile nature of the buttons leaves a bit to be desired, but what's inside is certainly impressive enough to warrant a further look.

The Zen MX is a tidy, credit card sized player, albeit about 10mm thick, with the majority of the front panel taken up by a 2.5-inch, 320 x 240 pixel display. A directional pad and four additional controls make it easy to browse the menus and access what is an impressively wide range of features for controlling and managing your media.

This includes the ability to set bookmarks, custom equalizers and playlists for audio, with MP3, WMA (DRM 9), WAV and Audible 4 supported. It takes a leaf from Sony's book by offering a wide range of ways to randomise and choose content for playback, including artist/genre/album searches, an alphabetical list to speed up browsing of large collections and a ‘DJ' mode for selecting most or least heard and highly rated tracks.

The equalizer and range of options for adjusting the sound environment aren't as comprehensive as Sony's, but we think users will be very impressed by the clarity and flexibility on offer.

Video and photo playback is more straightforward with limited options for management, but the display is crisp and clear and should do justice to the majority of content that's comfortably viewable on a 2.5-inch screen.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, the MX requires you to encode video content to a proprietary format before it is recognised. This is done through the Creative Centrale application installable from the player, which is relatively powerful but overly complex, considering most users will primarily use it to transfer video to the player, adopting a similar interface to Windows Media Player.

Using the various features available it is possible to create photo slideshows and playlists as well as tag all types of media files with category-based information that makes large collections easier to browse.

Those looking for an application to sort and manage a library full of media (if, for example, you're not happy using WMP or another alternative) will find some benefit from the flexibility of the software, and provided the correct codecs are installed it's still possible to drag and drop files (via Centrale) onto the player directory for automatic conversion and transfer. Typically this process is fairly fast; in our tests it took around six minutes to convert and transfer a 100MB file on our averagely-specced test system.

In addition to this you'll find an FM radio, voice recorder, date, alarm and calendar with importable tasks and contacts built in. It's even possible to customise the menu structure to remove unwanted items, and wallpapers can be selected from a supplied list or customised with digital photos. Compatible memory cards increase the in-built storage and with 8/16GB available as standard, at an extremely good price we hasten to add, there's little chance of running out of room.

Despite refusing to ruffle any feathers with its new player, Creative's Zen MX is an excellent example of a no-nonsense device that's reasonably priced (especially the 16GB model at under £100), offers impressive audio and visual quality and has a well thought-out structure for media management and control. Purists will no doubt turn their noses up, but if value, functionality and ease-of-use take higher priority than external style, this latest effort is worth serious consideration.

It's a little disappointing not to see a bit more ambition from Creative with the Zen MX, but it's hard not to like the player after spending some time with it. Despite the rather bland design and controls there's plenty of flexibility on offer in terms of media management, plus decent enough playback quality and fantastic storage potential at a low price.