Exercise is boring, but it’s good for you. I try to walk an hour a day, but sometimes it’s challenging to maintain my resolve. So any help I can get in overcoming the boredom of exercise is welcome indeed. That’s where the MuVo TX FM portable music player comes in. It stores and plays back music while you exercise or engage in other boring activities, like flying cross-country. I was surprised at how much more pleasant it makes my daily excursion.

What is this oddly named gadget? To quote the package: “The MuVo TX FM Is A Tiny, Ultra-Light Digital Audio Player, FM Radio And Voice Recorder – All In One!” What that really means, and where the computer designation comes in, is that the MuVo is a USB 2.0 flash drive, which stores a sizeable number of computer files. The MuVo (which stands for music and voice) has customized built-in controls to play and record music, but it will actually store any data you copy to it. It works like any flash drive—plug it into a USB port, and it will identify itself as a removable drive, with 128 MB, 256 MB, or 512 MB of storage (I got the 256 MB model). You can store all types of data there just by copying or saving it to the appropriate drive letter. But that’s not why you’d pay $100 for it.

The Apple iPod is probably the most famous portable music computer. It stores its music files on a small internal hard drive, which has plenty of room to store lots of songs. The MuVo stores its songs on flash memory, which has no moving parts, and thus won’t ever skip or mute because you jar the player, no matter how hard the impact may be. The downside is that it doesn’t hold as many songs. But 256 MB of storage is enough to hold over four full CDs of music. Since the MuVo is basically a flash drive, you can copy music there using Windows Explorer. MuVo looks for files to be organized into folders, with each folder representing a separate album. Within an album folder are several songs. The MuVo plays songs in a last- recorded/first-played order, so if you are listening to a piece that spans several tracks, like a symphony with several movements, you should copy the last movement to the MuVo first, followed by the next-to-last movement, etc. The MuVo plays back music files recorded in MP3, WMA, or WAV format.

In addition to storing and playing back music, MuVo receives and plays FM radio, and also lets you record your voice through a built-in microphone. You can even record the FM radio! The MuVo weighs a miniscule 1.1 ounces without the single AAA battery that powers it. Figure 1 shows the MuVo and its L-shaped battery case (available in a variety of colors). The MuVo snaps into the battery holder, which provides power through the USB connector. Included in the MuVo package are an arm strap and a set of ear-bud style earphones.

One of the factors that makes or breaks a portable music computer are the operating controls. And MuVo’s are great. There are only four control buttons on the slim chassis, along with a three-line LCD display that tells you what the MuVo is doing. The two long buttons on the side of the MuVo are the volume controls; one increases the volume, the other decreases it. Rolling the scroller wheel lets you advance the playback to the next song, or go back to the previous one. If you depress the scroller wheel, several secondary menus appear. That’s how you turn on the voice recorder, the FM radio, or set options that determine how the MuVo operates. When it’s playing a song, the MuVo shows you the name of the song. The fourth button turns the MuVo on and off, and pauses a song while it’s playing. Those simple controls are easy to operate while you’re exercising.

Except for the voice and FM recording, all other recording functions reside in your computer. You can use any music recording software you like, as long as it produces files in the MP3, WMA, or WAV format. I’d be surprised if you could find software that won’t create one of those types of files. Actually, you probably won’t use WAV files, since they are so large, and take up lots of storage space. However, Creative provides some neat software to support the MuVo, called Creative MediaSource. I found it easiest to use Creative MediaSource to rip songs directly from an audio CD to the MuVo, without first storing them on my hard drive. When you insert an audio CD into your computer’s CD drive, MediaSource consults an online database of CD recordings, downloads the title, performers, and song titles into the MuVo, so during playback, the MuVo can provide you that information. Many other CD ripping programs do that also, but MediaSource seems to get more information about the music on the CD.

All the preceding information is moot if the MuVo sounds lousy. It doesn’t. I decided to use my favorite Koss ear bud headphones instead of the stock MuVo phones. The Koss inserts into the ear canal, and provides meaningful acoustic isolation from the environment, really nice on an airplane. Also, the Koss earphones, although inexpensive, sound pretty good, producing music that’s detailed, smooth, and very easy to listen to. Let’s be realistic: you don’t expect the highest-quality sound from MP3 files, even on an iPod, but during exercise, who has time for critical listening? I am a professional audio reviewer who gets to hear some of the finest equipment made, but I found the MuVo’s sonics were quite enjoyable. If I were listening critically, I would point out that there is the typical loss of bass energy you normally experience from compressed files, but a little adjustment to the built-in equalizer increased the bass level for better playback.

I ripped a recently acquired CD of Antonin Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances (Apex 0927-48999-2), performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Václav Neumann, to the MuVo. If there’s a more cheerful, upbeat collection of symphonic music, I’ve yet to hear it; and it’s part of the Czech orchestra’s cultural heritage. Through the MuVo, their sound is bass-shy, but otherwise harmonically accurate, with plenty of drive and momentum. Dynamics, so important to these pieces, are also quite good. And the triangle, used liberally throughout the collection of dance-inspired pieces, has the requisite tinkle it needs to sound like a triangle. To compensate for the loss of bass inherent in the ripping process, I scrolled to the equalizer and boosted the lowest frequencies several decibels. That made the bass sound fuller and more realistic.

The FM reproduction was also quite nice. Reception is very quiet, with no hiss or static. It’s easy to change stations with the scroller wheel. The MuVo apparently uses the headphone cable as its antenna, so if the cable moves around while you’re exercising, reception can be a little noisy. My solution is to tuck the headphone cable under the armband, preventing the cable from moving relative to the MuVo. The armband cable is a wide strip of elastic, covered with Velcro to secure it onto your arm without cutting off the circulation.

MuVo will record up to 16 hours of voice, which tells me it uses a fairly low sampling rate. That means it doesn’t record your voice with as high a quality as you would use for music, but that’s entirely appropriate. Voice recordings are easy to understand, although unlike dedicated voice recorders, it makes you use the headphones to hear playback. There’s just no room for a speaker in the tiny MuVo frame. It’s amazing they could squeeze in a microphone.

A multi-language Quick Start booklet is packed with the MuVo to give you the information you need to start using the player. A single-language full instruction manual is available on the Creative MediaSource CD as an Adobe Acrobat file. You’ll need the latter to see how to record from the FM radio.

Creative prices the MuVo TX FM players thus:
128 MB - $119.99
256 MB - $149.99
512 MB - $249.99

Walmart sells the 256 MB version for around $100.

To find out more about the MuVo, visit the Creative web site at .

You can probably tell that I like it a lot.