Creative Zen Vision:M
Creative's latest MP3 player offers music, images, video and more, but does the Vision:M have what it takes to be crowned king of the MP3 player pack?
- Reviewer
- Stuart Miles
- Review Date
- 13 December 2005
- Manufacturer
- Creative
- Price as reviewed
- £250
- Latest price
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Reader score
9/10
Reader review
User: Ian209, Canada
Date Posted: 3 October 2006
Review: After owning the Zen Vision:M for a month, I dare say it's much better than iPods in many ways. However, the REALLY bad side to it is that.... IT DOESN'T COME WITH A WALL CHARGER! That really disappointed me. Also, it's hard to find accessories for the player and it can scratch really easily. More downsides are: 1) When playing music the timer is slightly out of sync 2) It takes a while to start/shut the player. 3) It occasionally freezes 4) The battery life isn't that good, but acceptable 5) Requires the sync adapter, which can be damaged or loss easily 6) It isn't an UPnP device. 7) The PC software is kind of horrible. Here are some good points: 1) It is JAMMED with features 2) The screen is bright and colourful 3) You can use WMP to upload songs and all 4) Has a AV out at a high resolution 5) FM Radio can be useful. Also you can record directly from the radio too. 6) Really easy to navigate through 7) AWESOME sound quality 8) Can support many codecs such as Xvid and Divx 9) Has a fully programmable "Shortcut" key.
Rating:
12 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Steve, London, UK
Date Posted: 11 August 2006
Review: I bought one a couple of months ago and I love it. The best bit is that Napster support it on their Napster to go service, which allows unlimited downloads at £15 a month which is way better than Apples 70ish pence a track. Screen quality is amazing. I'd read reviews about how easy it is to scratch the screen so I bought a transparent sticky skin for mine - as long as its fitted carefully there is no problem with bubbles and you can barely tell its there!
Rating:
8 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Robert, Florida, USA
Date Posted: 20 July 2006
Review: Let me jump on this bandwagon please. I really love this thing. The video quality is unreal. I can now watch movies whenever I have time to kill.
Rating:
6 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Steve Drury, East Sussex
Date Posted: 15 May 2006
Review: Bought this after buying so many cheaper/smaller units, false economy really and I'm loving it. Great screen resolution, easy drag and drop for media. There is a calendar, organiser as well. Just need to get a decent case and better earphones. Bring on decent base station speakers as well... ;-)
Rating:
7 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: HB, Miami, Fl, USA
Date Posted: 30 March 2006
Review: I've had mine for about a month now and I absolutely love it! I had a few moments uneasy moments after ordering it, it's hard to say that "I'll pay the same money I would for an iPod, but for something else" I can honestly tell you that I am thrilled, I watch a lot of videos and it is absolutely great for that. I love iPod’s, they've been a great player so far and I won't say anything bad about them simply because I don't have one, judging from what I've heard they deserve the good reputation they have, however I can tell you in all honesty I'm glad I bought my Zen instead :) It's an absolutely great player (only drawback: same scratch prone plastic front as the 5G iPods...Arrgghh...still a great player though). Finally: a lot of sites talk about a skip that apparently happens when watching videos every 10-15 minutes…this has been fixed with a firmware upgrade. By the time I bought mine it already came with the upgrade and it doesn't do that. You can also drag and drop songs into the player using Windows Explorer after getting that upgrade…apparently you couldn't do that before (like I said before mine came with the upgrade already installed, so I'm not sure, mine shows up in My Computer as an MP3 player).
Rating:
9 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Erik, British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 22 March 2006
Review: I'm getting me one of these. Who cares if it’s slightly thicker than an iPod. Creative have definitely outdone Apple.
Rating:
6 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Dave, Canada
Date Posted: 22 March 2006
Review: These have just been released here (21st of March). The store I ordered from sold out their stock within 24 hours. The software is so much easier to use than iTunes, the battery life is great too. This baby is going to make apple very worried.
Rating:
8 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Bryony, East England
Date Posted: 8 March 2006
Review: I too have done lots of research between this and the iPod. It seems that everyone who are dead set against creative are those who have never owned one. I have on the other hand owned 3 iPod’s all which broken and have had continuous problems with my computer. The Creative Vision is for those that will sacrifice a few aesthetic qualities for a sturdier more dependable product. BUY IT.
Rating:
11 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Rick, California, USA
Date Posted: 6 March 2006
Review: I received mine a few days ago. After tons of research, I have to say I bought the right one. I love the additional features (FM radio/recorder, voice recorder, AC adapter) AND the fact that I can load it using WMP. My daughter has an iPod video 60 GB and iTunes is constantly crashing the PC. It’s just a headache. All that's needed are some more accessories. On the negative, it still scratches easily, but I bought an Invisishield for it. I would recommend that for anyone. This product deserved BOS at CES.
Rating:
6 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Colin, Chatham, Kent, UK
Date Posted: 14 February 2006
Review: Well they must be doing something right. I have ordered mine from Komplett.co.uk but I’m having to wait for them to come in. There seems to be a shortage so I guess they are selling them pretty quick. Only black available from them but at £219 the price is not bad. These iPod merchants seem to be obsessed about the thickness of this device. It's almost identical in size including the weight apart from the thickness. They must have some skinny pockets if they can't fit that in. I am not anti Apple I brought a 4th generation iPod back from the USA for my son. That had to be sent off, as it crashed and burnt and my daughter got the 4 Gbyte Nano for her Christmas box + another £34 for skins and socks as they are so fragile. All of these reviewers can not be wrong they said it kicks the iPod but they shouldn't forget that there are plenty of 30 Gbyte iPod videos floating around and I do believe that was there first offering. I guess it won't belong before there are 3rd party AV cables available at a more sensible price. I’m looking forward to getting mine and I only hope the firmware is more reliable than some of the iPod’s I’ve seen.
Rating:
3 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Jay, Alaska, USA
Date Posted: 30 January 2006
Review: I just bought one off of Wal-Mart.com for 329.99 but I think the extra 30 bucks is worth it for a Windows Media Player friendly device. I hope it’s as good as the reviews say it is.
Rating:
6 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Dan, Australia
Date Posted: 17 January 2006
Review: This it a great item I'm going to get one, I’ve seen comparisons to the iPod video and the vision is so much better.
Rating:
6 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: James Hodson, Birmingham, UK
Date Posted: 13 January 2006
Review: I had one shipped from Singapore on the day of release! This is a truly wonderful bit of kit. Picture quality and sound quality is amazing! Plays anything I throw at it, if it doesn't support the format its software will convert most things! The TV output (Via the mini hub) requires a Creative AV cable and will not work with a regular AV lead. Overall very easy to use and I keep finding even more handy functions as I go, (like recording the FM radio). Would highly recommend over the main rival option as I have used both!
Rating:
8 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Bruce Robinson, Plymouth, UK
Date Posted: 11 January 2006
Review: Already appearing on E-Bay at £180. Now that would be an iPod killer!
Rating:
8 people have rated this review helpful
Reader review
User: Kim, Belgium
Date Posted: 6 January 2006
Review: It seems the player will be available on the 21st of January in Europe, but will cost a lot more! I heard rumours of 526 euro, can't really consider this the iPod killer anymore if this is true.
Rating:
5 people have rated this review helpful
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Compare prices
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(30 GB (Hard Drive), 7500 Songs, 5.75 oz., Audio Files: MP3, WAV, WMA. Video Files: MPEG-4, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX, XviD. Display Siz...)
