Hello people!
Finally managed to lay my hands on the Creative Zen Vison:M..
This is my first ever review, so pleeeeease bear with me..
A good friend bought it for me from the US of A for $320 (approx Rs.14600).
Sorry, i dont have a digi-cam with me right now, so i'll be posting to links for pix from other sites..
Thats what you get from the box... great packaging i might add..
Supplied are
The Vision:M
2 cds (one installation and another Yahoo! Music thingy which i havnt figured out what to use for)
A dock for charging, transfer, A/V output.
A pouch (nice and smooth, but white, so it'll get dirty if my Vision doesnt)
A pair of Creative Headphones. (great sound quality.. i'd say equal to the iPods headphones..)
USB Cable (for data transfer and charging via USB)
AC Adaptor and an 'American' plug..
Heres the dock.
Heres how it looks
FEATURES (Pros)
Controls:
Vertical touchpad. 4 buttons-> Shortcut, Play/pause, Back, Options
By brushing up and down on the touch pad, it allows you to scroll through tracks and menu items. By tapping on the center of the touch pad, it selects the current item.
The buttons have audible clicks, so you know when you've pressed it.
Hold/on/off slide on top.
Easy navigation .. (i got used to it in less than an hour..)
Shortcut key helps you out.
The small buttons on either side of the touchpad are VERY helpful in fast-forwarding, and moving along the playlist,etc..
Screen:
Excellent. more than 240K colours.. compare that to the 65K colours iPod.
Though i hear this does not make much of a difference on a 2.5" screen.
Though a comparison of vid/pics on an iPod and Vision, the Vision looks much better..
The Zen Vision:M supports lots of formats.
Audio: MP3, WMA, WAV (and ogg too i think..havnt chked that out yet..)
Video: AVI, DivX, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Motion-JPEG, WMV, XviD
30 frames per second.
The video playback and quality(contrast) is stunning.
Now you can just dump movies downloaded off torrents or p2p networks into your player and watch 'em..
If any video needs to be converted (because of the crappy codecs they were intially encoded in..) Zen Vision Media takes care of that for you for which 3 converting options are provided.
Pictures:
Supports Jpeg... other formats will be automatically converted then stores.
Slideshow is good.
But manually browsing thro the pictures is a bit slower compared to the iPod.
Sound:
Great. EQ, Bass Boost, Smart Volume.
Playback:
Setting a playlist will take sometime for you to et used to, but its cool..
There also a "DJ" option, where you can play best rated songs (you can rate them out of 5 stars), or least heard songs,etc.
Bookmark feature may be useful for long audiobooks.
Battery:
The rated battery time for the Zen Vision:M is 14 hours of audio or 4 hours of video playback.
(iPod video playback is for 2 hours only.)
The AC adapter takes 2.5 hours to charge it completely, where as the USB adapter plugged into your computer will take 6.5 hours to charge completely.
Removable Drive feature. You can create a separate drive-> 512mb, 1,1.5,4,8,16gig for transfer of data like a USB drive.
FM tuner and FM recorder.
With auto-preset feature, i.e, it'll search and store all available stations.
Voice recording: only in the IMA ADPCM 16kHz mono WAV format
Customizable wallpapers.
Themes.
Albumart display is cool.
Sync Outlook Contacts.
Calender, alarm, date/time, organizer.
ZENCast (never used it tho..)
Password protection: You can protect pix and vids with Passwords... (quite useful eh
)
PROS: All the above ^^
CONS:
Now i havnt used the iPod a lot (which is the standard for all comparisons i believe), but here are some comparisons:
The Creative loses out on size and weight..
Its bulkier and heavier than the iPod and almost twice its thickness (and weight)
These are the downsides i could find on the outside.
A major down fall of the Zen Vision:M is that it is not UMS (Universal Mass Storage) compliant. You cannot simply plug and play then drag and drop files to the player on any operating system without additional installation of drivers.
Once can transfer data to it by means of the "Removable Drive" option, but data thus transferred cannot be used directly by the player, for eg, if you transfer mp3s from a friend's pc (which obviously will not have Media Explorer) as data, you wont be able to listen to it on your player until its transferred by/via Media Explorer.
I'm praying for future firmware which will make it UMS if possible..
The buttons are located slightly along the outer edge.
Some may not like the buttons (for their nature/sound)
Carrying the dongle around.
Non-removable battery.
No games... (but if i wanted games i'd rather buy a PSP)
If Creative manages to reduce the thickness and weight a bit, they'd definitely kill the iPod.
Go for The Creative Zen Vision:M if you dont mind it being a bit thick, but need to use various video formats and stuff.
Go for the ipod if you want something sleek.
EDIT: I've just read some more about the Vision:M. Seems you can transfer media via Windows Media Player, so though it aint UMS, you can still transfer media (MP3s, Movies) from your friends PC and play them by using WMP to transfer them !!
EDIT Number 2:
Theres something i do not understand.
According to the other reviews i've read, the Vision:M is NOT UMS (Universal Mass Storage) compliant.
According to the manual, you can "Sync" media(=mp3s, vids, pix) onto the player via WMP10.
Now, when i connected it to my college's IBM pc with WMP10, it didnt show anything.
BUT, when i connected it to a friend's PC (without Zen Media Explorer), it was recognized as an "MTP" (Media Transfer Protocol), and i'm able to copy media not only via WMP10, but ALSO as an external device(i.e., using "My Computer"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I understand that UMS is "Universal" whereas MTP is for Microsoft(Windows XP with Service Pack 2)... so i think thats good enough, since all my friends use WInXP SP2..
BTW my player froze twice within 12 hours yesterday. i had to reset it by inserting a pin into the Reset hole at the bottom.
Then a "Rebuilding" process took place for like 90 seconds, and the setting returned to how it was the last time it was Shut Down properly.
Another review i recommend you read if you're interested in buying the Vision:M is
http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_Zen...1&cval=1711841
Finally managed to lay my hands on the Creative Zen Vison:M..
This is my first ever review, so pleeeeease bear with me..
A good friend bought it for me from the US of A for $320 (approx Rs.14600).
Sorry, i dont have a digi-cam with me right now, so i'll be posting to links for pix from other sites..
Thats what you get from the box... great packaging i might add..
Supplied are
The Vision:M
2 cds (one installation and another Yahoo! Music thingy which i havnt figured out what to use for)
A dock for charging, transfer, A/V output.
A pouch (nice and smooth, but white, so it'll get dirty if my Vision doesnt)
A pair of Creative Headphones. (great sound quality.. i'd say equal to the iPods headphones..)
USB Cable (for data transfer and charging via USB)
AC Adaptor and an 'American' plug..
Heres the dock.
Heres how it looks
FEATURES (Pros)
Controls:
Vertical touchpad. 4 buttons-> Shortcut, Play/pause, Back, Options
By brushing up and down on the touch pad, it allows you to scroll through tracks and menu items. By tapping on the center of the touch pad, it selects the current item.
The buttons have audible clicks, so you know when you've pressed it.
Hold/on/off slide on top.
Easy navigation .. (i got used to it in less than an hour..)
Shortcut key helps you out.
The small buttons on either side of the touchpad are VERY helpful in fast-forwarding, and moving along the playlist,etc..
Screen:
Excellent. more than 240K colours.. compare that to the 65K colours iPod.
Though i hear this does not make much of a difference on a 2.5" screen.
Though a comparison of vid/pics on an iPod and Vision, the Vision looks much better..
The Zen Vision:M supports lots of formats.
Audio: MP3, WMA, WAV (and ogg too i think..havnt chked that out yet..)
Video: AVI, DivX, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Motion-JPEG, WMV, XviD
30 frames per second.
The video playback and quality(contrast) is stunning.
Now you can just dump movies downloaded off torrents or p2p networks into your player and watch 'em..
If any video needs to be converted (because of the crappy codecs they were intially encoded in..) Zen Vision Media takes care of that for you for which 3 converting options are provided.
Pictures:
Supports Jpeg... other formats will be automatically converted then stores.
Slideshow is good.
But manually browsing thro the pictures is a bit slower compared to the iPod.
Sound:
Great. EQ, Bass Boost, Smart Volume.
Playback:
Setting a playlist will take sometime for you to et used to, but its cool..
There also a "DJ" option, where you can play best rated songs (you can rate them out of 5 stars), or least heard songs,etc.
Bookmark feature may be useful for long audiobooks.
Battery:
The rated battery time for the Zen Vision:M is 14 hours of audio or 4 hours of video playback.
(iPod video playback is for 2 hours only.)
The AC adapter takes 2.5 hours to charge it completely, where as the USB adapter plugged into your computer will take 6.5 hours to charge completely.
Removable Drive feature. You can create a separate drive-> 512mb, 1,1.5,4,8,16gig for transfer of data like a USB drive.
FM tuner and FM recorder.
With auto-preset feature, i.e, it'll search and store all available stations.
Voice recording: only in the IMA ADPCM 16kHz mono WAV format
Customizable wallpapers.
Themes.
Albumart display is cool.
Sync Outlook Contacts.
Calender, alarm, date/time, organizer.
ZENCast (never used it tho..)
Password protection: You can protect pix and vids with Passwords... (quite useful eh
)PROS: All the above ^^
CONS:
Now i havnt used the iPod a lot (which is the standard for all comparisons i believe), but here are some comparisons:
The Creative loses out on size and weight..
Its bulkier and heavier than the iPod and almost twice its thickness (and weight)
These are the downsides i could find on the outside.
A major down fall of the Zen Vision:M is that it is not UMS (Universal Mass Storage) compliant. You cannot simply plug and play then drag and drop files to the player on any operating system without additional installation of drivers.
Once can transfer data to it by means of the "Removable Drive" option, but data thus transferred cannot be used directly by the player, for eg, if you transfer mp3s from a friend's pc (which obviously will not have Media Explorer) as data, you wont be able to listen to it on your player until its transferred by/via Media Explorer.
I'm praying for future firmware which will make it UMS if possible..
The buttons are located slightly along the outer edge.
Some may not like the buttons (for their nature/sound)
Carrying the dongle around.
Non-removable battery.
No games... (but if i wanted games i'd rather buy a PSP)
If Creative manages to reduce the thickness and weight a bit, they'd definitely kill the iPod.
Go for The Creative Zen Vision:M if you dont mind it being a bit thick, but need to use various video formats and stuff.
Go for the ipod if you want something sleek.
EDIT: I've just read some more about the Vision:M. Seems you can transfer media via Windows Media Player, so though it aint UMS, you can still transfer media (MP3s, Movies) from your friends PC and play them by using WMP to transfer them !!
EDIT Number 2:
Theres something i do not understand.
According to the other reviews i've read, the Vision:M is NOT UMS (Universal Mass Storage) compliant.
According to the manual, you can "Sync" media(=mp3s, vids, pix) onto the player via WMP10.
Now, when i connected it to my college's IBM pc with WMP10, it didnt show anything.
BUT, when i connected it to a friend's PC (without Zen Media Explorer), it was recognized as an "MTP" (Media Transfer Protocol), and i'm able to copy media not only via WMP10, but ALSO as an external device(i.e., using "My Computer"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I understand that UMS is "Universal" whereas MTP is for Microsoft(Windows XP with Service Pack 2)... so i think thats good enough, since all my friends use WInXP SP2..
BTW my player froze twice within 12 hours yesterday. i had to reset it by inserting a pin into the Reset hole at the bottom.
Then a "Rebuilding" process took place for like 90 seconds, and the setting returned to how it was the last time it was Shut Down properly.
Another review i recommend you read if you're interested in buying the Vision:M is
http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_Zen...1&cval=1711841
. Nice review Vince, reps added and the thread rated.
its heavy, i put it in my shirt's front pocket, its pulling me down.. 
Repped ya