Product Description Creative's Zen Vision: M is the ultimate player for people who want to enjoy music and movies on the go. This stylish, versatile system features an advanced 2.5-inch high-resolution color screen that can display movies! The Zen Vision: M's rechargeable battery delivers playtimes up to four hours with video and music. For live entertainment or capturing those special moments there's also a built-in FM radio and voice recorder. The Zen Vision: M supports popular music, video and photo formats. It can also be connected to the TV to share images and videos with friends and family.
Amazon.com Review In its own right, the Creative Zen Vision:M is a very capable digital audio player, video player, photo viewer, FM radio, and more. Indeed, one could go on and on about how it has the right specifications to make it a constant companion for entertainment on the go. The really big news about this device, though, is that it's the first device to boast complete compatibility with Amazon Unbox, the new digital video and music download service from Amazon.com.
The Zen Vision:M has the features, ease-of-use, and power to become your constant media companion. See the Vison:M interactive demo.
Design Let's get things out in the open. The Apple iPod is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to the digital media player business and, unavoidably, every other device is measured against it. In most respects, the Vision:M matches up pretty well, and there are few things you may even like better. Length and width dimensions are exactly the same at 4.1 and 2.4 inches respectively. When it comes to girth, though, the iPod has the Vision:M beat; the Vision:M is .7 inches thick, while the iPod measures .4 inches. The Vision:M is slightly heavier, too. These details aside, the Vision:M feels comfortable, yet sturdy, in the hand, with curved surfaces in all the right places.
Creative takes a somewhat different approach with the Vision:M's controls, answering the iPod's Click Wheel with a vertical touch pad--which allows you to scroll up and down menus and control volume--plus four buttons that offer navigation through the user interface. The contextual menu button on the bottom right is a welcome addition, allowing you to make quick settings changes and view information about media files on the fly--functions that are more cumbersome on an iPod. Creative could have made the buttons a bit more sensitive--they require a firm press that gives an overall feeling of clunkiness to an otherwise well-designed user interface. Another annoyance is the touch pad's over-sensitivity; it's easy to make selections unintentionally, sending you on a wild ride through the user interface.
The Vision:M's screen, which measures 2.5 inches diagonally, offers sharp details, vibrant color, and excellent response with little or no video ghosting during high-action sequences. The 320 x 240 resolution is to be expected from a device this size, and although it's small, you'll likely have no trouble enjoying video while you're sitting on the subway or a flight, or in the back-seat of a car. Our only nitpick was the screen's less than stellar viewing angle, especially when compared side-by-side with a video iPod. While this can be good for maintaining privacy, the narrow viewing angle also means that friends beside you will struggle to see anything other than a black screen.
Music, Videos, Photos, and More The Vision:M's music organization scheme is standard fare; you can browse playlists, artists, tracks, albums, and genres. Equalizer settings are robust, with a nice range of automatic settings, plus a custom equalizer that's easy to control. The music library's "DJ" function is a nice touch, allowing you to listen to your most popular tracks. It can also pull up the tunes you listen to least frequently--in case you've got some forgotten tunes lying around on the Vision:M's 60 GB hard drive. Sound quality is everything you'd expect from a top shelf digital audio player, and DRM'd Windows Media files played without a hitch. The device fully supports a whole range of "PlaysForSure" download and subscription services, such as Napster and Yahoo Music. Creative also ships a CD-ripping and music transfer application called MediaSource with the Vision:M.
Playback of Windows Media DRM'd video files (WMV9) was also hassle-free. Purchased videos delivered crisp colors and detail, with no frame drops. Video playback consumes a lot of power, bringing Creative's claim of four hours of video playback into serious doubt. Expect under three hours when watching videos continuously. Thankfully, if you need to come back to your video later the Vision:M's software remembers the timecode of where you left off--unless you power the device down between viewing sessions. In addition to protected and unprotected WMV files, the Vision:M can play MPEG 1/2/4, Motion-JPEG, DivX 4 and 5, and XviD formats, making it a very flexible device with respect to encoding options.
The Vision:M can also store thousands of photos, letting you browse through them or set up a slideshow. The device's TV-out option comes in handy here, as you can present slideshows on a TV or projector. Videos can be displayed this way, too. An FM radio with easy preset tuning functions and great signal reception, plus a voice recorder feature, round out the extra media features. There's also a handy application on the Vision:M that formats a portion of the drive for use as USB 2.0 mass storage, letting you set aside up to 16 GB for data storage.
Connectivity and Synchronization A Creative Sync Adapter ships in the box with the Vision:M, making it a snap to connect the device to a USB 2.0-capable PC. With the connection made, Windows XP recognized the device right off the bat and Windows Media Player immediately asked us if we wanted to load the PC's music onto the Vision:M. Music management and synchronization has come a long way on the PC, and the experience of organizing and transferring music to and from the Vision:M was, barring a few curious click-through boxes, pretty seamless. The Vision:M also supports synchronization of your Outlook contacts, calendar, and tasks, in case you want to use it as a personal organizer of sorts.
Amazon Unbox Integration To be truly successful, the Vision:M has to be more than a great media device, it has to integrate with Amazon Unbox and make the process feel like second nature. Although the Vision:M was tested using a beta version of Amazon Unbox, things are looking good already. Amazon Unbox and the Vision:M go together like peas in a pod, making the process of purchasing, downloading, and enjoying content on the go a real cinch. The Amazon Unbox Video Player, which queues, downloads, organizes, and plays your purchased movies and TV shows, recognized the Vision:M right off the bat. An icon for the Vision:M appears in the devices panel of the application, and you can immediately begin transferring downloaded content to the device. Once you're all loaded up, the Vision:M offers a great way to bring Amazon Unbox entertainment along for the ride.
Pros
Crisp, vibrant color screen is great for video
Generous video format compatibility
Excellent sound quality and music management functions
Cons
Narrow screen viewing angle may be a problem for some
Finicky controls for some functions
Slightly more bulky than other competitors
What's in the Box Creative ZEN Vision:M, earphones, Sync Adapter, USB 2.0 cable, pouch, user's guide, and installation CD that includes Creative MediaSource and Creative Media Explorer software. Note: As of July 2006 Creative no longer ships the Zen M with the AC power adapter.
Software lackingJanuary 6, 2009 Brian(Washington DC) I purchased this because I also own a Creative Labs Muvo Jukebox (also discontinued). I have to say that I'm disappointed in the Media Organizer software used to load this unit. The older Jukebox model would organize MP3 tracks using the ID3 tags, but with this unit, you need to pay close attention to the file and directory structures if you want to load two songs which may have the same title. This unit appears to recognize ID3 tags, but does not consider them when loading files and cross-checking for duplicate entries. What this means is that if you have two CDs - perhaps one a studio recorded CD, and the other, a live performance both featuring different versions of the same song, even though th ID3 tags are very different (different time, different album title, etc), the Media Organizer software only looks at the track title and will consider the two the same - then not load the second song considering it a 'duplicate' track. This really stinks because now you have to create folders and load the similarly titled tracks into different folders - which the software will allow. This is hardly for the novice user and is better for someone who has some skills with file management. Other players are much more intuitive and this seems to be a major flaw in the software for this unit. Additionally, if you decide to select several CDs for playback, you can view individual tracks in the "Now Playing" option and can remove selected tracks, but not the entire CD - like I could with my older Jukebox model. I find this aggravating. Song playback I thought would be better and on a par with IPod, but there is a still a gap between tracks. When one song smoothly flows into another, this unit inserts a gap between the two and ruins the effect of a seemless transition. There doesn't appear to be a gapless playback capability for this unit. The unit also requires a 'special' adapter to interface with a USB cable. The same adapter is used to load content and charge the unit. The adapter that comes with the unit is small and could easily be lost - Creative does not sell - or is currently (and pertually) out of stock of this this adapter - however, it can be purchased from third party vendors. I don't much like that. I think at some point, Creative considered the numerous short comings of this unit and decided to discontinue it's production and sale - After buying one, I can see why. In the past, they have shown an ability to be more flexible while offering many of the same features of more expensive units (such as IPod and Zune), but that isn't the case with this unit. I like Creative Labs, but am disppointed with this unit. I own one so will make the best of what I've got, but I wouldn't recommend this unit to others looking for a nice multi-media player.
LED display quit after 18 monthsDecember 30, 2008 C. Brodeur This worked fairly well while still under warranty. Unfortunately, somewhere between 1 year and 18 months, the LED started having problems displaying properly. Now, there are lines going through the screen. It will cost almost $150 to have it repaired. I will never buy anything from Creative Labs again.
Great AlternativeMay 24, 2008 Joseph Villapaz(USA) I was perfectly happy with my Zen Xtra 30GB player but more happy when the Zen Vision:M 60GB became available. It has a color interface, plays videos, has an FM tuner, has a voice recorder, can display photos...all features my poor Zen Xtra lacked. Well, after using my Zen Vision:M for almost two years now, I've been happy with the upgrade. It's finicky with adding album art, needs a reset once in a while, and has shorter battery life (when playing videos) than my Xtra, but I'm certainly happy with the added features I didn't have before. I keep my old Zen Xtra around as a backup player.
Still Best MP3 HARD DRIVE BASED PLAYER ON MARKETApril 26, 2008 Eugen Popovici(NYC) I did a ton of research before buying this and I am sure that it is really the best on the market. It has a great screen, and even though it is small you can still watch movies on it with no problems. Having the large hard drive is great and the TV output is a really nice feature. Very well built and is pretty rugged for an mp3 player. Compactflash slot is great for use with my digital camera and the built in radio is really nice.
Our units arrived with dead batteriesMarch 9, 2008 R. Proctor 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Batteries dead on arrival. We suspect the units experienced extremely cold temperatures in transit, causing battery failure.
We were very impressed with Amazon's no hassle return policy.
